Keep Reading!

KEEP READING! I’ve been seeing this bizarre factor once more these days: I cease reading after I’m writing because I don’t wish to be influenced by one other author’s writing, and don’t want to by chance plagiarize them. This, like “all prologues are bad, nobody reads prologues,” comes and goes from time to time, and largely without challenge. Well, simply as I did with prologue haters, I hereby problem this assertion, which I think can do vital injury to any writer, writing something, in any style. William Faulkner said, “Read, learn, learn. Read every thingâ€"trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.” Reading is an important act for any writer earlier than, throughout, and after their very own writing course of. First of all, your writing process should be ongoing. You should always be writing. If so, then, should you’re at all times writing (one thing, in any case) how will you read anything should you can’t or gained’t learn whilst you’re writing? And when you’re worried that studying will exert undue affect in your writing, well… great! be influenced then! In reality, Rachael Tulipano made this one of her “10 Reasons Why Every Writer Needs To Be a Reader”: When you read typically, you turn into more and more uncovered to uncooked talent in other authors’ writing. This is efficacious expertise to enhance your own writing and develop your craft. Think about the books you’ve read that left you in absolute awe. How concerning the stories that made you experience a spectrum of feelings? Or, the one liners that gave you pause. All of this stems from good writing and reading is a useful tool in mimicking this in your individual work. And when you’re worried about accidentally plagiarizing one other creator… actually? Are you really apprehensive that as you’re working on your YA fantasy novel you would possibly by chance typ e in a chapter of The Man within the High Castle or Enlightenment Now? Or even Harry Potter? And then not notice it in your edit? And nobody else notices it till it’s published and the lawsuit comes via? That’s simply absurd. Jeff Goins sums this all up properly in “Why Writers Need to Read if They Want to Be Good”: Writers need to read. A lot. Magazines. Books. Periodicals. And so on. They need to understand the art of language, to understand the finer points of phrases. As they learn, they should jot down ideas and capture ideas as they come. Nothing evokes a author like reading someone else’s phrases. I’ve stored reading and writing in 2019, and for the second 12 months in a row made it to my fifty-two books GoodReads challenge. In 2019 I read all of these books: 2,000 to 10,000 by Rachel Aaron The Red Dancer by Richard Skinner A Mirror for Observers by Edgar Pangborn At the Booth Memorial Home for Unwed Mothers, 1966 by Patti Sullivan The Status Civilization by Rober t Sheckley Essential Dr. Strange, Volume 3 The Worlds of Frank Herbert Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer Quantum Lyrics from Atlantisby William Holman Social Media Just for Writers by Frances Caballo The Empty Trap by John D. MacDonald Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee Norman Conquest, 2066 by J.T. McIntosh The Upward Spiral by Alex Korb Dune: House Harkonnen by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson Here They Come by Yannick Murphy Regiments of Night by Brian M. Ball American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin First Step Outward, edited by Robert Hoskins The Monk by Matthew Lewis Essential Killraven, Volume 1 Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern City by Clifford D. Simak Starry Speculative Corpse by Eugene Thacker Selected Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay The Seedling Stars by James Blish The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things by J.T. LeRoy Dune: House Corrino by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold Codex Seraphianus by Luigi Serafini Can & Can’tankerous by Harlan Ellison Star Trek: The Starless World by Gordon Eklund The Man within the High Castle by Philip K. Dick Pieces of Map, Pieces of Music by Robert Bringhurst The Essential Neruda by Pablo Neruda Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze by Kenneth Roberson by George Orwell Not Pounded by Self-Doubt Because I Can Do Anything I Put My Mind To by Chuck Tingle Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker The Fury Out of Time by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Tentacles Longer Than Night by Eugene Thacker Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal Showcase Presents: Aquaman, Volume 1 The Prisoner: Shattered Village by Dean Motter Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland Selected Poems of Yevgeny Yevtushenko Endgame & Act Without Words by Samuel Beckett Search the Sky by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark Shakespeare’s Sonnets So you absolutely have to continue reading when you’re writing. Read in your style of choic e and outside it. Read fiction of all genres, non-fiction of all categories, poetry, plays… anything and everything that interests you at all. “I consider that reading and writing are the most nourishing types of meditation anybody has thus far found,” mentioned Kurt Vonnegut. “By studying the writings of probably the most interesting minds in historical past, we meditate with our personal minds and theirs as nicely. This to me is a miracle.” Bring that miracle to your writing. â€"Philip Athans And maybe take a break from studying just lengthy sufficient to take part in… About Philip Athans I agree, studying is essential, and fun. I just want I had extra time for it. What time I do have is break up between professional reading/podcasts and SFF-related stuff. Well said. Reading is so necessary. You should learn from the masters earlier than you'll be able to turn out to be one your self. I totally agree with this. When I took up the challenge to write down a sci-fi somewhat than my ordinary fantasy, it really helped to read different sci-fi novels. Even reading exterior of my style is useful. One way studying doesn’t assist, although, is I keep second-guessing my writing ability because I hold seeing nice work and wondering whether mine will measure up. I actually have at all times felt the identical meansâ€"that I couldn’t possibly measure as much as my favorite authors. But that’s additionally an excellent factor. It provides you something to try for, to try to measure as much as. When you read one thing you don’t really like it can get you thinking: Hell, I ma y do higher than that! When you learn something you like it ought to get you considering: I need to try to be that good!