Most people with a love of literature are readers. Some of them are also writers. But how does A influence B? Today I’d like to share a few thoughts on the role reading plays in our writing – and no, perhaps not all of it is the positive influence we’d like it to be. There are texts that tend to confuse us, and things that might lead us in the wrong direction. Is it just me who feels that, at certain times, I shouldn’t be reading the very genre I’m writing in? I’m always torn on this issue, because on the one hand you want to make the most of every bit of inspiration you can get, but on the other hand you might end up incorporating things into your own writing that you’ve only just read about. For example, I was once working on a fantasy short story and included a gargoyle in a scene that didn’t even fit the century in question – but I’d been inspired by having read Harry Potter the night before, and I thought it was cool enough at Hogwarts, so … why not … put it in there I guess. Feel free to share your thoughts on the negative side effects, but let’s start with the positive ones:
Reading is one of the most inspirational things you can do to find input. Perhaps not even a film can convey as many emotions or bring so many details to life as language can. In just a few sentences, you can travel through time and space, explore other people’s desires and interests, or be transported to a world that is completely different from your own. When I can’t concentrate on actually writing something that makes sense and fits into a plot, I read to take my mind off things. And I lose myself in something else until I have enough energy to return to my own work. I also like the idea of drawing inspiration from a plot, a different era or the dynamics of a relationship, so that I can use this in my own writing in a different form. There’s always something that sticks in my mind – whether good or bad – but in any case, something I can make use of.
The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.
— Roald Dahl
Reading teaches you about diversity. I believe that is the most important lesson I have learnt over the years through working with texts. Nothing compares to the experience of discovering a word you’ve never heard before, examining the context and then realising that you already know the word in a different form. It’s as frustrating as it is inspiring – and it will never stop. But as a writer, you’ll never stop using synonyms, and reading helps enormously in building up your own vocabulary, so you should probably stop using the same words twice or three times in your sentences. One example that springs to mind is ‘see’. I can’t just write ‘He saw her standing at the window’ in every sentence, can I? It might be nicer to try using terms such as ‘gazed’, ‘observed’, ‘looked at’, ‘scrutinised’ or ‘admired her from a distance’. There’s an even greater benefit to building up your vocabulary whilst reading and writing in different languages.
I would advise you to read with a pen in your hand, and enter in a little book short hints of what you find that is curious, or that might be useful; for this will be the best method of imprinting such particulars in your memory, where they will be ready, on some future occasion, to adorn and improve your conversation.
— Benjamin Franklin
Nothing teaches you better how to devise and structure a plot or write dialogue than a book. When I first started writing, my head was buzzing with countless, rather jumbled ideas. They looked good on paper … until I tried to string them together. It’s easy to dive straight into a scene and write it – perhaps you know whether it’ll appear at the beginning, in the middle or at the end – but the tricky bit is the timing and how it connects to the other scenes. It took me a while to work out how books are put together, and it helped me to pick up the books I loved and look at how they were structured and ‘crafted’, to borrow parts of the structure, see how a plot twist worked, or focus on how a character developed. That also taught me dialogue techniques and made me realise that I didn’t have to explain everything in really long sentences.
Reading a book doesn’t mean just turning the pages. It means thinking about it, identifying parts that you want to go back to, asking how to place it in a broader context, pursuing the ideas. There’s no point in reading a book if you let it pass before your eyes and then forget about it ten minutes later. Reading a book is an intellectual exercise, which stimulates thought, questions, imagination.
— Noam Chomsky
Reading can help you develop concentration and endurance – and that is ultimately the foundation for achieving anything at all when it comes to writing. Even if it doesn’t feel like it: even if you only read a few pages, you’re putting in the long-term effort. Although I’d love to claim that many authors find it harder to put something down on paper – once you’ve lost your train of thought, you’ve lost it. The reason for the reading improvement lies in what’s known as your left temporal cortex – the area responsible for language processing and cognitive control. It improves with regular use and, over time, helps you focus on a specific task. It also helps you keep your thoughts in check and minimise distractions. If that isn’t reason enough to pick up a book every now and then, then I don’t know what is.
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen… The room will ultimately offer to unmask itself to you, it has no choice.
— Franz Kafka
Last but not least, whilst I spoke of inspiration above, perhaps motivation is the key to everything after all. Writing is a really giving activity and a wonderful hobby, but it can also be hard work and sometimes feel very draining. Reading, on the other hand, is much easier, as you simply have to follow the text. It helps to reignite your motivation when your energy is flagging, you’re feeling uninspired or you’re in a slump. It’s also a great way to overcome writer’s block. And perhaps it’ll give you the motivation to try something completely different or experiment with a new style. Without motivation, none of this will amount to anything. So come on, let’s read!
You must know that feeling when it’s raining outside and the heating’s on and you lose yourself, utterly, in a book. You read and you read and you feel the pages slipping through your fingers until suddenly there are fewer in your right hand than there are in your left and you want to slow down but you still hurtle on towards a conclusion you can hardly bear to discover.
— Anthony Horowitz
What else can reading teach us writers? Which of the above are harder or easier to do for you? Let me know!