Several years ago we did a series called "Writing with the Masters," which quoted advice from five well-known writers who lived during or before the Nineteenth Century. That series was well-received, so we are "updating" it this month. The May posts will
provide advice from five successful Twentieth Century novelists, two of whom are alive and
still active.
The first living author is Stephen
King. The following advice comes from his On
Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.
Some “writers” claim that they
don’t have time to read. King disagrees. He even describes “read a lot, write a
lot” as the Great Commandment. Here are some quotes about the importance of
reading to the writing process.
If
you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot
and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no
shortcut.
I’m
a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, mostly
fiction. I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to
read. It’s what I do at night, kicked back in my blue chair. Similarly, I don’t
read fiction to study the art of fiction, but simply because I like stories.
Yet there is a learning process going on. Every book you pick up has its own
lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the
good ones.
.
. .
So
we read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience
helps us to recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work,
and to steer clear of them. We also read in order to measure ourselves against
the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done. And we read in
order to experience different styles.
.
. .
If
you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.
Simple as that.
Reading
is the creative center of a writer’s life.
This is just a sample of King’s
excellent advice in On Writing. If
you don’t own a copy, buy one.
But more importantly, find time to read.
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