Learning about writing from reading

[Chessie2]

Yeah, Chessie, it's true it's everywhere. I was drawing from my own personal experience with writers in my local writers group (and a few colleagues of mine who are into self publishing who have this syndrome bad lol). They are literary nerds who think everything they do is pure poetry and mind bending but really it just makes no sense.

It seems that there are two kinds of writers: literary and genre. Rarely do I see one doing both. It's either one or the other. If anyone goes into Indie publishing trying to make a living by selling literary they are in for a big surprise. It's hard enough selling in hot genres.

 

[skip.knox]

Devor, have you read A High Wind in Jamaica? It has kids and pirates, but is very different in tone. I cannot recommend it too highly. It's some of the best prose I've read and is exceeded by no other work in its ability to get inside the head of children. It has become shamefully neglected. I read it by chance, with no prior knowledge or expectations.

 

[Devor]

From the start in grad school, though, I was receiving more like developmental edits--thoroughgoing critiques that were unblinking though not harsh. That's when I began to improve as a writer. Not by getting general remarks or learning about writing in general--even about writing history in general--but comments about how *I* write history; even more specifically, how I wrote this particular history for this paper. In short, I was being held to a professional standard, and that's how I grew.

^ This. If you want to learn how to write, you've got to be thinking and hearing and talking in the developmental level. Mass reading isn't the answer if you can't break into this level of thinking. Stop, sit down, pick one book - pick a book you like and break it down, pick a book with problems and fix them - but don't just read 100 million words and think that'll get you ready. You've got to really find some piece of it and break it down to an abstract level and push your understanding of what's going on and how things are being communicated.

Devor, have you read A High Wind in Jamaica? It has kids and pirates, but is very different in tone. I cannot recommend it too highly. It's some of the best prose I've read and is exceeded by no other work in its ability to get inside the head of children. It has become shamefully neglected. I read it by chance, with no prior knowledge or expectations.

I'll add it to my list.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I've definitely been in the special snowflake category, and I probably still am to a certain extent, and will probably always remain there. I'm trying to move on though, pick up what I can from others as and when I feel I'm ready for it.
I feel like I've got a pretty distinct style, which is a mix of things I've picked up from others and things I enjoy writing. It may very well be there's no market for it, or it's really small and hard to find.

It's a pretty big decision stepping away from your own personal style in order to get towards something that will work and which will appeal to readers. There's a lot of pride that needs swallowing. I'm taking it in small steps, and I'm trying to move towards stories with some kind of commercial potential while still keeping my own mark on them. Perhaps that's the wrong thing to do, but I think it's the way it has to go in order for it to work. Too big shifts in style and focus and the story would just end up not being written at all.

I think that having read a lot as younger has helped me with developing a style that works for me, but I'm also a bit concerned that not reading very much in recent years I'm zooming in too much on my own style without accounting for what works and what's readable. By this I don't mean what works in recent successful stories, but in general.
In getting too comfortable with my own style I might end up forgetting it's not as easily accessible as it perhaps could be.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm sort of with Svrtnsse and others, though I'm rather more hapless. I write what I write because I want to tell these stories I have in my head. Simply getting them down on paper in a way that makes sense and doesn't embarrass me is proving to be enough of a challenge. I think I would be unable to write for the mass market. I don't have the chops. The time it would require for me to gain those chops would mean my stories would necessarily go untold. I can't bear that.

So I dive headfirst off the cliff of each new novel, never landing on my feet, hack and slash my way through the Great Swampy Middle, and crawl bleeding and exhausted to the other side. Then I stand up, claim that it was all great fun, and head off for the next cliff. All talk of style and voice and market feels as remote from me as hearing two strangers discuss travel to a city I've never seen. It sounds interesting, but I'm just trying to find my way home.

 

[FifthView]

I wonder if we can make a bullet list of the different areas of potential learning from reading.

• Prose. (All the different ways to shape it. Word choice. Punctuation and grammar—traditional and otherwise.. Vocabulary, including special terminology...like pieces of medieval armor.)
• Tropes. (What is overused, underused, expected.)
• Hardware structures.* (I.e., prologue, scene, chapter, parts, epilogue, interludes...)
• Software structures.* (Story structure, scene/sequel, MRUs, building tension, plot twists, pacing techniques.....)
• Character and event dynamics. (Like those reactions Devor mentioned. Having a broad range of types of interactions.)

—Ok, there are others probably. Basically, every part of telling and delivering a tale, obviously.

I'm just wondering if breaking things out like this might suggest some areas that reading broadly might help more and areas in which lots of reading is less important. Maybe, maybe not. It might be an individual thing. I'm just musing.

[*Just trying to categorize different types of structuring or considerations under the general heading of structure.]

I try to find analogies with other arts.
The best way to learn painting is through staring.
The best way to learn music is to listen to music.
The best way to learn to dance is to watch musicals. (ok, cheap shot)

So on this....I can observe paintings, and have observed paintings. But how I make what I see—ah, that's where the frustration can drive me crazy. But lots of practice, so many try/fail cycles, and a little reading of technical manuals would help me succeed in creating what I see. In theory. Meaning, as long as I don't give up. Could take a long time.

Basically, I guess by "learning from reading" we can also mean reading our own writing and comparing it to what we want to see there. But I believe that the art of being objective about one's own creation is...heh, probably an art, itself. Or a discipline. I don't know.

Maybe the closed system sometimes needs to be forcibly opened before the system can change. But a single sharp Aha! can do that to the system. So, quality over quantity.

 

[Heliotrope]

^ This. If you want to learn how to write, you've got to be thinking and hearing and talking in the developmental level. Mass reading isn't the answer if you can't break into this level of thinking. Stop, sit down, pick one book - pick a book you like and break it down, pick a book with problems and fix them - but don't just read 100 million words and think that'll get you ready. You've got to really find some piece of it and break it down to an abstract level and push your understanding of what's going on and how things are being communicated.

.

Yes, this is where I think you and I are arguing the same thing. Reading/studying/analyzing/borrowing/ are all so important. Simply saying "I've read enough, I don't need to read anymore because it just get's in the way of writing time, plus I don't like anything I read anyway," is not an attitude that will help with writing.

You and I are both arguing that it takes study. Of course the practice of actually writing is important. That is obvious. That goes without saying. But suggesting that one won't learn anything from reading is strange.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hello everyone! Just a reminder:

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[DragonOfTheAerie]

I know for sure that i benefit a ton from reading, but it was hard for me to articulate why until I thought about it. There are a few reasons:

First, I think it just replenishes my inspiration and freshens my writer brain. I'm well aware that i'm a magpie and borrow ideas and pieces of ideas from stuff I read. But also, it just stimulates the part of my mind where stories live. Similarly, reading poetry makes me want to write poetry and makes the words come easier.

Also, i think it helps me figure out what and how i would like to write. Generally, i write what i would most like to read. When I read a good book, I dig deeper to find out what made it work and how I can mimic it. When i read a bad book, I try to figure out why it's bad so that i can avoid that!

My reader and writer identities are so interconnected. I feel like I write to make people feel and experience the things I do when reading. Why would I write if I wasn't a reader?