I end my weekly newsletters with a short section about books I’ve read/am reading. I’ve done this for years and, erroneously, assumed everyone understood why.
Recently, someone finally asked the question and now that they have, I’m kind of surprised it’s taken so long. For me, the connection between reading and writing seemed far too obvious to explain, until I stepped back and looked at it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t yet think of herself as a writer.
The short answer to ‘why do you end with a section on your reading?’ is this: all great writers are great readers.
We need to see how other people use language and play with it before we can gain confidence in doing it for ourselves. I’ve always read any text available to me – novels, plays, poems, articles, adverts, the ingredients list on the back of my shampoo bottle.
As you can see, being a great reader doesn’t mean you must immediately embark on reading all the classics. In fact, you don’t have to read any classics if you don’t want to. Instead, find what you like and read that.
You can’t join a conversation if you haven’t been listening
I’ve written before about how when you write you’re joining a larger conversation (for example, in ‘Conversation, Writing, and Coaching’). Reading is a crucial part of joining that conversation.
Let’s look at a couple of hypothetical dinner-party conversations to see how that works.
- Scenario 1: You arrive, take your seat, and immediately launch into a monologue on your favourite topic.
- Scenario 2: You arrive, greet the other guests, ask them questions, and answer their questions. Over the course of the meal, you eventually get to talk a bit about your favourite topic, but not in a monologue.
Clearly, Scenario 2 is better for you and your fellow guests. In writing, you greet the other guests by reading what they’ve written; you ask and answer questions by responding to what they’ve published. You cannot participate in that give and take if you don’t engage with what was written before you started writing.
This is the argument for reading work in your field or in the genre in which you write. There are also excellent reasons for reading more broadly.
Stephen King agrees
Stephen King is not my favourite author – mostly because I don’t like horror. Whether you enjoy his books or not, I think we all have to accept that he knows how to write well and how to write what his readers want to read. He’s written a book about how he does that: On Writing.
In chapter one King writes: ‘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.’ He goes on to explain that when he says read, he means read for pleasure. He reads a lot, but not to study the craft of fiction in general or of horror in particular.
King describes kicking back with a novel every night and disparages time wasted on watching television. What he’s describing is clearly reading for pleasure. If you search for phrases like ‘read like a writer’ or ‘learn to write by reading’ you’ll find lots of people who describe different kinds of reading: for pleasure, to critique, and to learn the craft (see, Mahsuda Snaith and Gabriel Roth). They have valid points about the last two, but to become an avid reader, you must first cultivate reading for pleasure.
If you put fancy techniques or rigid ideas about the quality of the text between you and reading, you’ll keep finding reasons not to. Instead, remember that the only right way to read is to find a book you enjoy and read it.
Finding time
Since I can practically hear you exclaiming that you’ll never be able to find time to read, King discusses that too, and gives the same advice I’d give. Here’s what he says:
You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it’s true. If I had a nickel for every person who ever told me he/she wanted to become a writer but “didn’t have time to read,” I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? 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. I take a book with me everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in. the trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows. Waiting rooms were made for books – of course! But so are theater lobbies before the show, long and boring checkout lines, and everyone’s favorite, the john. You can even read while you’re driving, thanks to the audiobook revolutions. Of the books I read each year, anywhere from six to a dozen are on tape. As for all the wonderful radio you will be missing, come on – how many times can you listen to Deep Purple sing “Highway Star”? (On Writing, chapter one)
The next time the dubious debate over whether ‘listening to an audiobook is really reading’ comes up online, I’ll be ready to point the poster to Stephen King: yes, it is! That will be in addition to my usual answer that includes a line about how ableist it is to dismiss or diminish listening to audiobooks.
Now that we’ve established that all reading “counts”, where are you going to find time? As with most things, we find time for what matters to us. King argues, and I agree, that if your writing matters to you (meaning you want it to get easier and better as you go on), you have to make time for reading. Even a few minutes a day will help.
I know you’re not going to magically find free time in your schedule, but your local library almost certainly has an app full of eBooks and audiobooks waiting for you to download them. You already take your phone everywhere, so start using it for books to read/listen to while you’re waiting in a queue or for an appointment. I love my paperbacks – and the books on my phone will never, ever replace them – but there’s really no excuse for not reading these days.
If you’re still resistant, ask yourself this: will you feel better after 10 minutes with a book or 10 minutes doomscrolling?
How will it improve your writing?
It improves your understanding of how to use language. As King argues:
The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one’s papers and identification pretty much in order. Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mind-set, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor. (On Writing, chapter one)
Reading does help you develop facility with language. It’s one of the ways you learn what style you like and which ones make your skin crawl. However, not everyone agrees that reading will always increase your confidence. In a blog post, Roslyn Petelin asks whether it might sometimes get in the way by making us 'intimidated by great writing done by others’.
She raises a valid point. Scarcely a week goes by that I don’t remind at least one client that they’re stressed because they’re comparing their rough draft to someone else’s final draft. For more on the dangers of comparison, see ‘Don’t let comparisonitis sap your creativity’.
That danger, however, shouldn’t be enough to stop you from reading. So where do you start? Shakespeare? Dickens? The latest book by a super star in your field?
You could, or you can start small. Really, really small.
At breakfast tomorrow, read the back of your cereal box. Pay attention to the words they use, the colours, and how they arrange text and images. Ask yourself what drew you to that cereal to begin with. Is the text on the package telling a story about the person who eats it? What is that story? To what degree do you see yourself in it? This is active reading. It’s not a list of complicated steps you have to take, it’s just taking a moment to reflect on what you read.
When you feel ready, move on to reading longer things like articles and books. If you don’t like the first one you pick up, try another, and another, until you find something you like. When you find something you like, let me know what it is; I’m usually looking for something else to read.
Improve your vocabulary
You can also actively use your reading to improve your vocabulary. Do this by simply keeping a list of unfamiliar words along with the sentence in which you found them (note the title, page number/link). When you have time, look up the word in a reliable dictionary and copy out the relevant definition (and any others you think might be useful).
A note on dictionaries: the best one for English will always be the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), but unless you belong to a library or other institution that pays for you to access it, it won’t be easily available. These are other good (mostly free) options:
Merriam-Webster (usually just called Webster’s) is for US English; the other three give UK usage with notes when the word is used differently in the US. I don’t know which dictionaries to recommend for other Englishes because I only use and work in UK and US English – I’ve now been in the UK so long that I have to double check US usage when I’m working in it.
Over the next few months, I’ll be returning to strategies for active reading. It’s never been more important for people to know how to actively engage with and critically evaluate what they read. So, in addition to improving your writing, these strategies will also help you more confidently interpret the world around you.