Love to Read in Order to Write

How can someone be a writer if they don’t like to read?

Personally, I don’t think you can be a writer without a love for the written word. To me, it would be like a musician who doesn’t love music, or any other creative-type who doesn’t love what they create themselves.

A writer creates using the written word. And to understand how to do that, you need to study, or in this case, read. And not just in the genre that you love to write in, but across the board. Words have to be a wonder and a revelation to you in addition to making you feel things both good and bad.

So, what do you learn as a reader in order to be a writer?

First, the craft of writing: spelling, punctuation, and grammar. You have to understand basic structure in order to learn how to communicate not only clearly, but effectively. You have to study words and their meanings, and their usage in order to find the best ones to express your thoughts and feelings.

Second, you have to read stories in order to understand how they are told. This would be the mechanics of plot and character development. In order to understand how a story is told with a beginning, a middle, and an end, you need to see it in action. Books are not built like sand castles on the beach, but like houses and buildings. Once you understand working structures then you can build your own as every story has to have a solid foundation.

Third, when you read and are emotionally engaged you’ll see how that was done. For example, when I read ‘The Hunger Games’ about halfway through that book I felt this immense emotional churning inside of me. I was feeling what the main character Katniss was feeling, and I was blown away by how incredible and well-done the writing was to make me feel that way. I was reading the story and not only wanted to know what happened next in terms of the plot, but with the characters, too.

Writers don’t just create words and stories out of thin air. They not only read and study, but they also live. A good writer is an observer of human nature, and they read other observations in order to hone their own observation skills. Because writing is not just about putting words down onto a page: it’s about putting observations and feelings into words. I have been touched and moved and inspired by so many writers over the years that in a way my writing is a way of paying that forward.

My advice here then is this: if you don’t love to read then you need to figure out why and overcome it. Because if you don’t have a love and passion for the written word, you won’t be able to convey that with your own words as love and passion are the heart and soul of good writing.