by Stephanie Morrill
Stephanie writes young adult novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series and the Ellie Sweet books. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website including the free novella, Throwing Stones.
I didn’t keep a tally, but I would guess the piece of writing advice most often repeated to me as a budding novelist was to read, read, read, and write, write, write.
That kind of annoyed me.
It didn’t take special talent to read a lot and write a lot. Anybody could do that. What I wanted to be told, really, was a list of specific things I could do that would turn me into a great writer. Things like, “Read this book, do this with your prose, and make sure your dialogue sounds this way.”
What I wanted, to put it succinctly, was a shortcut.
But as I mulled over advice that initially seemed overly simplistic, it started to make sense to me. Just because anybody could do it, didn’t mean that everybody would. Same as most people know how to be healthy and save money, but that doesn’t mean they do it.
I also saw how the same principle applied to other professions. If someone wants to be a professional baseball player, they play a lot of baseball and they watch a lot of baseball. Right? Before you can fine-tune your skills to a professional caliber, you first must have the skills that come from regularly doing whatever it is. You don’t teach someone how to be a great violin player. You teach them how to play violin, and the combination of their practice and talent grows them into greatness.
If you disagree that reading a lot hones your abilities as a story teller, feel free to say so in the comments, but I’m guessing most of us understand that we learn from seeing others do something well. (Or not well. More on that in a moment.)
Instead I want to talk about a few writerly obstacles that often get in the way of reading:
You can’t enjoy the book because you want to edit it: Reading used to be my escape. It was like going on mini-vacations throughout the day. But the more I learned about writing, the harder it became to read without getting distracted. How come she can use adverbs in her books but my critique partners are always making me cut mine? This character is so flat, why didn’t her editor have her change it?
With some practice, I learned to either turn that voice off and enjoy the book or stop reading it and find something I liked better.
You can’t enjoy the book because it makes you jealous: The inner dialogue for this one sounds more like this: Wow, I didn’t see that twist coming at all. That was so great. Oh, so is that descriptive phrase. I never would have thought to describe it like that. Who am I kidding? I’m never going to be a writer!
After I’m done feeling sorry for myself, I reach out to someone for a pep talk and then get to work learning from this writer by studying his or her book. Not so I can sound exactly like them, but so I can apply their wisdom to what I’m doing.
It messes with your storytelling voice: It’s hard for me to read in my genre while I’m working on a first draft. This messes with my voice big time. I’ve skirted around that by only reading books in my genre when I’m editing or between projects.
Who has the time?: While we all go through seasons where we don’t have much free time, I’m shocked by the professional writers I meet who say they hardly ever read anymore. Especially in this day and age of audio books and Kindle apps on your phone. I hate to judge another writer’s choices, but I know that I’ve grown a lot in the last few years just from reading certain novels.
I have also implemented a “no sucky books” policy for myself. If I’m not enjoying a book, I save myself the time and stop reading. BUT before I can start something new, I have to figure out several concrete reasons why I didn’t connect with the book. (The heroine wasn’t active enough, I didn’t understand the motivations, etc.) That way I’m still learning.
A voice.
Great writer comes from writing a lot. There’s no shortcut.