Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash
“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.”
― William Faulkner
At least once a week, someone leaves a comment or asks a question on the Ninja Writers Facebook group that involves them saying that they don’t really read much.
Maybe they want to write novels, but they haven’t read one since high school. Or they want to be a blogger, but they don’t read any blogs. They don’t have time. They barely have time to write, after all.
Or maybe they read, but they’re not reading what they write. A fiction writer who only reads blogs, a blogger who only reads novels, a poet who only reads fan fiction.
Or worse: They don’t even like reading. It’s just not their thing. They get bored easily. Whatever the reason, they don’t read because they don’t want to.
But they want to be writers and they want to know if they really have to read to reach that goal. Or is there some work around?
Full disclosure. I was practically born with a book in my hands. Reading has saved my life more than once. I love books. I love reading.
I want to say that you absolutely need to be a reader if you want to be a writer because . . . well, of course you do! It seems sacrilegious for someone who wants to write to try to find away around reading. How do you even get to the point of wanting to write if you don’t like to read?
And then I realized that my own bias was getting in the way of really addressing the question.