Would you believe I have students who want to write but hate to read?
I know.
I kind of want to shake them--to wake them up.
How can you possibly know what you want to write if you don't read? How do you know what's out there if you're not reading what's being published? How do you know what the trends are? How do you know how to structure your story or what readers expect if you're not reading in the genre?
For me, it doesn't add up.
I love writing. I put a lot of work into the things I create. Some do okay. Some don't. Some fail abysmally. (Yes! I still get rejections. All the time.) But I can't imagine doing what I'm trying to do (that is, tell a solid story) without considering the background work.
I'm not saying that writing can't be taught. It can. I have no doubt about that.
But I'm not sure good writing can be taught without good reading, because a lot of what we do as writers is picked up intuitively--by reading story after story after story after story.
I work with these students, anyway. I do my best to help them. There's a certain level of required reading in my classes, but I know it's not enough. So by the end of my time with them, I've more than stressed the fact that:
Good writers are good readers. They read widely. They read often. They read for reading's sake. They read for writing's sake.
What have you read, lately?
Be Brilliant!
~Katie~
