Meet Katie Cross. . .
I’ve never met a transcriptionist who didn’t type, a math
teacher who knew nothing about addition, or a doctor that had never been in a
hospital.
So what’s the common point?
There’s no such thing as a good writer who doesn’t read.
I’d never thought of the importance of reading until
Stephen King pointed it out to me. (Not in person, unfortunately.) In his book On Writing, King emphasizes how important it is as a writer to keep reading.
Really? I asked myself. What’s the big deal?
The big deal is this: we want to connect with readers.
The only way to do that is to be the people we want to reach. How else are we
going to know what works, or what doesn’t? Writing without reading is like
painting a sunset in black and white. Sure, it’s possible to get something down, but it’s nothing compared to what it could be.
That begs the question: what should we read?
Everything.
Or, if you have a focused genre, study it out. Are you
the vampire kind of girl? An adventuring kind of guy? Then you need to figure
out what’s already on the market. There’s nothing worse than a repetitive idea
expressed with the same kind of plot. (Please, please, stay away
from the whole vampire with a conscience that falls in love with an innocent
girl who also wants to compromise her mortality and become ‘one
of them.’)
I’m a fantasy writer. I have a book about witches at my
editors titled Miss Mabel’s
School for Girls. Currently, I’m
reading Shadow Warriors by Tom Clancy. While working on that, I finished Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. Just before I started those, I finished War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. The great thing about variety?
I learned a lot.
A little whimsy from the Darling children, a lesson in
what kind of philosophy not to include in my fantasy books from Tolstoy, and
the intensity of suspense from Clancy. Don’t feel like you have to stick with
reading one book at a time, either. I typically have several books going.
In conclusion, it’s not enough to focus so much on
writing that you stop reading. You, your characters, and your story, will
suffer for it.
Have you broken through writers block by reading? Do you
feel that your writing improves as you read?
Find Katie around the web from these links:
Website: www.kcrosswriting.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/katiecrosswriting
Follow on Twitter: @kcrosswriting
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