Writing Advice: Learning How to Read

When talking with writers I often hear them saying that when they read [insert some title] by [insert some author] it made their own writing feel diminished. I’ve felt like this with certain writers before as well. When I read a wonderful story I sit there and wonder how I could ever be so creative, how could I ever twist words into such fabulous strings as that writer just did? This is the wrong approach to reading though.

In an interview once the author John Green said to young writers, “Read a lot. Reading is the only real apprenticeship we have as writers.” There is great truth behind this statement. No one can teach us how to write the way we can be taught to be doctors or lawyers or bank tellers. There is no set method for writing. Even the most basic rules of capitalization, spelling and grammar can be thrown out the window at times. Examples such as e.e. cummings  and Mark Twain, when experimenting with dialects, come to mind.

It is through reading that we are exposed to different writing styles and we can begin to pick and choose the ones we like and the ones we want to try to emulate until we end up creating our own specific style.

So when reading that truly great book that makes you question your own talent, please don’t let it discourage you. Try to let it teach you instead.