Why Authors Love to Read

People who write well tend to be great readers. Everyone wants to write a book, but to write a good book, it’s imperative that you read books to inform yourself about the difference between what makes a good and a bad one. It’s a rare case that any author, whose words are worth reading, does not him- or herself read constantly.

Recently, Pat Conroy, author of such popular novels as “The Prince of Tides,” published a sort of memoir about his relationship with books titled “My Reading Life.” Beyond just talking about books he’s read that have greatly influenced him, Conroy discusses his relationships with other lovers of the written word—from bookstore owners to librarians, and from book reps to authors at writers’ conferences. In the end, what it boils down to is that Conroy loves to read. He would not be the writer he is today if a love of books had not been instilled in him by people like his mother who read “Gone with the Wind” annually as if it were a religious ritual.

Great writers always have been great readers. James Michener once said that no one who doesn’t have glasses by age twenty-three will ever be a writer because he hasn’t read enough. Ask any number of great writers and they will be able to list tons of great authors whose books they have read and learned from in honing their own craft.

For many authors, reading and writing go hand-in-hand and both are almost religiously practiced. One author I know commented to me how when he was in graduate school, he met people in creative writing courses who said they hated to read but they loved to write. “Hate to read!” he thought. “How is that possible for a writer?” By contrast, he took literature rather than creative writing classes so he could learn from the best rather than from other students trying to learn how to write well who had no real models to learn from. Those writers he knew who hated to read, he told me, have yet to produce any books while he has produced several.

Whenever we interview people at Reader Views, we frequently ask authors which books they like to read and which ones have influenced their writing. The authors usually have a long list of writers whose work influenced them. It is difficult, many will note, to develop your own style until you discover what style is from the masters, and from a wide variety, from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Danielle Steele, from Stephen King to James Joyce, from Charles Dickens to Chuck Palahniuk, and everyone in between. Authors read other authors to discover what works and what doesn’t, what writing moves them and what writing leaves them cold. If ever a study were done, I bet hands-down that more great writers have been great readers than have not. The poet William Wordsworth even lamented toward the end of his life that he had spent so much time writing when he could have spent more of it reading.

The best teachers of writing are not always those who teach creative writing classes. I know many writers who say they’ve learned more about how to write from reading books about writing from truly great authors, including Ayn Rand, James Michener, E.M. Forster, and Stephen King. Reading author interviews about writing are also a wonderful way to absorb the craft and style of great writers. Interviews about writing have been collected from such diverse authors as Willa Cather and Anne Rice. I even know of authors who have taken it upon themselves to develop a style by copying out in longhand pages of their favorite books or even memorizing short stories and entire novels. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel-prize winning author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” is said to have memorized nearly all of Juan Rulfo’s classic Mexican novel “Pedro Parama.”

Authors I know read constantly. Almost all of them read in the bathroom, most while sitting on the toilet, some even while brushing their teeth. If they even bother to watch television, they will hit the mute button during commercials to read. They will exercise with a book, walking around the house while they read, or listening to an audio book while they walk, or propping a book up on a treadmill. They carry books with them in purses, briefcases, and in the car so whenever they have a down minute, they have a book to grab. The new ebook reading devices make it convenient for such enthusiastic readers to have any book at their fingertips anytime they want.

Authors also find the courage to write from the books they read. Willa Cather once said, “I had searched for books telling about the beauty of the country I loved, its romance, and heroism and strength of courage of its people that had been plowed into the very furrows of its soil, and I did not find them. And so I wrote ‘O Pioneers’!” Many an author found courage to write after discovering how Cather wrote about Nebraska, thinking, “If she can write about Nebraska, I can write about Cleveland, or Kalamazoo, or Pittsburgh, or Des Moines, or any place under the sun.”

Reading teaches authors style, how to develop character, how to develop effective plots, how to find the courage to write from their hearts, how to determine what makes a good and what makes a bad book, and ultimately, how to write for their readers.

If you want to write well, the best thing to do is to read. And don’t read just any book. Read the great books—the classics—to understand why they are great. Read the bestsellers to understand what’s hot on the market now, and read really bad books to discern what makes them bad and to understand how they could have been better. Then in your own writing, do your best to capitalize upon the best you have learned while abandoning or improving upon what you have read that was not well-written. Through a lot of practice, and a lot of fun, you can become a great writer by cultivating a love of books.

 

Irene Watson

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

Read more articles for writers and publishers