Read to Write

[Godfather]

It was lost, so people,

how about you tell me all about it again?
We want to know about style, and good books to read.

[bsolah]

It was an interesting topic, and I'm sad we lost it.

Myself, I think reading is universally important to being a good writer. Stephen King said in On Writing, "If you don't have time to read, you don't have time to write. Simple as that." I agree.

[Mike Coombes]

I'm finally reading 'On Writing' now.

To paraphrase another related quote, he says that you can't expect to blow anyone away with your writing unless it's happened to you.

[expatbrat]

.

You can't expect to blow anyone away with your writing unless it's happened to you.

Great quote!

[silentpoet]

I have found that when I really read fantasy, my prefered genre, it makes the mind more able to turn the appropriate phrases. It is like immersing yourself in a culture to learn the language. And you can fine tune this effect by reading specific sub-genres or series. Say for example you want to write humorous fantasy, you might read Xanth novels, the Myth series by Aspirin, or even Discworld novels. I think such reading is most helpful. It jumpstarts the brain.