why writers need to read

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.

Ultra-verified authors from Stephen King to JK to Zadie to Stephen King (the italicized is him) to EVERY AUTHOR THAT YOU’VE EVER WATCHED GIVE AN INTERVIEW say that you need to read in order to write. 

It can be difficult to internalize the idea that if you wanna be an award-winning novelist, if you wanna scribble out the Next Great American Thing, you gotta slow way the way down and head to the library first. 

The thing is, you should really always be doing both. You need to be reading and writing borderline too much. Write like you’re running out of time. Read so much that your fam finds books propped up in weird places. It’s fine, it’s cool, it’s that writer’s life. It’s that Malcolm-Gladwell mastery thing. You’ve gotta put your hours in, and that’s just how getting good at something works. 

HOWEVER if you’re a practical kid like me, you may wonder—why. 

You may wonder why reading everything you can get your hands on - junk mail, top 100 lit, high school essays and shampoo bottles - will really help you hone your craft. I mean, it takes time and energy to eke out novels, and it also takes time and energy to read them; and most writers write in their free time or as a side hustle. Isn’t it more important to devote your precious seconds towards writing than reading? 

After all, reading is passive. It’s entertainment. Writing is where you do the work. 

True, true. Well, sort of. Putting in your reading pages as well as your writing ones has a practical purpose. Several; I counted (at least) 6. Let’s count them down: 

1. Writers require readers. If you wanna be a writer, you’re joining a huge industry that depends in large part on millions of people getting excited about and talking about and buying and gifting books. I don’t think the industry’s going anywhere, necessarily (changing, sure), but LET’S JUST SAY it’s in the best interest of a future author that the reading-and-writing industry is going strong. You do your part by being an avid reader. 
2. If you read widely and well, you start being able to describe writers and books as artfully and artlessly as a know-it-all wine snob. As unpopular at parties as that regrettably makes you, that’s the shared burden+experience that other writers and editors and publishers look for. When you start querying your novel, your agents and your editors are going to look for that shared familiarity with the craft. 
3. Speaking familiarity and craft and etc: You know how your future readers are … readers? If you’re also a reader, you’ll have a wide base of shared experiences and material to plant tantalizing, alluring in-jokes and Easter eggs in your pieces. I read a Tana French book recently that contained the following quote regarding her protags: ‘They were like spies from another planet who had got their research wrong and wound up reading Edith Wharton and watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie.’ As someone who grew up watching and reading LHOP and (later) Wharton, you better believe that made me think that French and I are secretly BFFs. That chemistry is what you want. If you’re a writer, you want that chemistry more than anything else (because that’s what skyrockets books to the bestseller charts.) 
4. Through reading extensively you find the nuts and bolts of good writing that you’ll end up using. For example, you’ll probably end up with a good collection of fav words to toss around at parties. Words like….Verve. Swindle. Complicate. Funk. (Nitwit, oddment, blubber, tweak.) 
5. More practically: When you go to query your novel, your agent/editor is going to ask you what comps or ‘comparison titles’ your novel is like. This is to give them an idea of your novel, of course - but it’s also a not-so-secret test. You see, people in the industry KNOW that good writers read; ergo, if a wannabe writer cannot name a comp, that writer’s gonna stay a wannabe. If you read widely, you’ll probably already know as you’re writing your novel which comps you’ll want to cite. You won’t have to go digging and randomly Googling as you’re putting together your query or pitch. It’ll be organic and easy and that will be obvious. In a very good way. 
6. Reading often and all over the map will get you familiar with the cadence of good writing. You start to get an ear for sentences that aren’t quite finished yet, for words that fit together as well as puzzle pieces, for paragraphs that are as layered as paintings and vernacular that just zings. And, conversely, you get a good feel for prose that is entirely powerless. That’s a good sense to hone.

There are other reasons reading is powerful; it’s good for research and inspiration and relaxing and being aware of current trends in an ever-changing industry. You’ll write better, as a result of reading well, and you’ll learn about other people and other walks of life. 

Find a way to make reading part of your life. Find a way to make it not a chore. Find a way to enjoy it, find a way to learn from it, and then find a way to do it more. You want your head so very full of so very many very good things that your head’s veritably on the verge of exploding - and one way to do that’s to read the world right around you, everything there is. 

Don’t know where to start? That’s cool. Literally just think about the last movie, book, story, or TV show that made you happy and Google that phrase with “books like”. You’ll find a world of enjoyment there - and a very practical way to become a better writer at the same time. 

Bon appétit. You won’t regret it.