Hey, remember that one time I wrote about giving poetry collection recommendations, and then I just didn't, because depression in a pandemic is rough. I'm sorry about that. I promise that that will come, but today I really wanted to write about the role that reading plays for writers.
I have read more in 2020 than I have in any other year of my adulthood. That's been one of the positives of this year. What I've noticed is that my writing improves when I am steeped in the writing of other people. One of the biggest pieces of advice that I have for writers is to spend a lot of time reading.
Read work in the genre that you love. I read a lot of memoirs, because that's what I mostly try to write. But also spend time reading in genres that you might not want to write. This year I've read a lot of fantasy, a lot of poetry, a few historical fiction books, and a few contemporary fiction novels. All of it has helped me grow as a writer.
I think there's a lot of advice out there about reading the best books, and I think it's good advice. But I also think that you can learn a lot from reading lower quality books as well. On a trip to Glacier this summer, I read the worst book ever (Tiger in Darkness or something like that), and while it was a dumpster fire of a read (sorry to the author), I do feel like I learned things about writing. While I think that a lot of the best learning happens from well-written work, I also think that there's danger in getting to pretentious about what we read. You can learn things from everything that you read, if you're paying attention to what you like and what you don't like as you read.
I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned about writing as I've read. I've learned to read each book and ask myself what I like and what I don't like, and then I spend time breaking down why things that I liked worked so well and why things I didn't like didn't work. In Tiger in Darkness, I didn't like the plot, and the more I thought about it the more I realized it was because no person that I have ever met would act like the characters in that book. The main character falls in love with a man who is verbally abusive to her through most of the book, and to make it stranger, at the end of the novel he just becomes nice. Nothing prompts that change. He just declares undying love, and becomes a kind person. It was unrealistic, and the characters were boring and unrealistic. Alternatively, in They Both Die at the End, Silvera chooses specific details to share about each of the main characters to make them believable, and to make the change happen. Mateo has a list of unaccomplished goals. He has books that he'll never reads, everything we learn about Mateo is that he has been living for the future, for a version of himself that could accomplish what he wanted to do. When he gets the call from Death Cast, we already understand that he wants to live, he just doesn't know how, so it makes sense to us that he does begin to live as the novel progresses.
For anyone who wants to be a writer, spend time reading. Carve out the hours. Fill up the bookshelves, and then actually dive into the books. For too many years, I have had stacks of books piling up around my house that have gone unread, but that's changing in 2020, and as a result, I feel more confident and competent as a writer, as I work my way through all of the books that I want to read.