I want to write, but don't like reading so much

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BrandonSP
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09 Aug 2013, 9:36 pm

As a veteran of many writing forums, I have seen the advice posted many times that all aspiring writers should read if they want to learn how to write. I agree with this as a general principle, but I must confess that despite wanting to write fiction, my interest in reading other people's fiction appears to have diminished over the years. I still read non-fiction meant to persuade or inform on a regular basis, but fiction not so much. At first it may sound counter-intuitive that someone could want to write fiction without reading it all the time, but I believe that if anything my growing disillusionment with most existing fiction has fed my desire to write my own stuff.

Searching for fiction that appeals to me has always presented a challenge, but even when I do find novels that touch on my special interests, I end up disappointed with them. Often I don't like how the novels portray their characters, settings, or subject matter. For example, I might pick up a dinosaur novel and get turned off either by blatant scientific errors or by the author's personal vision of dinosaurs which contrasts with my own. Or maybe I might read a history novel where characters from a certain culture are described with the wrong skin color. Sometimes I get offended by certain stereotypes in the characterization or setting design. I admit those may seem like petty reasons for putting books down, but the way I see it, if you misrepresent a subject in a way that I don't like, I have a hard time immersing myself in your book.

On the other hand, writing fiction for myself gives me the creative power to either make up my own worlds or reconstruct the real world as I see fit. Herein lies my conundrum: I like making up my own stories but have a harder time enjoying those written by other people. In the odd event that I do read another person's writing, it's usually to study the prose style so I can see how to write certain moments for myself. I worry that this may stunt my own growth as a writer, but I don't know how to tackle the problem.



MakaylaTheAspie
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09 Aug 2013, 9:51 pm

Don't confine yourself to historical fiction or things that just stem to your particular interests, because I can guarantee this will always happen. Each person has a different perspective, so the way they write will reflect their perspective and how they perceive something.

Expand your horizons and read something you could never imagine reading. A fairy tale, detective novel, horror, sci-fi, anything that has a fiction label slapped on it. Also look up reviews for the book, and go to small-time published authors (the best place to look for them is Amazon). I think there's more than enough books out there that would satisfy you, you should just take a good look. ;)


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BrandonSP
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09 Aug 2013, 9:54 pm

MakaylaTheAspie wrote:
Don't confine yourself to historical fiction or things that just stem to your particular interests, because I can guarantee this will always happen. Each person has a different perspective, so the way they write will reflect their perspective and how they perceive something.

Expand your horizons and read something you could never imagine reading. A fairy tale, detective novel, horror, sci-fi, anything that has a fiction label slapped on it. Also look up reviews for the book, and go to small-time published authors (the best place to look for them is Amazon). I think there's more than enough books out there that would satisfy you, you should just take a good look. ;)

That's a good point you bring up about expanding my horizons. Thank you!



ParaSait
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09 Aug 2013, 9:58 pm

Same here... I'm not a fan of reading fiction either, but I have very creative sorta spot in my mind that keeps whispering exciting story ideas in my ear.
Nothing wrong with that I think. Except that you may wanna read some fiction to learn writing styles etc, and if necessary maybe also some non-fiction that explores fiction in itself. I, being a classical philosophy geek, found Aristotle's Poetics a very insightful read, particularly it gives a technical observation on the philosophy & inner clock works of drama. That's really the sorta book you wanna read if you want to gain insight, not by imitation (although that's also important) but rather by theory.
Once you done all that... I think a "write-only" artist can make some great stuff!


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stardraigh
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12 Aug 2013, 9:27 am

I do read a lot of fiction, I cycle around between reading a lot, and not reading anything for months. Right now, I'm reading stories from an online fiction site that I found after looking for free superhero stories on the internet. Before three months ago, I had not read any fiction on the internet at all beyond synopsis lookups on wikipedia, content specific wiki pages, and game walkthroughs, now it's all I devour when it comes to the written word at the moment.

So you can find fiction in the oddest of places. I don't know if that may be useful to you, but the other thought I want to mention is that a lot of writing goes into non-written forms of media and entertainment, whether it's plays, movies, shows on television, and console and pc games. I've gotten a multitude of ideas for my writing from non-written sources that I just would never have encounted in reading the written word. The neat thing i take from that is that someone somewhere wrote a description, and maybe did a few panels showing the flow of the story, and a lot of work then went into it from several different people to visually represent what was written in a way the written form just doesn't touch upon. As an example it's like reading the script for Star Wars A New hope, and watching it. They are worlds apart. Dialogue may be the same, and the scenage fits the description, but the description in the script doesn't account for how the clothing works, and how the different people/races look as they walk around and interact or how equipment looks, or the general feel, although it tries. You really get not only what the writer wrote, but also input from the costume designer, set coordinator, the producer, etc... when watching a movie. So for ideas, you can also go outside of written works of fiction even if you are just going to stick with the written word.

I hope I didn't ramble and that made sense. Sorry if it did not.


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12 Aug 2013, 12:30 pm

William Faulkner had advised aspiring writers to read everything, "read the classics, read trash."

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer