Forum / Good writers need to read good books

Myra King
May 29, 06:18pm

Good writers need to read good books. And I think the best writers are the most prolific readers. With so much good stuff on here, and so much good stuff out there as well, there is no excuse for not reading.
Writing is such a solitary pursuit but in the end we all want to share our work and move our readers. Whether it be with humour (Aussie spelling) pathos or shock or merely make them squirm uncomfortably, as long as we reach them in some way.
A great book I’m reading at the moment is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A make you think, feel good read with no inflection of Polly Anna-ism.
Set in 1946, Juliet Ashton, a newspaper columnist, receives a letter from Dawsey Adams and eventually other folk from Guernsey (in the Channel Islands) who one by one send her letters recounting their involvement in the forming of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, and how the reading and sharing of great books, helped them endure the five year occupation by the German forces. Woven through all this is an intriguing love triangle with Juliet’s publisher, Sidney, and Mark, an American entrepreneur.
The author, Mary Ann Shaffer, was seventy years old when she wrote this book but sadly did not live to see it in print.

Cherise Wolas
May 29, 08:00pm

Myra,

I am in complete agreement.

I read a ton of books every week, month, year. I read Guernsey last summer when I was in Croatia. Fifteen pages in, it got soaked in the serious salt-brine sea water, but I finished it nonetheless. And it seemed a bit fluff and stuff at the start, and then, whoosh, it really delivered. I have been ever sad that the author didn't see it become the great success it has become.

I am one of those readers who keeps a log of what I read. No synopses; I can recall each book very well...

I am regularly enlisted to provide lists for reading groups, to provide a list of books circling around singular themes.

I have friends, a mother, in a reading group, and I receive surreptitious calls, asking if I can provide an overview of the book up for the week.

I keep Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Nobles in business, I am sure. I own a library card but do not use it. When I love a book, I want to own it. I give boxes of books I don't want to keep, after having read, to the NY Public Library (for those who don't know, if you have 6 boxes of books, the library will pick up from your home, and return you an itemized list good for your taxes).

Whenever I met a writer who tells me they don't read, just in case a work of fiction affects their brain waves, so to speak, I run.

When I find a writer whose work truly affects me, I read all of their works. It's the same thing I'm doing on fictionaut with writers whose work intrigues me.

I read 110 novels in 2009. None of them for my work in the film business. I cannot imagine not reading before going to sleep.

So, in a longwinded way, I am saying Myra I wholeheartedly agree. Writers read!

Myra King
May 29, 10:44pm

Cherise, I totally agree with you that the start was a bit fluffy - I almost didn’t proceed but I like to give a book every chance, and, as I read on I found that it was character setting (as I’m sure you did too) because that’s how Juliet is indeed, a bit froth and bubble, in the beginning that is.

Wow, you certainly are a prolific reader and that’s great that you can donate (and have books picked up) to the library.

I will never forget my first experience with a library (I was about seven) I was overjoyed and totally amazed that I could take books home to read and they didn’t cost anything! I can still feel that thrill.

Cherise Wolas
May 30, 09:17am

I too have a library experience I will never forget. I was four. Had a stack of ten books (the amount the library let kids take out). I was carrying them all, wouldn't allow for parental aid, tripped over our front door, dropped all the books, said "God damn it. Shit" Truly. My father, standing at the door, listened to my well-chosen words, looked at my mother and said, "This is YOUR fault!"

To this day my father rarely swears. To this day, my mother and my sisters all know the value of well-placed swear words in every day conversation, and I always associate swearing with the library. A full circle of words!

D'Arcy Fallon
May 30, 11:49am

Reading is one of the primary pleasures in my life. Have either of you read "Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir" by Lauren Slater? It's astonishingly beautiful.

Cherise Wolas
May 30, 12:26pm

Hi D'Arcy. No, I haven't read it, but I love the title!

George LaCas
May 30, 12:57pm

Yes, I have to agree with the title of this forum thread. I've learned far, far more about fiction and writing from reading good books than from any fiction class or book on writing.

Cherise Wolas
May 30, 02:09pm

George,

I completely agree with you. I don't have an MFA. The last and only creative writing class I took was in summer school when I was in high school! It's all about reading books of all kinds. For example, I just finished Incendiary by Chris Cleave (Highly recommend it), and I realized that nearly every sentence is simply and declaration, he uses no commas (except when there's dialogue), and it's quite amazing.

Darryl Price
May 30, 02:29pm

In many ways a good book is the first writing instructor one gets. It teaches you on several levels to construct and think and invent new writing possibilities for yourself but on a wider note it gives you the sense that the world is full of many more perspectives than what you've been told. And this gives you courage to dream, to travel, to see for yourself what's out there. The more books you experience the bigger and better your vocabulary becomes.As a writer you can't help but be thrilled by a beautiful sentence. Anne Tyler has done this for me even when I've hated her characters. James Joyce, Hemingway. I've marvelled and marvelled at his sentence structure, so clean, so pure, so real, so alive.James Tate comes up with the most interesting things to write about that you can imagine.As does W.S.Merwin.But I like to mix it up--read a little of everything-sometimes just to see what it's like-things I wouldn't normally pick up.I still think the best writers are true originals but you can bet that true originality came from reading many many many favorite books and authors and being inspired to pick up the pen or pencil and give it a go.

D'Arcy Fallon
May 30, 03:25pm

I agree that a good book is often the best teacher. In addition to what Darryl has just mentioned, it also gives you compassion. It literally enables you to see the world from another point of view. I do have an MFA (and I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever need it for a job, teaching being the farthest thing from my mind when I undertook that degree while working as a reporter). The degree turned out to be very helpful, forced me to write a book, introduced me to a tribe of writers, and all in all was a kind of present to myself in my 40s. But I would recommend to anyone considering getting an MFA that they do some living first. I know far too many people, some of them my former students, who went the MFA route simply because they didn't know what else to do. In short, it beat law school or getting a "real" job. The degree is expensive, I'm STILL paying it off, but I'm glad I did it. Glad too that I had 15 years in between the BA and MFA. Anyway, that's my two cents' worth on the MFA front.

James Lloyd Davis
May 30, 06:42pm

I'm not an MFA, but I'll not get into the MFA discussion. Some of my best friends are MFAs. I once was married to an MFA. Some of them make wonderful writers. Some do not. It's very much like all the rest of us, in that ... what we bring to the art is what we breath or otherwise consume in the time we have between one writing session and another.

Books and reading must always be the air in which a writer takes his or her deepest breath. I have recently begun to try reading critically, such that I can ascertain why I enjoy and affirm a particular author's style and exposition. It's the most difficult thing I've ever tried to do, since the enjoyment of the written word has always been my motivation for reading in the first place.

Critical thinking about what I read, therefore, becomes a chore, but I suppose it is absolutely necessary in order to truly comprehend style and method. Maybe that's the value of an MFA ... I don't know, but I can't imagine that a writer can possibly succeed without being a hopelessly addicted reader as well.

Either way, I wholeheartedly agree with Myra's premise. D'Arcy brings another good point to all this, in that books are not the only wellspring for inspiration, but that life experience can make all the difference in seasoning what we know about the mechanics of writing with the substance and vital remembrances that make for a good story, one that is worthy of the ability you can bring to a manuscript.

These forums are wonderful, invigorating. Thanks.

Myra King
May 30, 07:30pm

Thanks everyone for your comments. I arose from my night, your day, and found all these. Cherise, I had a chuckle over your swearing anecdote - I can just see your dad standing there saying, ‘This is YOUR fault’, to your mother.
Two new books I will look for: Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir and Incendiary - thanks Cherise and D’arcy.
And thanks too, to James, Darryl and George, you all make wonderful sense.

tandu
May 30, 09:13pm

i disagree. a real writer gets tired of reading and writes his own stuff.

D'Arcy Fallon
May 30, 10:15pm

Myra, I hope you like "Lying." Please let me know!

D'Arcy Fallon
May 30, 10:19pm

And James, I agree with you about critical reading. I find myself reading a little more shallowly when I'm reading on my Kindle. I don't know why that is. But I've always been a big reader simply for the pleasure of it. Sometimes we can internalize another writer's quirks and tics, although this isn't exactly critical reading. Tandu, I think there's a balance between reading all the time and then writing your own stuff too. Sometimes I'm so in awe of the great stuff that is out there that I just feel like going be bed with a stack of People magazines and saying the hell with it. But that's a cop out.

H-M Brown
May 30, 10:35pm

Reading a bad book is not a bad thing to do either, to be a better writer. You'll be able to see where the writer went wrong in both storytelling and storywriting and you'll know not to duplicate that.

Myra King
May 31, 12:07am

Tandu, D'Arcy is right, there is a balance. And HM you are right too, but that happens when you read lots of books that you will find a bad one. When this happens I ask myself: Why is this not grabbing me? Where has the author gone wrong? Of course we’re all aware that what we often like is subjective, so when evaluating, we need to be objective too.

tandu
May 31, 11:07am

a real writer doesn't give a shit about what others write. tandu.

Marit Meredith
Jun 05, 04:41am

An insular life is no life, in my humble (or not) opinion. Let's read, broaden our horizon, learn from masters new and old - and write.

With kind permission from Myra, I am reproducing her article in our online magazine (with credits) and adding The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society to our virtual bookshelf.

Tandu: do you realise that if what you say is the case, you are in danger of not being read by any other writers?

tandu
Jun 06, 12:14am

Marit: be leery of anyone who says they are a writer. tandu.

Matthew A. Hamilton
Jun 06, 01:51am

I agree in part. Reading good books is the best way to become a great writer. However, if I want to teach college and write full time once I'm out of the Peace Corps, an MFA is a good idea for me.

Nothing against Fictionaut (I love it here) an MFA opens up a huge writing network as well.

tandu
Jun 06, 11:40am

if you want to write go get a job laying tar down on roofs or removing asbestos. then go rent an old house in the poor section. much better than mfa. tandu.
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