Why Reading is Crucial for Writers

Eight Ways Being a Reader is Crucial for Writers

by Lisa Lickel

This article originally appeared on Robin Mason's blog on January 24, 2019.

I have been invited to speak to high school and middle school language classes. When we get to the question and answer part of what is the most important thing someone can do to prepare to be a writer, I tell them, “be a reader.” Those who cannot understand are doomed to be neither.

It’s not too much to presume that people who want to play with words do so because they love them. It may be a love/hate relationship, but it must passionate, as passion undergirds story. If you have little experience with story, whether it’s someone else’s or your own, you are in no position to offer a tale to anyone else. As you can read between the lines above, being story—that is, living widely enough to be able to look back and appreciate the scenes that make up life—is the second part of an equation for authorship that has an endless answer like the square root of pi. For now we’ll focus on the first aspect—Why Read?

A person who wants to write literature but will not read it can sound like a human explaining to a guppy what it’s like to sit in a recliner and watch television. Anyone can learn the mechanics of language. People can learn to repeat a joke or assemble facts for a report, but a storyteller is an inventor. Inventors don’t generally birth a concept into an immediate, fully-functional working contraption without some apprenticeship, doodling, tweaking, and trial and error. A person with an idea who refuses to go through the work of developing that notion into a presentable product usually gives up, hires someone else, or fails.

Like inventors, authors are constantly learning. We learn from others, and from trial and error. Here are eight ways being a gluttonous reader helps writers.

1, Osmosis. Yes, the sponge effect. By soaking up good stuff, it will seep into your membranes. You may not know initially why a sentence sounds good, or a piece of dialog has a great back-and-forth that just works, but  it will stay with you and you’ll have a better chance of spitting it back out in a sensible way. However, you know what happens when you let your sponge sit in unpleasant gunk. Rinse and repeat. Do this by

2, Reading carefully. Read from different large publishers and indies, as well as some self-published material. If you don’t have a library card, get one. Even rural communities have access to public libraries. Become such a good reader that you’ll be able to figure out if the publisher missed an error. Large publishers have several layers of editing and proofreading before they give a product to the public. Learn what sort of material is popular, and are good sellers, talked about, and why. You should also

3. Read widely, especially outside your genre. Include nonfiction, especially poetry, and fiction. Nonfiction takes a practical approach to a topic. There are often reference and notes about research. Fiction writers can find new avenues of research, and information that will make fiction that much closer to believability. Nonfiction authors can learn to put their material together in ways that create interest and intrigue. Poetry is the ultimate distillation of language to create story. If you don’t know poets, find some! Writers will have to create marketing material for their own work, which often includes back cover copy, a synopsis, a hook sentence, and a biography. This material should be attention-grabbing and poets know how to draw the essence from experience with a perfect word.

4. Copy. Not plagiarize. Go ahead and keep a notebook of phrases that move you from the books you read. Why did that word or scene or sentence evoke emotion? How can you create that mood in your story? Begin to appreciate the doodling, the tweaking, the sweat that went into developing that moment. Know that quite likely, that phrase or sentence was the result of several minds mulling over the words. The author may have originated it, or perhaps the urging came from an agent or developmental editor. A copy editor may have requested a tweak. A publisher may have asked for an addition or deletion. Careful, studious readers can understand that writers will have to develop a working relationship with their editors and their readers. Careful readers will eventually come to appreciate the

5. Rules of language. Grammar. The mere presence of the word can be as frightening as the word algebra is to those of us who think it’s ridiculous there can be an endless answer to the square root of pi. Good readers should pick up some natural grammatical dynamics, general punctuation, and the understanding that syntax will guide your vocabulary choices. As an editor, however, I say this concept is wishful thinking more than it should be. Bibliophiles will need to spend some time undoing whatever it is that made you think it was okay to put a period outside of a quotation mark, or dangle prepositions, or misplace modifiers. Readers who learn grammar will unfortunately be utterly ruined for reading after some of the mystery of untangling language is revealed.

But, wait! Now writers who are qualified to know when it’s okay to break the rules will be inducted into the secret society of those who can break them well. You may not have even noticed the number of times I begin a sentence or a paragraph with a conjunction.  What you won’t know is how many adverbs and modifiers I removed or the tenses or plurals I adjusted in my self-edit, and that’s as it should be. Don’t be one of those authors who argue with their editor about how so-and-so author broke this-and-such rule. Don’t bother to hire an editor if you know everything. If you’re smart enough to know that you don’t know everything, you’ll be admitted to the inner circle of knowing when it’s okay for YOU to break the rules. Because writers who read know general rules, they see patterns. A single paisley flower in a plaid weave sticks out. So does your attempt to change points of view or use the wrong tense. These errors make writers look bad. It can affect your

6. Natural marketing and networking. If you ask for endorsements or reviews from authors you respect, but are turned down or get a bad review, readers are not inclined to spend money on a product they don’t think they will enjoy. They won’t tell others to buy the book, or worse, will tell others how bad it is. Word of mouth will always be the best marketing for any product or service. Authors who read should talk about what we’re reading and something about why we like it or think others will like it. We recommend books to book clubs, our friends, and our circles of influence. Those of us who teach use your work as material in our talks and workshops.

   7. Reading also shows us how to do Market Analysis for our own work. Reading other books like ours and comparing our work helps define our readership. And finally, reading authors

8. Help other authors with a REVIEW! Review books on as many social and publisher’s sites as you can. Use your name and website link. Reviewing is a great service networking with other authors and their readers.

Ultimately, our goal as Authors should be that we are Read. If all you want is to be published, that’s a pretty small niche. Anyone can get published these days. Any writer can write. An author shares a gift that multiplies and enlarges a reader’s spirit.

*Photos within the post are licensed by Creative Commons and free to reprint for personal and commercial use without attribution. They are courtesy of Pixabay.

Good Research Tips

Good Research Tips 

Gathering from Several Sources

Remember, good research is gathered from primary and secondary resources, and occasional other means, tertiary and so forth, points of origin. See this post.

Keep in mind that all resources are biased in some way and are faulty in some way (double check everything possible). Aim for the nearest to the original source of information possible (cite the source and the retrieval date).

When weaving your research into your fictional account, go gently. Yes, you spend fourteen hours searching for that perfect quote, that one fact about a disease, the interview with the inventor, the way the engine works that will shape your story…but be careful about dumping all that precious energetic verbiage on an unsuspecting reader who honestly doesn’t care. Consider yourself richer for the knowledge and hope that one reader will be impressed enough to look up the information for herself.

For my latest novel, Centrifugal Force, three important pieces of information had to come together from very disparate sources to make the story work. A stolen piece of antique jewelry handed off for protection by Jewish Germans during World War II in Germany, a genetic disease, and German everything—history, contemporary (2011) politics and world affairs, scenic background information, timetables and airports, as well as some language.

Jewelry—not just antique, but a unique piece of antiquity—was central to my story. Collectors who loaned items to museums and for other purposes had to come up with a plan to safeguard their valuables when they knew the Nazis would show no mercy. Why did I choose this particular era and type of jewelry? I visited a museum in which unique gold from long-lost cultures was on display. Because I was entranced, I chose to do further research. This museum where I witnessed original items was my primary source of information. These pieces existed. Their history, then, I took for my own. I wanted something invaluable and unique enough to be identifiable and irreplaceable.

As in all good story technique, the question of what type of conflict and how far-reaching or universal the effects attracts a wider audience. For example, more people will be affected by the collapse of the European Union than by a local beautification committee or corrupt youth athletic organization. These local tragedies make for interesting experiences but bespeak a different level of reader.

The question of how durable or effective your character’s goal, then, is always, what will happen if the character doesn’t get what he or she is after? What is your main protagonist willing to do or sacrifice in order to reach the goal?

In Centrifugal Force, the male protagonist, Gervas Friedemann, is desperate to find and return a piece of jewelry his family protected since World War II. After the war, the owners did not return, so Gervas’s mother decided to enjoy the jewelry given for safekeeping by her Jewish neighbors and gave it to her sons. Decades later, when a person claiming to be a descendent of the neighbors and rightful heir of the missing valuables steps forward, Gervas must find a ring he’d allowed to slip out of his hands. The descendant is using blackmail for a larger purpose on Gervas’s family, who are prominent in the German government.

Now, I was not allowed to take photographs in the museum, a temporary display of gold artifacts at the National Archeological Museum in Athens some years back, and I didn’t buy any kind of souvenir about the collection. You have to trust that I saw the pieces and I used what I learned for a crucial aspect of my story. I am now an unreliable witness until my claim can be verified. To back up my story, we can go to the internet link directly to the museum, but it is somewhat faulty and has numerous links that say “under construction.” It also only has a few of the past temporary exhibits listed, and few pictures. The fact of whether the display was held at a particular museum is not all that important except to my general character if I choose to share the story of what motivated me to write Centrifugal Force. The fact of whether such jewelry exists might tempt more cerebral readers to do some research. And here we can the secondary resources of more photographs, Etruscan history, and history of jewelry. It is secondary information because I am relying on the interpretation of facts from the compiler of those facts and reinterpreting what I learned for my story.

These are a few of the links I used to piece together the history and look of the jewelry. While I studied a great deal about the history of jewelry, I settled on this type because it was identifiable through testing, and because it was in a museum catalog now, could conceivably be missed and labeled stolen by Nazis immediately post-WWII—no end of trouble for Gervas’s family.

For the history of the Etruscan people, this link (one of many, most were from major universities) was helpful: http://www.mariamilani.com/ancient_civilisation_civilization/ancient_etruscans.htm

For the history of the jewelry, these links were helpful: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/articles/e/etruscan_jewellery.aspx

http://www.langantiques.com/university/index.php/Etruscan_Jewelry

For museum photographs of the collection, this link was helpful: http://ancientpeoples.tumblr.com/post/32881147070/set-of-etruscan-jewellery-late-archaic-period

When gathering information from sources, always question the integrity of the site and its compiler. National sites, such as those sponsored by governments or well vetted large organizations are in general more trustworthy than individual sites unless that person is a recognized and accepted expert in his or her field.

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K Dawn Byrd, Ten Things I Learned on my Publication Journey

"A few things I've learned along the way"

during my publishing journey.

by K Dawn Byrd

1)      If you don't have patience, you'll get it during the publishing process. I'm not a very patient person. I want what I want now! I've learned to apply the old Army slogan, "Hurry up and wait." Everything moves at a snail's pace and you might as well accept it.

2)      You never know what you can do until you give it a try. I'm 43 years old and wondered if I could get inside the head of a young adult well enough to write a young adult novel. Judging from the emails I've received from young adults, somehow I pulled it off. I've had several ask me to tell the story of a secondary character. Shattered Identity, the sequel to Mistaken Identity, will tell Lexi's story and will be out in April.

3)      My cover artist normally knows what's best. Never have they given me exactly what I've asked for on a cover, but that's fine because I'm not a cover expert. Only once have I had a cover that I truly hated and my cover artist was nice enough to work with me to come up with something I liked.

4)      Not everyone will love what you write. The lowest ranking I've ever received was three stars and I can live with that. It's important to develop a thick skin early on because not everyone will love what you write. Even NYT bestsellers get bad reviews.

5)      Never underestimate the power of networking. I've attended two conferences in the last two years and loved both of them for various reasons. It's so important to invest in conferences where agents and editors you're interested in will be on faculty.

6)      NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) was one of the best challenges I ever took. It changed the way I write forever. It's a yearly Internet event where authors come together and take the challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Give it a try. It's always during the month of November.

7)      My editor knows best. I'm lucky enough to have an editor who I truly respect and trust. Sometimes, I question what she says, but when I think it over for a little bit, I know she's absolutely right.

8)      Writing is a lonely hobby. You'd better enjoy being alone because you'll shut yourself away for hours during the writing and editing process.

9)      I need my writing friends. There are times we all feel down and wonder why we write. It's great to have encouraging friends who will lift you up. In my case, I can't NOT write. I've tried. I once went for a month without writing and was one of the most miserable people on the face of the earth.

10)   Don't write for money or fame because they may never come. Write because you love it. I write for the simple joy of placing words on the page.

K.Dawn Byrd, Author of:
Queen of Hearts (April 2010) & Killing Time (August 2010)
Mistaken Identity (June 2011) & This Time for Keeps (October 2011)
http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-template/KDawnByrd/Page.bok

      BLOG: http://kdawnbyrd.blogspot.com; WEBSITE: www.kdawnbyrd.com