As someone who wears his writer’s hat, I’ve seen a common advice given to writers, and that is to read a lot. Watch less TV, play video games less, and pick up a book.
But why? Well, I’ve often more than not that reading influences how I write. I take note how the author describes scenes, characters, and location. Or how he narrates the story and of course how he writes his dialogue.
If I ever had to say I had one or two weaknesses when it comes to writing, it’s my descriptions and then my narration. My dialogue is always on point.
When I feel I’m having trouble getting my narration or my description where I want them then I pick a random book page and read a few pages, usually where it’s more description and narration present.
I finished reading a book earlier this year on the writing by Brandon Q. Scott (which I recommend checking out) where he explains an achievable reading goal is 20 pages a day. It’s definitely doable, I hit it easily on a regular basis. Because of that goal I’ve finish a few books recently.
One book was a romantic with some erotic elements called Stalking His Claim by Lucy Darling. It’s not my typical genre, and I did have an issue with how “perfect” the two characters came off, but other than that I enjoyed the story. That’s what is important, right? Enjoying the story, it shouldn’t feel like a chore.
The other two books I finished were Star Wars books, one was presented as a “nonfiction” style book about the Jedi ways, which I enjoyed a lot as it gave me a lot of background on the Jedi Order, their teachings, methods, and climate. As I read it I got inspired to write a short fiction that I posted on here recently, and it’s given me another idea for a story to write. The second Star Wars book was about how two characters, Kanan Jarrus meets with Hera Syndulla (two characters from Star Wars: Rebels series).
And currently I’m reading a book I read once while I was in high school, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. I’m only 5 chapters into the story and I noticed how the author influenced how I first wrote back in 2010. Back then I was over descriptive with scenes and people. When I read a few chapters of Kakfa on the Shore, I immediately picked up on how the author over-describes locations and characters. There was not doubt in my mind how one character looked, what he wore, the length of his hair, his shirt colour, and how he held a yellow pencil with an eraser at the end between his index and middle-finger.
Every author, and every writer has their style and for Haruki, describing in great detail is his thing.
The odd thing is that it only bothers me a little, but I’m still engaged in continuing the story to the end. I did enjoy the story when I read it 15 years ago, and I’m interested in seeing if I enjoy it now.
Still Foxes 