Read to Write: How Does Reading Help Writing
The transformative link between reading and fiction writing. Uncover how reading fuels and elevates your storytelling prowess, making it an indispensable tool for every aspiring fiction writer.
Why is reading important for writing?
There is an undeniable connection between reading and one’s ability to write. Reading the works of others and other forms of reading material offers a wealth of benefits beyond mere pleasure.
From the formulation of creative ideas to the technical aspects of writing, the symbiotic relationship between reading and writing is an invaluable asset to any aspiring writer.
What are the areas reading can help with?
Reading can help eliminate any potential problems, difficulties, or weak points that you may have in any of your major areas of writing, especially your creative and technical skills.
On the creative side, it can give you inspiration on which to build elements of your stories or help you make them as original as possible.
On the technical side, reading can improve your writing skills in many ways, from expanding your vocabulary to improving grammar and sentence structure.
It can also make you adapt certain writing techniques that other writers use in their works to your own so that you can better communicate your story to your readers.
How reading can help with the elements of your story
Immersing yourself in literature can elevate your storytelling abilities, especially well-crafted ones, from character development and plot intricacies to crafting vivid settings and evoking emotions.
However, it is not exclusively just from works of fiction. Non-fiction works could also enhance the various elements of your stories as well.
Characters
There are several aspects to a character: name, personality, background, morals, and motivations. If you have read many stories, you will know the archetypes of the characters what they are, and how they were used in the story.
Familiarizing with character aspects and archetypes will help give your characters some foundation to build on, at least initially. Examples of character archetypes are The Hero, The Mentor, The Shadow, etc.
On the other hand, nonfiction can help you build your character’s identity in a different and even more detailed way. One way this is done is by basing your character on a particular historical figure from their biography and giving them your touch.
One contemporary example is author Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, in which the former U.S. president was portrayed as a vampire hunter.
But you can also simply take the personality, morals, and motives of a historical or contemporary figure and create your characters based on them, without using the same characters.
Themes
One of the gold mines of inspiration for narratives or characters is found in philosophical books. You could simply take a philosophical argument or question and twist the story to portray or challenge that statement through the choices and actions of the characters.
Settings
Books often offer insightful perspectives on particular contexts, cultures, or historical times. You can learn about details, traditions, architecture, settings, and social dynamics that increase the realism of your story’s setting by reading widely about related topics.
You can find original concepts, settings, or historical periods that match your narrative ambitions by exploring other literary landscapes. You can support the setting of your story in the ways listed below:
- Building rich imagery: reading books, especially those with descriptive settings, allows you to see how authors use their words to create evocative images in your mind.
You can develop your ability to evoke sensory details, build moods, and transport readers to fascinating places by immersing yourself in well-crafted situations. - Develop world-building skills: learning about different genres and writing styles through reading will help you better understand how authors create and build fantasy worlds.
You can draw inspiration from their methods for developing realistic settings, including geographic details, cultural characteristics, and historical backgrounds, and add depth and authenticity to your own stories.
Plot
Being exposed to a wide range of literature can provide you with enough understanding of how various authors use certain writing techniques, whether it be (or all) character development, narrative structures, plot devices, etc.
Exposure to various plot designs can help stimulate and explore new ideas and expand your basic knowledge of and approach to plot flow and structure.
How reading can help with your writing ability
Not only will reading help you in conceptualizing and constructing your story, but it can also help you on the technical front of how you can materialize the concept and deliver it to your audience elegantly.
Writing style
Aside from the different storytelling techniques authors use, you can get a sense of their unique voices and identities through how they convey their stories.
It can also be a learning opportunity to analyze how they build suspense, develop characters, and deliver dialogue and conversations. Absorbing other writing styles could also help improve your sentence syntax and structure to develop a more refined rhythm and flow in your writing.
Vocabulary
By extension, exposure to diverse writing styles will certainly lead to encountering new words, phrases, and expressions, especially from authors that use vernaculars or dictionaries you are unfamiliar with.
This expansion in vocabulary will enable you to express your thoughts with precision and creativity, bringing depth and richness to your delivery.
Grammar
Reading can also help develop an intuitive understanding of sentence formations, punctuations, grammatical rules, etc. Exposure to grammatically sound writing is a practical and immersive way to learn grammatical rules in context.
How you can find and use inspiration for your story from reading other stories/ideas
One of the best ways to look for inspiration for your story is to look for relevant ones or in line with the genre you intend to build your narrative on.
For example: Suppose you’re looking to write a fantasy story. In that case, it’s best to read fictional books that fall into the fantasy genre and historical nonfiction books where you can find ideas that might be helpful for the setting of your story (since most fantasy stories are set in a relatively primitive past).
What are the kinds of reading materials would help your writing/work?
Numerous reading materials could help with your writing. Below are the following, but not limited to:
- Writing Books (books about writing)
- Novels
- Philosophy Books
- Comics/Mangas
- Autobiographies
- Articles
- Encyclopedias
- Almanac
- Magazines
Examples of stories inspired by other stories/ideas
Here are a couple of examples of stories that were inspired by other works of fiction as well as real-life events and personalities:
Vinland Saga
Vinland Saga is a manga (and now also an anime) series borrowed from old English personalities and events. From characters such as Thorfinn Karlsefni Thórdarson, Leif Erickson, Cnut the Great, and Thorkell the Tall to the events of the England-Denmark conflict in the 11th century.
The Great Train Robbery
The Great Train Robbery is a novel by Michael Crichton that is a fictionalized retelling of a real-life robbery, also known as the Great Gold Robbery, that took place on May 15, 1855, led by William Pierce and Edward Agar.
What are the other ways that you could improve your writing?
Aside from reading, exploring different types of creative mediums and experiences can certainly provide a significant benefit to your writing and creativity as well.
Below are examples but not limited to:
- Movies/TV Shows
- Conversations with other people
- Videogames
- Music
- Images
