Do you have to read to become a better writer?

I think what you have to do to become a better writer is to write. The idea that you need to read a lot comes because some high profile writers mentioned it as the secret to writing (Stephen King in “On Writing” for example), but to follow that dictate slavishly would miss the point, in my opinion. The reason to read a lot is to fill the head with ideas. While writing, the creative subconscious needs ideas to draw on. Whether you get those ideas from books, or from life itself, or from interviewing people, or from working hard in your career – these are all means to the same end. But the only way you can get better at writing is to write, a lot, and often.

In my experience the breakthrough as a writer comes when your ideas begin to flow seamlessly from the subconscious onto the page (or screen). The writers I’ve commissioned who have struggled most were the ones that constantly second guessed their material. They were the ones who didn’t have it in the forefront of their minds. When I wrote my first book the words just flowed onto the page because I’d spent a year immersed in the subject matter. That’s for non-fiction, and I don’t think it’s much different for fiction, except…

Well, where do you go for fiction material? If you want to write a best-selling travel guide you go abroad, and if you want to write a best-selling woodwork guide you spend 12 hours a day doing woodwork, but if you want to write best-selling fiction, either you have to live the life of your eventual characters, or as a second best, read the creations of other people. For most, reading books will be the best or only option.

There is one other reason for reading a lot, which is that the style of the writing rubs off on you. I can’t vouch for whether this is really a good enough reason to read the quantity some people suggest. If you’re writing a lot you will want to try things out, and that is where you can simply get the book of a favourite author down off the shelf and read a few pages to check out how they do it.