You might be amazed to hear that many writers don’t feel like they have time to read. This is like the baker who doesn’t have time to buy flour. At some point, you’ll run out of ingredients and your writing will come out half-baked.
Writing instructors often stress the importance of reading the genre you want to write. The more you read, the more you’ll absorb the approach and style that will make you successful. However, if you want to be better than average, you should probably expand your reading to other areas.
If your writing hasn’t been going as well as you would like, maybe you need to do more reading—or maybe you need to do a different kind of writing.
Are you serious about becoming a better writer? Your writing can’t help but improve if you will take just fifteen minutes to do this once a week:
- Read a page for a novel and pick your favorite paragraph.
- Read the paragraph aloud.
- Write the paragraph.
- Edit the paragraph, looking for ways to improve the sentences.
- While looking at the paragraph, do a rewrite using your own words.
- Put everything aside and write a new paragraph from memory, using your own mental images.
When you see great writing, reading isn’t enough. Write it and strive to make it better.
