To become a better writer, read as much as you can

> Why be a writer if you don’t love reading? Why devote your intellectual and emotional energy to creating a book, when it’s a form you’re not invested in? Why write, when you aren’t steeped in wonder of storytelling?

This is the key point, I think. I've seen the same as the author: people who want to be writers but rarely read books. And I don't get it.

I recently finished a novel (now shopping around for agents, which was hard enough pre-AI but now...) and reading was integral to writing it. I know good sentences. I know the style of prose I like to read. I know how things can veer between florid and poetic and where the line is. I know how a sentence can be completely different if you read it as though it was spoken, instead of to yourself (some of mine are written to be read.)

I know the things that annoy me: dropping out to put thoughts in italics; descriptions that specify instead of evoke; characters talking without it leading somewhere. (And much more.)

How do I know this? From reading.

And I want to tell the story. It was a story that grew, that I think will anger the right people (it's not too kind to Musk or VCs or the Russian Orthodox Church), and yet is simply an adventure, tumbling our characters from situation to situation like they fell overboard while navigating rapids. Ultimately I wrote a book I wanted to read. It turned out to be about post-apocalyptic startups and sea monsters.

Someday I'll publish, I hope. And no doubt someone will read it and find style they dislike, learn from it things they don't want to do in their writing, either. But I also hope that there are moments in the book that will inspire someone else, in that they too will want to write, based on what they read.

I have an even better golden rule: to become a better writer, actually write as much as you can.

A real example.

I read A TON, since I was a kid (I'm close to 50 years old now). I used to write a lot. I even wrote two semi-decent novels, among other things.

I haven't written much in the last 10-12 years.

Now I want to start a little side project, in which I will write a letter to about one hundred people, print it and ship it physically. I have attempted to write the first one a few times, and it's very difficult. I am not used to write anymore.

Write more.

Counterpoint: To become a better writer, write as much as you can.

Reading gives you a flavor, a taste, a style, it allows you to occupy the thoughts of another human.

But getting your thoughts written down? That's writing, not reading. Actually practicing the art of writing is better for your craft than reading someone else's writing.

Matthias Wandel a famous woodworker on YT says it: most of his audience are watching for fun, they don't actually build projects. Would we expect a woodworker to get practically better by not woodworking, but by sampling others work? You might gain a little knowledge, but you'll never see your own limitations and where to grow if you never do it yourself.

Since music comes up in this thread, it's an even better counter example. The act of practicing technique shows you the idioms of each instrument, it shows you HOW to compose for that instrument much more than listening to 100's of recordings. Chopin's genius was knowing the human hand and how it conforms to the keyboard, he knew how to compose for it better than perhaps any other, because he was practical and a virtuoso himself.

When you touch and hear the instrument as you play, when you satisfy your own ear and judgment as Chick Corea says, then you're able to then better mimic others and create new fusions. Just listening to others "as much as you can" isn't going to make you a better performer or technical player at all.

Save the time for doing, not using. Use the time for production, not consumption. Practice makes perfect.

A while ago I took under my wing so to speak the neighbor's kid who plays the clarinet at the local music school, but apparently has listened to very little music (at music school he only gets instrument lessons and some music theory.) I had him listen to a wide range of classical music, just to give him a taste, and see what interests him. I told him: a musician who doesn't listen to music is like a writer who doesn't read books. It's not only the craft, it's also the culture that those works embody, and the feeling of belonging to a tradition.

Completely agree! I find writing deeply memetic - in that I often catch myself imitating the flow, style, word choices, punctuation and grammar of whatever reading material I'm currently immersed in.

This unfortunately does not bode well for my writing ability as I read emails and Claude output all day. Recently, I've been reading a lot of building codes and compliance documents and I've develop annoying ticks like using "shall", "need not", "take no exception", overuse of passive voice, etc.

My hypothesis is engineers suck at writing by default unless they do extra-curricular reading. I read a lot! But sadly it's often textbooks, journal papers, documentations, and Claude. I'm envious of great writers, but I don't have time to read Keats. I'm immersed in Stewart, Strang, and whatever Claude is feeding me next.

I think this article is conflating the craft of writing, which is essentially literary ambition and aspiring toward literary fiction, with genre fiction which is focused on plot and story above language that is employed. Writers who aspire towards a nobel or elite critical acclaim certainly must read because their aspiration is to develop a novel and masterful command of their native language. But writers who aspire towards story, storytelling itself is an oral tradition. The author here conflates these two, citing Woolf and Nabokov as examples of voracious readers while addressing a general population of writers. It is not obvious that the genre fiction writer is losing out by reading less compared to watching tv or movies. They would still be learning about pacing, dialogue, plot mechanics, and the ability to consume more stories albeit via a different medium may be net positive EV for them. As a fun counterfactual, if Fourth Wing by Yarros was instead written as literary fiction, would it be more or less popular? My guess is, less. Which is again to emphasize that masterful craft of language vs. plotting/storytelling are distinct skills that do not face the same payoff or learning dynamics.

I started a podcast recently and two things are VERY in line with this post:

1. If you listen to tons of podcasts, you slowly internalize what is a good vs bad interview. e.g. you learn to automatically ask leading questions, direct the guest in an arc (if that's what you want to do etc). One of my guests was a professional sports journalist and he mentioned "How did you learn to interview people so well??"

2. I asked some more experienced podcasters what gear I needed, what format to use etc and they ALL said: "Just go start doing it! You will very quickly learn what works and doesn't and then just iterate from there."

Given that this was also an article about writing: a few years ago I was inspired by Twitter user @visakanv to start writing Twitter threads. I'm up to 200+ [1] which surprises me as much as anyone. Similar to the above, if you read a lot of other people's work and then start writing your own, you quickly develop a style. Having a style and people respond to it is fun and then you get excited about writing more and it takes on it's own momentum.

0 - https://alexpotato.com/podcast/

1 - https://x.com/alexpotato/status/2012723178577985948?s=20

To develop good taste you must try a lot of things. However it's a lot more important to actually try the thing yourself.

An artist who makes art every day will run circles around one who consumes a lot of art.

I read a lot, and it means that I ingest a lot of interesting ideas. I'm not sure if it made me a better writer. Writing every morning probably helps more.

I bought an Xteink X4 a few months ago and it's constantly stuck to the back of my phone. I've really picked up my reading pace since then. If I have 5 minutes, I'm in a book.

I did read on my phone a bit before that, but somehow found it not compelling enough to keep up with. Maybe the LCD screen? Maybe the fact that it was a phone? Not sure.

Polite disagreement. To write (or feel the urge to write), you should have a point of view (unique povs are more interesting). To have a point of view, you need to engage with the thing in front of you. It can be a video that you disagree with, or agentic output you're belting into shape.

The advice of "read more to write better" is incomplete IMO. I'd change it to "read/engage critically to write better". Else reading results in memetic ideas and tonality

In fact, you'd want to read less if it means reading deeply

Many hundreds of hours of reading will build your vocabulary, and tune your ear to the sound of a good sentence. But it will not make you a writer.

Reading as a person wanting to become a better writer should be more conscience of what they are reading. I often finish a novel and can't even remember if it was narrated, or how. That is not careful reading.

I've heard of authors who, went waiting for their muse, just copied novels they liked until they got back in the groove, and this usually helped.

Practice makes practice. Deliberate practice makes...

This used to be true because most published books were well written. I don't think that's true anymore. Too much noise and too little signal so to speak.

I feel a growing trend where books read like the author's main inspiration is TV shows, down to villains surprising the main character by jumping out from "behind the camera" and dialogue that reads like the book has no ability to convey thoughts and emotions except by having the characters explain them to another character.

Maybe I've just gotten more picky with age but I have a hard time finding anything readable lately. Sure there's the literary prize winners, but they tend to be dull and slow - I want solid pageturner pulp! :)

This reminds me of an article [1] (that I think I may have even seen initially on HN) analysing what writing looks like when treated like TV (consciously or subconsciously). It's a fascinating read and it made me more mindful of interiority in my own writing.

[1]: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/what-not-reading-does-to...

Reading this article is like a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, I have to work with generative AI on daily basis and I have this terrible feeling of losing my ability to read and write - and think.

The claude generated text has something that I cannot clearly pin-point, that my brain detects somehow and immediately makes me feel bored. I can't keep up with the reading of a long ai generated answer ("reasoning") - it really hurts.

The same goes for writing - I always wanted to write both text and code.

The whole experience of getting into "the flow" was rewarding - endless nights (when I was younger) spent in that state, to reach something, learn something.

Now instead, the act of delegating thinking, writing, coding, and reading mainly AI generated text, makes me feel disoriented and more and more bored.

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.”

- William Faulkner

Hugh Howey on becoming a writer:

> Insight #4: The best writers are the best readers. There aren’t any shortcuts around this. Successful writers read. They read a lot. And the best writers read a wide variety of books. It’s impossible to stress the importance of this insight. When aspiring authors ask my advice on making it as a writer, this is my most common first response: Read.

https://hughhowey.com/writing-insights-part-one-becoming-a-w...

This is simply not true, even if it is commonly repeated among the folks that usually don't really write. Like how reading every source code that comes handy will not turn yourself into a great programmer, to be a good writer you need to: 1. Read selected books, and re-read good books more often then reading new stuff, to understand why they are good. 2. Read, from time to time, some bad book, and understand why it is bad. 3. And obviously you need to write a lot to become good at writing. And writing, in order to improve, is writing remembering, at the same time, the vibrations of the good authors you loved, and especially making the act of choosing of every word you put in the blank page, one after the other.

A lot of time I'm not very confident in what I wrote because I have a tendency to ramble and not get to the point quickly. Reading helps, but it's more about style, doesn't help me express myself more eloquently at all.

Another thing is that I find myself using AI-isms in daily conversations more and more the more I use them to help me code. "Load-baaring" and "not X but Y" are phrases that I actively have to catch myself to avoid using now.

So that means that programmers should read/study the code and architecture of other programmers?

Woah. Reading this blog post was like being transported 5 years back prior to the existence of AI. It reeks of pure humanity.

One interesting thing I've just come to notice is that ever since I started using AI agents, ive not had a single moment of 'flow-state' whereas I used to semi-frequently have such experiences prior.

I feel like some parallels can be drawn between the reading and coding brain in this regard.

I guess what you mean to say is ”read as much BOOKS as you can”. God knows I am reading all day long, but it’s usually news papers, blogs, weapons grade sloptonium from a colleague, etc.

I had an odd sense when reading that article… the sense that we’re in truly bizarre times, that such obvious advice needs to be given at all.

That people in general don’t read, I get. But if you don’t read, why would you want to write? Baffling!

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me [write]."

Yes, I added the editorial insertion because I'm sure that's what he meant.

In addition to this, I think one gets even more from reading after having tried to write. There's a unique feedback loop that starts happening once you start creating.

There are many more people who write, than who love words enough, to consume and generate great writing.

This is also why projections of AI's impact are overrated in some domains. Everyone can 'write' an app now. Relatively few will actually make one.

Nowadays I mostly listen to e-books when I am doing house chores or driving or doing some other things that require the eyes but not the entire brain. Not sure if it counts as reading. If it does, then I read about 10-15 books a year. I haven't read a long-form book completely with my eyes for a long time.

I see so many solo indie game developers who don't really play games and almost all of them fail to make their game actually fun. I'm not at all surprised to learn the same concept applies to writing.

I think the most intuitive case might be music. We would all be skeptical if someone said they were going to compose a soundtrack but hadn't really listened to many soundtracks or much music at all.

Just like how you need two legs to walk, you should regularly switch between reading and writing.

You can't learn what to look for in the writing of others until you write something yourself. And you can't find your own voice until you've tried imitating someone else's style.

Reading and writing are related but very different skills. I think reading too much can be detrimental to writing.

I regular question experts. I literally walk up to them and ask how they get that go and every single time the "trick" has been an approximation of "I do this a lot" and by a lot they mean more than everybody else.

If you didn't watch Kung Fu Panda then it is worth it to learn what the "secret" is all about.

TL; DR: yes and it works for everything else too. Just do the thing!

To become a writer, and publisher of work much like that of the blogger:

https://nappertime.com/my-books-where-to-start-reading/

Follow it. No doubt sincerely meant.

I thought reading is not going to do that much, as it only improves your recognition, not your ability to actively use the vocabulary.

At least this is what I came to find, as I have some issues currently with "blanking" more than I would like.

To be a good writer - have something to say. To have something to say - live an interesting life. It’s not easy to live an interesting life by sitting in a chair and reading a book.

Reminds me of bill gates, who said to learn to write code, you have to read as much source code as you can.

[also, I can't also think about people who I know who talk talk talk (to hear the sound of their own voice?) and never listen... is this part of what he's implying?]

In my experience, the thing that makes your better at something is actually _doing_ it, badly at first and then gradually improving by iteration.

But for writing, I usually see the advice that says you should read a lot instead of write a lot. What gives?

Wow, started really well, and then devolved into a mix of rambling, shaming people's usage of time, romanticizing reading, AI, social networks, and no true scotsman. Classy.

Will reading a lot eventually makes you want to write? I haven't found that yet.

‘Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers’ - speilberg

Funny how this advice is totally innocuous and accepted universally, but the idea that LLMs are trained on the exact same material causes half of us to scream about art theft and plagiarism and a legal right to royalties.

On the subject, I cannot recommend enough Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott & On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King. Two exceptional books.

I feel that people today are already overwhelmed by walls of text. Books are a completely different cognitive load for the brain. A book is a gym workout. Social media and news feeds are lazy reading.I try to read more myself, but specifically books.

As in all art, the first step is to develop good taste. And you can only do that by consuming a wide variety of content.

reminds me of the advice of unpacking your dreams in https://www.experimental-history.com/p/face-it-youre-a-crazy...

i think this take gets misinterpreted and misapplied. here are some other sentences to think about.

to become a good chef, eat a lot. to become a great producer, listen to a lot of music. to direct great films, watch a lot of movies.

these sorts of advices superficially soothe the reality that you're spending too much time consuming and not actually creating. or even practicing creation.

to become a better chef, eat as much as you can

Its like your training an organic llm...

"I'm one of the few people you'll meet who's written more books than they've read."

- The Great Garth Marenghi

https://www.garthmarenghi.com/about/

(If you're unfamiliar, it's a comedy bit about a bad writer, somewhat the opposite of a genuine role-model)

Learned something new today, thanks

Good writing. Maybe I am too used to OREO format, where point is made, example given, and point re-iterated in tech or non-fictional format unlike the author's more of story-based narrative.

The author seems to be branch off to a polymath path, consuming ideas from many different fields. A caution is that, the author needs to plan on what to learn and set scope and boundary on how much to learn in each field (unless you are Leonardo Da Vinci, who still struggled in some fields. He was damn smart but his ADHD stopped him from building something even better in some instances).

Anyways, fun writing.

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My anecdote: The more I read, the more I see the context of why authors write certain things based on events, and political affinity s/he had.

I started converse with books and see points that are not right per my understanding or mis-represented. Now we can use AIs, or Google, or search books to verify author's assumptions. The authors points might have had been true at the time but not at current point.

It's just fun to gather more insights on how to think as I read more.

I emphathize with the author's enthusiam.

I used to write blogs, but not any more as I stopped reading for awhile during covid time (bad instances even with 3 shots of vaccines).

I am starting again, surely but slowly, and I cannot make an excuse as the author mentioned as my daily phone screem daily time is 2+ hours.