Reading is the key to writing

This blog update discusses something that may seem obvious but sometimes it's not:  reading is good for writers!

The majority of writers are keen readers, often from a young age.  I have been reading from a young age and although I am not exactly sure what book it was or if it was a compilation of a bunch of books, something inspired me to attempt to write.  As I have mentioned in a previous post I initially tried to write an absolute masterpiece from scratch.  This is because something I read made me feel some emotion that blew my mind.  In turn this made me want to create that moment for other people and hence I started to write.

Growing up I was very much into Enid Blyton's Adventure and Famous Five series, from there it was onto the Hardy Boy's.  Into my later teens I read Stephen King and Dean Koontz and then stepped up to Jeffrey Deaver and Cormac McCarthy as a grownup (sorta).  The point is I have always read, there have been plenty of long gaps between books as other things get in the way but I usually still have a desire to read.

Writing a book of your own is normally pulled from your own life experiences.  While most of my work is spent writing about time periods hundreds of years ago and I have never spent any time standing on a battle field, I have experienced being in a fight and I have on more than one occasion been scared.  Using how these past events made me feel allows me to relate to the characters I am writing about and ( in theory) make my writing better.  Reading other peoples work regularly broadens your experiences.  After all even though someone else wrote it you are the one experiencing it in you own way.  This allows you to have additional ammunition in your writing arsenal.  Obviously reading Harry Potter and then writing a book about a female wizard called Betty Totter is not going to get you anywhere but if you keep reading regularly I believe it improves your own work and makes writing easier and more enjoyable.

As always my online novella is available here: http://store.payloadz.com/details/1941573-ebooks-fiction-a-franks-tale-roger-thornton.html and maybe you can find where my experience of getting sucker-punched in Middlesbrough on a wet night as a teenager laid the groundwork!