Does more reading = better writing/critiquing?

[Metroidvania]

As the title says, do you think reading more fiction, be it of amateur or professional nature...makes you better qualified to write your own fic and/or critiquing others?

[mondu_the_fat]

Yes, but only up to a certain degree.

Reading extensively will let you see if work A is better than work B. Given enough to read, you will begin to see a trend on what is good (at least in your eyes) and what is not. If you see work X is hardly readable, then work Y has perfect grammar, you will come to the conclusion that, at least with regards to spelling and grammar, works like Y are better than X.

However, all of this has some bias. No matter how well-written something is, if you don't like a genre, it will be hard to make an objective assessment. I can't stand Sonic the Hedgehog, and its highly unlikely that I will be able to give a good critique on a sonic fanfic unless its utterly fantastic. Likewise, the romance novels my sister picks up make me want to throw up with the number of times the woman gets "ravished"; on the other end I can't convince her to appreciate any of my Marcus Van Heller books. A bored reader misses details and maybe even the entire message of what an author is trying to say.

As for writing, being well-read makes you able read your own work and judge if it is good... sometimes. The existence of Mary Sue is proof positive that authors can be blind to how bad their work really is. And some simply have no patience or talent for it -- being well-read does not change that.

[lwf58]

Yes, more reading will make you a better writer -- if you read works by professional authors.

It'll expand your vocabulary, give you an idea of how to punctuate, and give you examples of what is or is not good.

However, if all you ever read is fan fiction, you'll just as likely to pick up on all the mistakes fan fiction usually contains and repeat them.

I read fan fiction for entertainment, not to find stellar examples of English grammar.

[Dumbledork]

I'm not sure. I've read hundreds of fics over the last 3 years and I have my favourite authors of course. But when it comes to writing... well, I still hesitate to post the new chapter of my fic. I think I'm afraid of the possible negative reactions of the readers. I know how a good fic should be written and I can easily recognize which authors have the best writing skills. But I think I'm unable to emulate them. When I look at what I've written, I get the impression that it misses a soul, that it's bland.

[Daniel Jess Gibson]

As the title says, do you think reading more fiction, be it of amateur or professional nature...makes you better qualified to write your own fic and/or critiquing others?

I was going to give a knee-jerk answer of 'no', only actually writing makes you a better writer (fortunately, I couldn't log on that computer, hmm Windows Vista is actually is good for something).

Then I read more carefully and saw you said 'qualified', not skilled.

Nothing beyond access to writing tools qualifies you to write a story or critique. I know people with PhDs in English, and I wouldn't take their word on what is a good story, with a gun to my head. Likewise someone with poor English skills can point out that something 'doesn't sound right', without knowing you were misusing the pluperfect tense.

Reading the best and most skilled wordsmiths will give you some skills in your writing and critiquing skills. With all due respect to lwf58, some professional fiction doesn't come up to the level of the best written fanfiction.

The best way to improve is still to actually write, and receive comments, then actually look at them objectively and realizes where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

But qualifying you? All you need is an opinion or idea and a way to express it.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

The Renaissance is generally considered the peak of the painterly arts; and most of those artists learned through apprenticeship and copying. That is to say, through exposure to art and the procedures of art.

Now I'm not going to say being well-read makes you a better writer/critic. But being unread guarantees you can do neither. So your potential rises as you read, even if it's only a possibility.

It's also important to read bad stuff, if only to catch yourself when you start to do it.

[Sky]

Now I'm not going to say being well-read makes you a better writer/critic. But being unread guarantees you can do neither. So your potential rises as you read, even if it's only a possibility.

I think Ellen came close to nailing it.

Reading is not, in and of itself, all that is needed to be a better writer. One also has to write and critique as well, and giving critiques is a skill. Sometimes, I want to leave a review on FF.net but can't because I don't know what to say.

Reading well written (fan-)fiction gives you an idea of what's good, but it may not necessarily tell you why it's good. Stories that are heavily regarded may be well written works, but its not always obvious that the way that the author managed his/her characters or plots are what makes it a good story. I've seen terrible stories with impeccable grammar and spelling. I've also seen riveting stories that needed deciphering. Focusing on grammar and spelling, to me, is losing the forest for the trees.

[Rei-chan]

I read quite a lot personally, though the vocabulary I utilize probably doesn't indicate such namely because I have a terrible memory for spelling, and I think it helps me be able to craft stories of my own better. Of course I am mostly speaking of reading professional works but fanfiction can help as well, particularly in spotting bad writing habits a person would like to avoid. I also believe being well read gives you more knowledge of what works, what doesn't, what referances people might get, and the ones could offend. I find its helped a good deal of writers (state's poet laurete(sp?), and another local author I know) I've personally met as well, since they have said they were inspired by what came before.

I don't know if it helps with criticizing much, partially because some great works of literature had grammar and such of a substandard nature. I personally can not read a good deal of stuff from Mark Twain for the horrible dialogue grammar since it takes me 10 minutes to figure out what the hell was even said. Most critics I've had to deal with only seemed to center on the perfect grammatical rules which aren't exactly the most important thing to a story when the tale is the thing, to paraphrase Shakespeare.

[ToastedPine]

Grammar is supposed to help the reader understand better, it's not supposed to get in the way. Obsessing about grammar is the same as obsessing about whether or not your reader can understand your story, which is something I think anyone who cares about telling a tale should do. Putting it another way, grammar is like the rules to any sport: you don't have a game if you don't know how to play.

That said, grammar is difficult. I can't even get my tenses straight half the time. >_<

[Materia-Blade]

I won't say that reading makes you a better writer, but I will say it makes an incredibly skilled critic.

I've met and talked to some of the most skilled authors out there, having read some of the best written stories online. Then I've read fics that claim to have been pre-read or edited, or corrected by those fics and found them to be utter crap.

I'm not sure if excessive reading makes you a good writer, but I will say that being a good writer most definitely does NOT equal a good critic of other writers.

For the most part I agree with Mondu. It makes you good up to a certain point. After that you have to fill in the rest.

I will say from experience that if you, for some reason, stop reading, then your skill will definitely decrease. So I suppose I agree with Ellen too.

What I used to do was read all of the worst fics I could find and try to catch every error in them, no matter what type, to keep myself from doing the same. Worked pretty well I suppose.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

What I used to do was read all of the worst fics I could find and try to catch every error in them, no matter what type, to keep myself from doing the same. Worked pretty well I suppose.

Yes, that works well. And you don't have to read the whole thing - just enough that you flinch when that particular mistake happens. Sometimes, if the story is better than the grammar, I'll even edit or rewrite them. I get practice, and get to read a better story. As for the authors, they started by using somebody else's work. They got no complaint, as long as I don't publish my revisions.

And then again, sometimes it's the FFnet parser instead of the author.

[bissek]

If you see enough examples of bad writing, and can understand why it is bad, then you can learn to avoid those mistakes. But reading a lot of good writing might not help you learn how to write better, only how to write good derivative works. You can't learn how to make a good original work by studying other people's works, as originality cannot be copied by definition.

So reading a lot can help you avoid being a bad writer, but it can't make you a good one in and of itself.

[claymade]

If you see enough examples of bad writing, and can understand why it is bad, then you can learn to avoid those mistakes. But reading a lot of good writing might not help you learn how to write better, only how to write good derivative works. You can't learn how to make a good original work by studying other people's works, as originality cannot be copied by definition.

So reading a lot can help you avoid being a bad writer, but it can't make you a good one in and of itself.

That's true... if "originality" is a kind of mystical spark that ex nihilo manifests within the craniums of the chosen ones. If not, though, then we must ask ourselves where "original" ideas come from, what kind of environment fosters them and eases their growth.

In my experience, careful scrutiny of my own "original" ideas reveals all kinds of bits and pieces that are very clearly taken from all the stories and plot-lines that I've ingested over my life. They've passed into my stomach and have been broken down, digested into tiny molecular components--to be later recombined into various story ideas of my own.

Now, assuming that I'm at least somewhat representative--and not merely a stunted pretender, bereft of the true writer's birthright--how would one go about fostering this "originality"? Well, it seems to me that a clear method for increasing the uniqueness of one's works would be to expand the breadth and variety of that pool of molecular story components, providing more diverse combinations that they can be fitted together in.

And how could one do that?

Well... by reading a lot, for one.

[Sunshine Temple]

As has been stated by others, reading helps your writing skills. It's not the only factor of course, but if you expose yourself to more writing one can gauge more from the craft.

As Larry said what you read counts. Personally, if you want to read to get grammatical and mechanical help then something above your current skill level is recommended, and the problem with fan fiction in that regard is no quality control.

Though I suppose I wouldn't advise reading Harlequin Romance novels either.

There's also the style of reading. If you are reading quickly and not getting as much of a feel for the minutia of word choice and punctuation, then your reading isn't going to help you with those tasks at all.

If you're reading in that style but are concerned with more global factors like plot and character progression, then an argument could be made that you are actually being exposed to those elements.

Now Dumbledork, a negative reaction from readers comes in two sources: complaining morons and valid points. One is just a nature of the world, as nitwits and jerks are everywhere.

But if you want to improve then having someone read your work and then tell you what's wrong, well that's kinda the whole point.



For Bissek, I kind have have to agree. What makes you a good writer? Well researching your subject matter, considering your plot, doing some world building, reading up on other books in the style or genre, those all help.

But for writing it's really practice. That's how any learned skill works.

One gets better by honing their ability, and that is done by using it. Your writing improves by writing, and then being able to learn from the mistakes of what you just wrote.

Once you do that you write some more.

The hard part is figuring out what you did wrong and how to correct that.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

Though I suppose I wouldn't advise reading Harlequin Romance novels either.

Harlequin Romance is rather like pornography - in an apprenticeship kind of way. The publishers demand not quality, but competence and speed. It's an open secret that some writers will bang these things out when they are just starting, or when they need a quick buck. That's what pseudonyms are for.

As a result, the quality of writing can be all over the place, but usually competent. It's the editing you might miss out on.