Good novels deserve a better place in the life of a writer than as decoration on the ol’ TV stand. Too often, young writers will say they do not want to read that many books, especially those in the style the wish to write in.
The trouble is, just the opposite is true; to become a great romance writer, one ought to read great romances to see how the good ones are pulled off successfully. The same goes for horror, mysteries, science fiction and even general literary novels.
How could anyone hope to capture college culture without reading great previous examples of novels like that, such as Catcher In the Rye or Less Than Zero? How could anyone write well about the lives of an athlete without reading some of the better contemporary examples, such as Friday Night Lights, The World According to Garp or even Vision Quest?
Those who try to plunge into a genre of writing without reading the finest examples of those genres usually end up writing cliche-driven, boring tripe, rather than startlingly original works of fine art. There is no better education for a writing than reading, and reading a lot!
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