Let’s Talk Bookish: Writing as a Reader

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022.

Let’s Talk Bookish always has such interesting prompts! I really do love doing these, and I love thinking about the different questions that get raised. And writing as a reader…well, as well as reading and reviewing, I write fiction, too! At the moment I’m actually doing NaNoWriMo, and I’m proud of my progress and absolutely loving the novel I’m drafting. Well, enough about that – let’s dig in!

Let’s Talk Bookish November 17th
Writing as a Reader

Prompts: What are your favorite kinds of writing? How has being a reader shaped your writing? Are there certain books that have impacted your writing style? How does your reading connect to your writing?

I’m going to take ‘favourite kinds’ as in what I like to write. And I like to write fiction, first. I always have, ever since I was a kid and would make up stories, as soon as I learnt to write them down I did. I’ve had some short stories published, and currently have some longer works I’m submitting. I do like writing my blog, of course, and stuff for Divination Hollow, too. Basically, if it’s a topic I want to talk about, I love to write about it! I have been trying to get into journaling, but I really need to make more of a habit out of that.

I think being a reader really has shaped my writing – I think all writers start as readers, or should, anyway. If you don’t love losing yourself in a fictional world, why write it? But yes, reading helps, too – you can find turns of phrases that impress you and make you want to work on your own, or maybe something in a book sparks off a tiny flame of an idea, or even reading a great book can help push you to want to improve your own writing. And for all writers out there, reading is crucial to writing, no matter what stage of your journey you’re at.

I wouldn’t say certain books have impacted my style, as such. I think when you start out writing, you want to look at as many different texts as you can – there’s a reason so many writing lessons and groups etc look at extracts! And I think you really have to find what works for you. Maybe you enjoy writers who spend sentence after sentence on description, on really setting out the scene, and want to mimic that. Or you read something a bit sparser and enjoy the feeling it gives you, or maybe you’re trying to capture a particular mood and come across a book that does it really well, and it unlocks something about how you can do it, too. I will say, there are books that I think have helped me improve as a writer, especially books out there that are about writing! I list some of them on the Resources for Writers page over on my editing site, but I think probably the best ones that come immediately to mind as The Emotion Thesaurus and Stephen King’s On Writing.

And when it comes to reading, all reading can help influence your own writing! For the reasons above, but maybe you’re writing horror, in which case reading horror and knowing what’s been done, what’s overdone, what’s been released in the last couple of years, can help you shape your own work. Maybe you were planning a unique take on Frankenstein, but if you don’t see what’s been released in the last decade, you’ll miss if there’s been ten different ‘takes’ on that classic already. Or maybe you notice a trend that seems to be landing well, and have something that matches with it…

I could go on and on about this topic – as mentioned above I think it’s incredibly important for writers to be readers, and I think there are thousands of reasons why! What about you? Whatever kind of writing you do, how do you think reading has shaped it?