Every month, I run an article in my blog (ReadWriteInspire.com) featuring an author’s recommendation of books that would be helpful to fellow authors. This particular series of blog posts have led to a variety of interesting discussions with fellow writers. Can a writer, who exclusively reads in Hindi, write in English? Would a writer’s originality get corrupted if he reads while writing fresh words of fiction? Is it necessary for a writer to read in the genre he writes? Should a writer read only in the genre he writes? Can a writer read for joy? Should a writer make notes on sentence structure, characterisation, setting and plotting while writing? Finally, the all-important holy grail of all questions: Is it necessary for a writer to read?
All these questions have a single answer: There are no rules to reading. You can read any book, at any time, anywhere or not read at all. You don’t have to justify your choices or even abide by them. You can read a book again and again or you can abandon it unfinished. You can read in print or digitally. You can read while eating or shitting or both. There are simply no rules for reading.
Similarly, there are no rules to writing. You can write anywhere, anytime, on anything, with anything. You can write in any language you prefer though you may have never read a word of it. You can even create a language of your own and write your novel in it. Of course, there are no rules for writing or reading.
The problem arises only if you want to share your writing with another. If you want another person to read your work and feel the emotions that you are trying to convey, then you must communicate in a manner that begets understanding. After all, what else is writing but a form of communication? It is the culmination of the author’s efforts, through written words, to show us the world through their eyes and make us feel what they feel. To do that well, and to succeed in communicating perfectly, the author must be a master in language. If not, the writing will fall flat and fail the purpose for which it was created.
Before we go on any further, spend a minute and think about the reason why you write. If you write to communicate, to share your words with the world, then it would help your cause if you are a master in the communicating language. If your words are for personal consumption, and you do not intend to share your words with the public, the paragraphs that follow may serve no purpose to you.
If writing is a form of communication that necessitates proficiency in a language, then how does one go about procuring such mastery? The only way to gain enough knowledge, to write in a particular language, is by reading in that language. There is no way around this. You may be a master storyteller but your storytelling skills will not work unless you have the language to convey it in. You may be a bestselling author in Hindi but your stories wouldn’t work in English unless you have proficiency in English. Maybe, you know your grammar and can draft a sentence well, but unless you read novels written in that language, you are unequipped to craft that language in the manner necessary to write a novel in it. This is why most writers have translators even for languages that they have familiarity with.
Now that we have established the importance of reading to be an effective writer, the next array of questions starts marching in.
How should one read?
Voraciously. Avidly. Hungrily. Statistics show that the present generation is reading much more than ever before in history albeit in the form of WhatsApp messages and Facebook posts. While I’m not discounting the importance and value that can be gleaned from such reading, this cannot suffice if you want to be a writer unless you plan to excel in writing WhatsApp messages and Facebook posts. If you plan to communicate in the form of books, you need to read books.
Read across genres, across genders, across borders. Read the bestsellers and the self-publishers. Read that book written by your neighbour but also read those written by an obscure author from across the globe. Read fiction, non-fiction, biographies, children’s books. An entrepreneur never takes a day off. His mind is always focused on his business, even on a vacation. This is your business. This is your pleasure. Read every single day. Read for business. Read for pleasure. If reading does not give you pleasure, you are in the wrong business.
How should one read?
My husband, an avid reader, can never open a book completely as he is scared of damaging the spine. He can never mark in the book as that would amount to scarring it. However, he is not a writer. On the other hand, I write all around the book. Most nights, I fall asleep with a book and end up crushing it or dropping it from the bed. When I read a book, it is mine. I own it completely. It travels with me everywhere in my oversized handbag. It has my markings all around it. Sometimes, I pick it up after a couple of years and I am amazed to read all my first impressions. Some of these impressions have changed over these years. I pick up another coloured pen and repeat the process, adding on to my previous notes.
Apart from this, I have a ‘Reading Journal’ too. It consists of detailed notes from my non-fiction books and also personal and candid reviews of novels. Sometimes, I even jot down things that might help in my writing process. All that I read are not good. As a writer, you learn a lot more from bad writing than from the good.
Do not be scared to make your book your own. If you can still not bring yourself to write on a book, then consider having a journal beside you when you read.
Reading is a personal adventure. What works for me may not work for you. What works for one book may not work for another. What works in a genre may not replicate in another. For instance, it takes me just a day to read a 300+ page crime thriller but it may take me weeks to read a 200-page literary fiction. There are some classics like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights that I reread every year while there are many books that are donated as soon as I am done with it. I read most non-fiction books twice as I want to make sure that I remember and apply all that I’ve read.
I reread Rohinton Mistry’s, A Fine Balance immediately after the first reading as it was due to be returned to the college library and I wanted to make sure that I devoured as much of the book as I could before returning it. It was a decade before I finally had the money and freedom to buy the book and make it my own. Strangely, I’ve still not read my personal copy yet.
Read.
If you are a writer, you must read. If you want to be a writer, you must read. If you are not a writer and have no intention of becoming one, you must read. That is one important trait that distinguishes us from animals. Read.
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