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Reading for Better Fiction Writing

© Kelli Brooke Haywood

I am sure that you have all heard that you have to be a good reader to be a great writer. I put a lot of value in this statement. Over the years, the amount of reading that I have completed on my own and for coursework has greatly effected the way I write and the quality of my writing. There is no doubt in my mind that reading The Best American Short Stories for 2000 and 2001 helped me to understand the concepts of a good story. Also, I now know what roads other writers (who are published) are taking with their own work. However, reading classic stories like Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants," or Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," has helped me to see where short fiction has been and where it originated. Knowing these things effects the way I approach a story. In a sense, I know why I write the way I write. I also know why I enjoy reading the works that I enjoy.

So, for me it is essential to read a vast amount of material both simple and challenging to read. Through reading the work of others, I can develop a personal asethetic for my own work. By reading challenging texts, I can broaden my horizons for the amount of writing that I can comprehend. It pushes me to take my writing to a new level. For instance, currently I am reading Ulysses by James Joyce. I never dreamed I would enjoy the book. To be honest, if it hadn't popped up in my work, I would have never picked it up. I had always heard it was difficult and boring. Now that I am reading it though, I thoroughly enjoy it. It is written in a style that is Joyce's own. The style takes me away from what I am used to, and it helps me to think about my own style and what I can do to make it more of my own. Not to mention, takes on the Odyssey have popped up everywhere (the Cohen brother's new movie, Oh Brother! Where Art Thou?).

The writer Bob Hostetler wrote an article for Poet's and Writer's magazine in the Nov/Dec issue of 2000 about being an intentional reader. He provides many reasons why he thinks reading is essential to his own writing and provides a makeshift reading list for his own reading that includes everything from Angela's Ashes to C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. And not all that he reads is ficiton. I found this passage of the article the best for explaining why he chooses to pull himself through such a reading list. "I'm no magician, but I am a writer. Therefore, I afford reading a high priority in my life. I am an intentional reader, because I have discovered that intentional, varied reading regularly infuses my writing life with necessary depth and scope" (pg.69).

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