Harry's Creative Writing Class: Why You Should Read

           “The key to becoming a great writer is to develop a large creative reservoir from which to pull from. How do you do that? You need to consume. Consume art. Books, movies, TV shows, music. Consume all of it. Different genres, different mediums. But as a writer, the most important medium to consume is the written word. Not just books, but any written stories. Short stories, novellas, novels. If you want to write, you need to love reading.”

​

            I took a deep breath, allowing that message to sink in. “Who here loved reading as a child?”

​

           In a room full of Creative Writing students, nearly every hand went up. “And who still loves to read?”

​

           A significant portion of the hands fell down. I paused again, allowing the students to look around and see how many had lost their love of reading at some point between childhood and this moment.

​​

      “I also lost my love for reading,” I admitted. “It started Freshman year of high school. For several years, I only read what was required of me for class, and sometimes not even that. But in my final year of high school, I had a professor suggest a book to me. It was part of a genre I had never read, but still had interest in. Horror. Since the beginning of high school, I had been a huge horror movie buff, watching all the classics, all the must-watches, even a lot of the bad ones. It had never occurred to me that my love for the horror genre might be able to cross mediums. But it did! I read The Institute by Stephen King, and, slowly at first, I began reading more and more. I started reading other genres. Classics I had never read, fantasy, historical fiction, even some romance.

​

      “That first year that I started reading again, I read maybe 2 or 3 books. The next year, I read 10 to 15. By my 2nd year of college, I had managed to read 75 books in a single year. Now, it is not necessary to fall head over heels for reading at such a fast pace. But when you rediscover that love, it is a revelation. And the more I read, the more I felt inspired to write. I was able to come up with more ideas. I found inspiration for my voice, as I mixed and matched the voices of my favorite authors, combining them with my own to find my own writing style that felt unique to me. And all this time, I didn’t stop watching movies or TV shows or listening to music or playing videogames. Especially not videogames. I kept enjoying all those other genres and being inspired by them, but books added so much richness and inspiration on top of what I was already enjoying.

​

      “Trying out a new genre is only one way to rediscover your love for reading. I highly recommend it, if you love a certain genre in another medium, maybe try reading it. But maybe you need a social motivation. Maybe joining a book club or just reading with friends. What facilitated my jump from 10 to 15 books to 75 books in a year was the fact that I started tracking the books I read. At first I just used a spreadsheet, and seeing the number of books I read go up and up was incredibly satisfying and encouraged me to read more. Then I downloaded Goodreads, and suddenly my friends could see how much I was reading, encouraging me to read even more. Of course, not everyone will want their friends knowing just how much they are reading, but it will encourage some. The key is finding what that is. Maybe it is just the search for inspiration that encourages you to read. The knowledge that the act of reading can make you a better writer. Take that motivation, whatever it is, pick up a book, and start reading.”

​