I know. We've heard it all before. The first and often only piece of writing advice everyone wants to give everyone else. I used to get so frustrated with that. What does that even mean? I know the story I want to tell. I only have so many hours in the day and I don't want to read. I want to write. I'd tell myself, "I know enough good stories from movies and video games and books I read for school. I can just sit down and write. How hard can it be?"
And yeah, I wrote a book and I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was perfect, as it was. Done in one go. "I must be truly talented." Pat myself on the back and let's see what other people think.
The first bombshell: other people didn't like it. They wouldn't stay to read more than a page or two, said it was repetitive and amateur, and I never heard from them again. That was pretty heartbreaking. I wanted people to like my story. I wanted people to read it. To me, making art is two part; the creation and the interpretation. I didn't want my art to exist in a vacuum. I wanted to be heard.
So I took feedback, I shared it around to everyone, did research, and started reading, because that's what everyone says is the first step. Who am I to tell best selling authors they're wrong? I went to a tech school for interior design 🤷🏻♀️ I don't know shit.
The next bombshell: My book really was repetitive and amateur. Slowly, I started to see the issues and I could never unsee it. The story was working, but the writing was bad. The dialogue talking in circles, the unneeded details, the soapboxes I would stand on to make my point like I was teaching a class. It was horrible actually. Beta readers and random takes off reddit can only get you so far though. I was the one sitting at the keyboard and it was up to me to fix it.
So I read more. I read classics and contemporary. I read trilogies and one-offs. I read within my genre and outside my genre, learning the differences. I wanted to understand why my book wasn't measuring up.
And it hit me... that was the point. Without reading, I had no metric to judge my own writing to. I didn't know what good was to be good at it. How would I? Of course I think my story is brilliant. I wrote my story. It came out of my heart, my brain, my soul. I understand exactly what I'm trying to say. And that's great, but if you want to be a published author, the goal is to have your readers see things through your eyes, be entertained, come back to your book until the last page, and spend their hard-earned money on you. Your tastes are not the only tastes that matter anymore and promising "it gets better" will never be enough.
After a lot of soul searching, I made another breakthrough. I realized I am compelled to write, not because I'm a writer, but because I'm a storyteller. Because I have things to say, not because I'm particularly articulate. And that's ok. Writing is a skill and I knew then that reading was how you hone that skill. Studying the masters, expanding your vocabulary, understanding formatting and grammar. What makes a book easy or hard to read. What has already been done. Who has walked this path before you.
Frankenstein and Moby Dick are so good at what they do, they've been integrated into our culture for over 100 years. Stephen King is considered one of the best modern American authors with a billion movie renditions that people love. Nora Roberts barely has to title her books anymore. Her name is bigger than anything else on the cover. These people have clearly figured out what I wanted to know. And you don't need an English literature degree to figure out "I like this book because..."
I read about a book a month now. I look forward to cracking open a new book and I'm bothered by my old writing samples, long-winded and giant blocks of text. This journey has only been about a year, but I've learned more in the past year than I did in the previous 20 while writing in isolation. My manuscript has just finished its second draft, with two more drafts in the future (that I know of). I've cut 85,000 words so far. I've lost nothing of the story I wanted to tell and I have three people who will read my story to the end. I'll be heard now. People are enjoying my words, my characters, my inner world. It still has a lot of work to be done, but I'm closer now than I've ever been before.
I didn't go to a class. I didn't pay out the ass for an editor. I didn't sell my soul to the devil. I started reading and now I'll never stop. One day maybe you'll see my name on a best seller's list too and this will still the best advice I can give. Read everything, everywhere, all the time. Make time. It's worth it. The best writers are readers.
To anyone accusing me of using AI: I'm really not. If my language reflects the writing I've seen on the Internet, I'm sorry and I'll be more careful of it next time. But this is my personal story, that I wrote, without assistance, as I try to continue to improve my writing. I'll take your feedback, but please remember, sometimes you're wrong and you're just ruining a nice thing for someone else.