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To become a better writer, read as much as you can

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Re: To become a better writer, read as much as you can

#261

Post by protocolture »

vintagedave wrote: post #63

> Why be a writer if you don’t love reading? Why devote your intellectual and emotional energy to creating a book, when it’s a form you’re not invested in? Why write, when you aren’t steeped in wonder of storytelling? This is the key point, I think. I've seen the same as the author: people who want to be writers but rarely read books. And I don't get it. I recently finished a novel (now shopping around for agents, wh…

Yeah I have had some variant of the conversation:

>Help I need help worldbuilding to add !

>Me: Hey the authors in these 3 books do that pretty well.

>Uh thanks but can you just tell me what works?

Over and over again.

I would actually be happier if these people kept their embarrassing lack of interest in reading between themselves and their LLM>

Re: To become a better writer, read as much as you can

#262

Post by hammock »

vintagedave wrote: post #63

> Why be a writer if you don’t love reading? Why devote your intellectual and emotional energy to creating a book, when it’s a form you’re not invested in? Why write, when you aren’t steeped in wonder of storytelling? This is the key point, I think. I've seen the same as the author: people who want to be writers but rarely read books. And I don't get it. I recently finished a novel (now shopping around for agents, wh…

There is a book called “Reading Like A Writer” by Francine Prose that really helped me form a greater appreciation for reading and richness out of doing it.

Re: To become a better writer, read as much as you can

#264

Post by pitched »

jebarker wrote: post #214
PaulRobinson wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the old quip goes: people don’t want to be writers, they want to have published a book. You can turn this around as well: people don’t want to read, they want to be well read. The difference is “effort and process” versus a status. People want the label, but don’t want to do the work to get there.

I love reading, do it a lot of and per my Goodreads I’m “well read”. I’m less convinced how much I’ve learned from all the reading that would make me a better writer though. I definitely fell into the trap of wanting to have written a book myself. I grew out of that but still felt/feel like I want to write. The issue that remains is that I’m just not sure I have anything to say!

> not sure I have anything to say

You wrote something here and I read it. If you really feel it had such low value, why put it here for me to waste time reading it?

The best way I’ve found to start writing is to time box yourself. Set aside 15 minutes and just don’t let yourself do anything else.

I feel very accomplished now that I’ve wasted just as much of your time back lol

Re: To become a better writer, read as much as you can

#265

Post by DonHopkins »

andersonl wrote: post #153
mrob wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most influential work of genre fiction (Lord of the Rings) is written in a literary style by a well-read author. How many people have even heard of "Fourth Wing" in comparison?

If we consider best selling, Harry Potter wins multiple times over. HP is wonderful storytelling and world building while providing exceptionally mediocre prose. And yet it's been substantially more successful.

[flagged]

Re: To become a better writer, read as much as you can

#266

Post by nojvek »

mckn1ght wrote: post #247
nojvek wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more akin to. Why aspire to become a good chef, if you don’t enjoy culinary experiences ? Why aspire to be a director, if you don’t love watching movies and living those experiences? Many people want to build great apps, but don’t want to to debug and read code. Just let codex rip.

I’ve been debating a lot of people on that last point. A lot of anti slop professors want to bring the debate back around to the mechanical process of coding. I think that’s misguided. To me, building software is about understanding the users’ needs, knowing what UI patterns work well, how to integrate into the larger platform ecosystem, and ultimately, solving the problems the users have. Making it about debugging a…

Yeah but to build a great user experience, one ought to understand some internals about the browser or the mobile sdks.

LLMs build so much slop without much regard for mobile responsiveness or accessibility. Or coherent design systems.

Get a huge domaine hit from a prototype. The real struggle comes from maintaining the app, growing user base, making sure it’s reliable and performant.

Personally I find that vibe apps are great at prototyping. For a long lived app, deffo needs a lot of human guidance. One must have good taste to guide LLMs.

Re: To become a better writer, read as much as you can

#267

Post by wyclif »

letmevoteplease wrote: post #184
wyclif wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was quite fortunate to have an AP English teacher my senior year of high school that understood this advice, and expounded on it often. I recall that he boiled it down to one simple line: Garbage in, garbage out. What he meant by that was that it's not enough to simply read. You have to read high quality literature if you want to become a writer. You can't expect to read nothing but news, comic books, National Lamp…

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.” - Faulkner

Yeah, I'm familiar with that quote but as great of a writer as he was, I don't think Faulkner was right about this. To extend his carpentry analogy, if all you read is pulp then you are going to become a pulp producer as a writer.

Re: To become a better writer, read as much as you can

#268

Post by wyclif »

YinglingHeavy wrote: post #178
wyclif wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was quite fortunate to have an AP English teacher my senior year of high school that understood this advice, and expounded on it often. I recall that he boiled it down to one simple line: Garbage in, garbage out. What he meant by that was that it's not enough to simply read. You have to read high quality literature if you want to become a writer. You can't expect to read nothing but news, comic books, National Lamp…

Do you think the masses have a taste for anything but 'junk food' writing at this point?

Well, there's no accounting for taste. Chuck Berry, the famous rock and roller who wrote "Johnny B. Goode" saw that song get outsold by a throwaway novelty song he also wrote called "My Ding-a-Ling."

The masses may have poor taste, but writers are supposed to have higher aspirations. Writers are not the consumption public, no matter how much they try to cater to them. The writer is called to a higher standard. We are not "content creators."

Re: To become a better writer, read as much as you can

#269

Post by Detrytus »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #252
vintagedave wrote: post #63

> Why be a writer if you don’t love reading? Why devote your intellectual and emotional energy to creating a book, when it’s a form you’re not invested in? Why write, when you aren’t steeped in wonder of storytelling? This is the key point, I think. I've seen the same as the author: people who want to be writers but rarely read books. And I don't get it. I recently finished a novel (now shopping around for agents, wh…

> people who want to be writers but rarely read books. And I don't get it. Some of the best books are not from writers, but people who have something to say and writing happens to be a medium.

Well, if a person has a good story but can’t write, for example some civil rights activist, or war/catastrophe survivor, they will often use a ghostwriter to help with the actual writing.

Re: To become a better writer, read as much as you can

#270

Post by groundzeros2015 »

Detrytus wrote: post #269
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who want to be writers but rarely read books. And I don't get it. Some of the best books are not from writers, but people who have something to say and writing happens to be a medium.

Well, if a person has a good story but can’t write, for example some civil rights activist, or war/catastrophe survivor, they will often use a ghostwriter to help with the actual writing.

That’s not what I’m referring to. Good writing is not limited to professional writers, and focus on the medium can often be a distraction from good ideas.
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