wordmonkey said:
If you plan to write fiction but don't like to read fiction, a) how will you be able to read your own fiction ('cos you have to read your own fiction many many times during the rewrite stage); and b) how will you know if you are any good if you have no frame of reference from other works of fiction you have read?
The thing to remember is that writing, while by no means ditch digging, is a job. It's got its own grind. It isn't sitting down, pounding a keyboard for a few days and HUZZAR! a materpiece springs fully formed from your consciousness. You have to work at it. Work hard. And if it's the first thing you've actually written, come to a slow realization (likely as not when you have finished your third big project) that the thing you worked so hard on at the start, really really sucks.
I fully agree with this statement. If anyone has been coincidental enough to have read most of my posts, they'll notice I mention Stephen King a lot. That's because I'm using him as a frame of reference as I read his volume of works (again for the second time. The last time I read his earlier works was 15 years ago, so I think I was due for another run eventually...) And I do believe it has been a grind at times. Pulling my hair out in realization about certain grammar rules, word choices, phrases etc. I've already had to chuck several voluminous manuscipts, many short stories and a handful of screenplays after learning the ropes (and continuing to learn) on plot development and writing and narrative style.
It sucks to chuck. That is the ultimate "F" "U" to yourself as an individual. All that time spent is now in the dump, or worse, hanging around in your file cabinet, waiting to be perused by you. Bad still, knowing all the people you showed it too and regret it in embarassing passion, much akin to getting pantsed in the back of the gym when only a few are looking.
So I read to see how and why it works. One of the trickiest things I have now realized is the editing. Just from reading. I have come to grips with why:
"He had taken"
is better served with the words: "He took"----at least for my writing. Might not work for yours.
That is what I learned from reading Stephen King's Salem's Lot, his second published novel. All that stuff was never caught on my radar until I actually looked at my sentences and noticed a drastic difference...why does his sentences look better in paperback form, or heck, even hardback? Well, because he omits needless words. Now, as of today, I'm going back and editing my stuff to ratchet up the professional level.
I hear omit needless words; I've looked it over and studied it in Elements of Style. I've noticed it on the message boards too. But really, it has only impacted me when I seen it performed in—when I was at my most vulnerable and impressionable—a book I was reading.
Monkey See, Monkey Do.
