What Do Writers Read?
By Lissa Bryan
I read EVERYTHING. If you walked into my home library, you wouldn't be able to determine a favorite genre, because I have - literally - thousands of books, both fiction and non-fiction, old and new. I have books on esoteric subjects like the history of catsup manufactures in the US (no joke) and Victorian hair jewelery. I'm the curious sort, and I'll find myself looking at an object, like a paperclip or something, and wondering who came up with the idea, and then I'm off to look for a book on the subject.
A few favorite authors:
Margaret George, Arthur Goldman, Colleen McCollough, Sharon K. Pennman (historical fiction), Alison Weir, David Starkey, Carolly Erickson, Antonia Fraser, (historical non-fiction), Jaquelyn Frank, J.R. Ward, Amy Lane, Larissa Ione (paranormal romance), Catherine Anderson, Beatrice Small, Margaret Mitchell (historical romance), Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, Phillip K. Pullman, (general fiction), Carl Sagan, Mary Roach, Susan Strasser, Stephanie Coontz, Andrea Tone (non-fiction).
In my opinion, reading has EVERYTHING to do with writing. The best writers are bibliophiles. As our mind devours each page, we're also learning the way to present a scene, to build up tension or foreshadow. Each writer has their own unique "voice", but just like a baby learning to talk, we learn by experiencing the voices of others.
The early works of Stephen King taught me how to make even a minor character come to life. With a single sentence, he could give them a personality. Emily Brontë taught me how to weave words to create a mood, and though I never quite mastered it, to make a single line into a poem. Hemingway (thought I never liked him) taught me that a description doesn't have to be effusive in order to be effective. Margaret George taught me how a fictionalized biography should be done in her magnificent Autobiography of King Henry VIII. I must have read that book twenty times and from her I learned how to make a historical figure come alive. From Arthur Golden, I learned how to introduce the reader to another culture, as he did so beautifully in his Memoirs of a Geisha.
And I also learned from authors' mistakes. Though I won't name them, there have been authors that have taught me how NOT to create a character and when it's time to end a story rather than drag it on until readers fall out of love with the characters and lose interest in the story line. Not to mention the number of historical novels that have gone unfinished when I reached my limit (admittedly quite low) for inaccuracies.
I'm still learning as I go. I don't believe any writer ever truly masters the craft; it's a lifelong journey, and if you're headed in the right direction, your work develops and improves as you go. Some authors fall by the wayside, and I think it's because they forgot that they're on the journey. They stopped somewhere along the way and pronounced themselves as having reached their destination, and they start producing the same work over and over again, with declining quality, sometimes falling into a sad state of self-parody.
I'm in talks with a publisher, so it seems I may be making the step into original fiction. I hope my readers will join me in the next phase of my journey. I'm not quite sure where we're going, but I'm betting it will be one hell of a fun ride.
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Thank you, Lissa Bryan!
