The Emperor Ponders: "The Psychology of Reading"

Fellow Puppy of the Month alumnus the Emperor/the Frisky Pagan takes on a classic bit of writing advice:

In a previous post, I mentioned I believe the usual advice given to writers (or, rather, to people who want to write) may not be that good, if not downright useless. And if one wants to be controversial, you might as well start with a big bang: 

“Read a lot. Reading will make you a better writer,” or variations of the same. It seems logical, common-sensical. But if you think about it, it’s a bit like saying that if you want to be a good musician, you should listen to a lot of music, or look at many paintings if you want to be a painter. A kind of craftsmanship by osmosis. 

Of course, musicians listen to music, and painters look at the works of other people, but we know it’s not enough to do that to become skilled in their domains. But many people find it harder to accept that it may also apply to writing. And a good example would the people who may have read thousands of books and then decide to try their luck writing something. And they fail. Either it sucks or can’t get past the first page. Then they believe they lack talent or something like that, because, after all, they should have been good at it since they have been reading all their life.

No, it’s just that it was, literally, the first time you tried writing anything. Of course you didn’t succeed. If there’s a correlation between reading and writing skill, it’s probably weaker than we suspect, and most likely mediated by other factors.

Check out the rest at his blog.