Just speaking from my own experience, I found that reading good writing was absolutely essential to my development as a writer. When I first started writing, I largely aimed to imitate the style and tone of writers that I admired. As time progressed, I began to develop my own "voice," but I don't think that my authorial voice could ever have come into its own without those earlier exercises in imitation.
I think reading is somewhat important to becoming a writer, but it isn't top priority. Reading essentially introduces you to new ideas in such a format that you can take time to digest and go over, and also influences one's style. It is essential for all writers, but how much reading is required depends on each writer, I would assume.
More important, I think, is what we find in living life itself. Once again, this is more for certain writers than others, but I think living one's own experiences is more important for 'good' writing and than reading of another's for any writer.
Reading too much can make one absent-minded and not unique. Life is the only thing where any artist can be original. Artists are essentially thieves always out for stealing. Originality exists only as a synthesis of ideas, and while the ideas may come from reading that ability to synthesize, to make original art, comes from life: the beauty of life.
I say for fiction writers and historical non-fiction writers, reading is very important. But for one who writes memoirs, then reading other memoirs really isn't that important aside from developing style.
Reading, helps you understand whats called the "Style" and "Usage" ...
To be a good writer, you have to "Understand" ... Feel, be Sincere, be Original, and Talk from your heart ... not through the Quill ... what only makes you a Reporting Journalist.
I consider Reading as an absolute necessity to be a good writer. You can learn many things from good writing especially on the topic of your choice, to develop your own unique style, and appropriate use of the language.
I believe reading is a very important thing for a writer or aspiring writer to do.
Personally, I learned to write by reading, reading, reading, and by reading again and again.
Also, even though I have been a writer for a number of years, I learn something new about the craft nearly every day -- from reading the works of others.
I do believe that reading is the mainstay of a good writer. I didn't really start writing until about 2 years ago and found that reading a lot stimulated me and gave me a fresh approach in my writing. It is all very well to have a vivid imagination but without reading I believe we do not get the fundemental training to portray exactly what it is we want to portray.
It is very important as you can write better and compare or co-relate in your writing experiences you have read somewhere and attracted you.Reading and writing goes parallel,One is not possible without other.
Bhawana
Pretty much as important as oxygen is to living . Pretty darn important one would think ! Than again humans have the tendencies to grow up with a huge nr of false beliefs . Beyond the humour , reading is i think the most important factor to improving your writing skills .
Very important. You would be surprised to see how much you can learn just about structure if you read more. That and you will pick up on techniques.
by Marie Hurt 12 years ago
Are good writers always good readers?Every writer I have known has been a pretty avid reader. Do you think that being a reader is necessary to being a good writer?
by Tim Mitchell 7 years ago
How important is reading to become a good writer?
by Carly Sullens 10 years ago
Recently, there was a thread of someone complaining about Hub of the Days lacking amazing writing skills. Their complaint stated the Hubs being selected were because they were niche driven and 'how too's' instead of stellar writing from the soul. The day he posted that, it was my hub that was...
by Devika Primić 10 years ago
How do you know if you are a Good Writer?Writers write daily or when they want to write. Do you think there is a kind of perfection in writing?
by Cynthia 12 years ago
How do you know when you're a good writer?
by tenet 12 years ago
How to become a good writer? Do I need to read a lot first before becoming one?
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |