Discovering a Love for Reading
By M. C. Oliver
I truly believe that God's calling for me is to become a writer. However, for some reason, I've never had a liking for reading. I can get reading but I have a hard time keeping reading. Well, God took me on a small little road trip in April to show me what reading can truly do if I only take the time to do it.
While listening to the Masterclass Interviews from my Young Writers Workshop (YWW), I discovered that every writer was first a reader. I had listened to a short lesson from one of the instructors (I can't remember which one) explained that to be a good writer you must be a good reader and read broadly. That is always one of their greatest writing tips. To read broadly.
Well, I never really understood what that meant and, besides, I didn't want to read broadly. I tend to fall asleep reading nonfiction (I'm being serious, I really do no matter how hard I try to stay awake) so I didn't want to read that. But it sounded like reading broadly meant reading non-fiction, which is true.
One day, I was listening to the YWW interview of Andrew Peterson (who wrote The Wingfeather Saga, something you must read) where (to my surprise) he said, "Writing wasn't always a love for me but reading always was. I don't ever remember a time in my life when I wasn't fascinated by stories. And whether I was reading comic books or movies or records I loved music, especially music that told stories."
Then I listened to an interview of Kara Swanson the author of a short story, a novella, and three novels: "Pearl of Merlydia", The Girl Who Could See, Dust and Shadow (her Peter Pan retelling series), and Ignite. You should totally go read all her books. They are amazing!
But anyway, I was listening to her interview where she explained that she was a homeschooled missionary kid. She and her family lived on an island above Australia named Papua New Guinea where they lived with a tribe. She explained that because it was hard for her to find someone who spoke English there, stories/books became her "[. . .] best friends, in a sense".
She says, "I would read a lot to both understand the world around me and everything that I wasn't necessarily able to touch beyond the little tribe in which I was living. But also, because I loved the imagination. I loved worldbuilding. I loved being able to get transported into unique places. [. . .] My father, probably, was a big part of the reason why I had a love for reading because he would read to us every night before we went to bed. I was homeschooled so part of it was curriculum, but he would basically read one book that was part of the curriculum and then he would switch it out with something that he chose. So, I remember that he read everything from the Chronicles of Narnia to Anne of Green Gables to, you know, a very wide variety."
Then there were two authors, Rachel Coker and Tommie Michele (I don't think Rachel mentioned reading, but Tommie did) Tommie Michele said, "COVID hit when I was 8th grade, and I was stuck at home for the entire second half of my 8th grade year. And I was bored. Loved to read [. . .]"
The last part of my conclusion to try to read more was my instructor/co-founder of the Young Writers Workshop and co-author of the book Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations (absolutely recommend this read) whose name is Brett Harris. He was doing a short lesson on How to Develop Your Unique Writing Style. He recommended reading broadly (a phrase I finally grasped after listening to Kara Swanson describe it with her dad) and that reading broadly from all these different authors will eventually blend together with your own personality and will become your writing style. Apparently, Benjamin Franklin practiced this to become a good writer himself.
Well, my next question was: "Where do I start?!"
That's when we went to the library where I found a book titled Reading Like a Writer by Fransine Prose. I don't believe she's a Christain, but her book is still very helpful and she's a really good writer.
In this book, she describes that she would fly through stories and to better understand them would tediously dissect every sentence the author placed there. She was right that the author doesn't put each sentence there frivolously. It's carefully planned like the ingredients in a cookbook.
After discovering this, I have now finally fallen in love with reading. Before, I only wanted to listen to books or sometimes not read or listen to books at all. I didn't want to read other people's writing that much. But now I do. I hope to grow my unique writing style by reading those of others.
That's what God has done, and I've been doing better at reading and (I think) my writing is a little better too.
At the moment I have five books (okay, it's really more but these are the ones I'm starting with):
- C.S. Lewis: Master Storyteller by Janet & Geoff Benge
- Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
- The Wingfeather Saga (just the first book) by Andrew Peterson
- Enhanced by Candace Kade
- The Girl Who Could See by Kara Swanson
I'm already halfway through C.S. Lewis: Master Storyteller and I started only three days ago! I don't think I've ever really read a book that fast before! I will continue to post updates on my reading and writing to my email list. You can join by clicking the black and white envelope in the bottom right corner of your screen (if you haven't already and are interested in hearing the updates).
Thankfully, author Jaquelle Crowe said in one of her lessons, "You cannot not get better after writing for 6 months or even 6 years. You just can't." So, with time and consistency, I will hopefully become an even writer and, better yet, you are helping me do so. Thank you so much.
