Diversify your Reading

I know, we all have our favorite authors. I started writing because of those authors. They don’t have to leave your shrine. They can and probably will become more illuminated, in reality, the more you branch out.

And I don’t mean go to GoodReads and find the top 100 books of all time (by rating). Those can certainly be very good and worth reading, but I am also emphasizing you hit works you may not like. Don’t torture read; far from it. Yes, put a book down if it is actively hurting your enjoyment of the act of reading. But not all novels do that to us; those controversial ones for us personally, I mean. Some of those ‘maybe I’ll like this’ books could be ones you just somewhat enjoy, that have enough for you to cling to, so you can find things about it you may be able to appreciate.

There are some clear examples that come to mind to paint what I’m attempting to show. Babel by R.F. Kuang is an impressive work. I picked it up because it had just enough that interested me, while not being full blown science fiction or fantasy. It was more ‘dark academia’, which isn’t in my lane. By the novel’s end, I wouldn’t say I loved it; I liked it, but importantly I found it thought provoking. So much so that I actually recommended it to another writer friend of mine. I loved aspects of the novel, like its magic system, while I found other things lacking, like the characters or the plot.

And that is what struck me as momentous. We must find what we don’t like about a story, and have the ability to say why we don’t like it. As writers, we can trust our intuition on some of these topics. Even the average person who doesn’t think about writing nuance is sensitive to pacing, character depth, believability and so on. All of these things swirl in our minds while reading or watching stories unfold before us. Writers may be dissecting this stuff on the fly, determining what is worthy in this fictional world and what needs work. I don’t consider any work perfect, but I do know that there are works we come to adore so much that we overlook those flaws. Analyze those stories too; what elevated the story to such a degree?

Like most, The Lord of the Rings reached this status in my own life. But even it isn’t without flaws. And that’s not very important, truly. We aren’t picking everything apart to live pessimistic lives. I do think we are assessing where we stand with every element of a story, both the ones we love and the ones we hate. I remember how vividly I could picture the world of Middle Earth; it’s a strength that could probably never be matched. And this fact is practically universally recognized. And even then, not everyone likes tLotR. The trouble is… the people that do, they are absolute fanatics. I’m convinced it is the depth that keeps people coming back. And look, the movies without question helped grow the audience. But even before the films, the books spurred countless ‘inspired by’ copies by other authors trying to replicate the beauty of Middle Earth.

One more work that was absolutely out of my wheelhouse was Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeney. I did not expect to like this one, even analyzing some potential shortcomings early on. But wow did I end up enjoying the story by its end. I found such interesting nuggets by way of unreliable narrator, bread crumbing, subtle plot twisting, and interesting character work. It boils down to a story about failed marriage and revenge. Sounds like one big trope, but take a chance every now and then. You’ll be surprised what writers have to offer. Before reading both Babel and Rock, Paper, Scissors, my biased brain would have easily said I’d enjoy the former more. But I was wrong.

So keep discovering, keep reading. Pick a book you wouldn’t normally. You never know what you’ll learn.