: Re: Can I be a good writer without reading a lot? This may seem like blasphemy to a lot of you, but can I become a good writer without doing incredible amounts of reading? I never read for

@Welton431

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Short answer: Possibly, are you a genius with lots of time?

Long answer: I guess you could ask the same question about any field. Can I be a good painter without looking at other paintings? Can I be a good carpenter without looking at other cabinets? Can I be a good architect without looking at other buildings. (Fyi: I refuse to enter the building of an architect who has never seen a building before because he's probably some sort of sentient alien lightform or something.) Could I be a good zookeeper without watching other people zookeep?

Yes, I suppose you could be, but you'd basically be reinventing the wheel. Literally, if you're an engineer making a car without actually looking at a car. Unless you're a natural genius, (which you could be and if you are congrats!) I think it would take take you significantly more time to get good by yourself (as judged based by a book-reading world) then it would to just read a little more.

That said, if you want to speed up your progress and focus your reading time, I would suggest reading some books on how to write well. On Writing by Stephen King is popular on over-all creative writing. For nonfiction, I enjoyed On Writing Well by William Zinsser. The Elements of Style by Strunk and White is good for the basic building blocks. For mortaring the building blocks together, I took a class that used Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup to great effect.

...wow, man, that sounds like a lot reading, huh? =) Guess you're not going to escape that whole reading thing entirely. But good news! I think you'll find that the more you read, the faster you'll get and more you'll read in one go.

Good luck!

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