: Re: How do I become a better writer when I hate reading? I like telling stories, but I don't care so much for reading them. It's not for me. But the number one advice to become a better author

@Hamaas631

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Back when I was a teen I used to read a lot, I carried that on until I started writing, when I started noticing that I was carrying the voice of what I had read into what I was writing, and I disliked the feeling of that. So I stopped reading fiction.

I do seem to be unique in that, and maybe that is why I’m not a successful author.

However, I do enjoy language, I enjoy the feel, and the taste, and the sound of words. I like to understand the mechanics of how they fit together. That knowledge helps me to watch how people use words. To understand the nuance of how people express themselves.

Writing is purely about sharing a story with someone else. We tell stories to people every day, we hear stories from people every day. These are the important skills in my eyes. Sure by reading novels you’re going to pick up on how novels are generally constructed. You’ll learn lots by reading.

But I do believe those skills can be gained in other ways. Fortunately we live in a world of text, it is easy to engage with people using words, I found doing things like chatting to people online can be a huge useful way of exploring the mechanics of words

I also placed an advert in the local paper looking for an editor, I was lucky - after much searching - to find someone who would take a small fee for letting me bonce ideas off and give proper critiques of what I wrote.

But that was me, those are the things that fitted developing my style and ideas.

You need to find out what fits you, it starts by just getting on with it and writing. Maybe you’ll be good enough to get published, maybe you won’t. That seems like the same odds as every other unpublished author. Just get out there and learn in a way that fits you.

Maybe all of the voices here are right, maybe you can’t write if you don’t read. But then again, maybe you’ll be the person to prove that wrong.

Good luck

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