Reading Is Fundamental

“If you want to write, read.”

Variations on that sentiment have been expressed my many writers over the years, and in this Internet era, it is wisdom is even more poignant than ever. The advice, as you can imagine, is most often directed at students of the written word, or to fledgling authors. But I believe it is important for any one of us who strive to improve their communication skills—oral as well as written.

When I was a child I was a frequent visitor to our Carnegie Library on Grandview Avenue in Pittsburgh, just a little more than a mile from our house on Mount Washington. I read anything that I was allowed to check out of that building, and I was so happy when I was deemed old enough to enter the room where they kept the “adult” books.

When I was old enough to earn my own money, through my paper route and a subsequent job as a delivery boy for the Village Drugstore, I was seduced by the offers for free books that came in the mail from the Book of the Month Club and The Literary Guild. Like many people, I was sometimes negligent in returning those cards that indicated you didn’t want that month’s selection, and so I received a number of books over the years that I didn’t really want.

Most of the time, however, I paid for them instead of sending them back—in part because it was my fault they had arrived, but also because I became curious as to why they were chosen as featured selections. As a result, I became exposed to some really good fiction (Loon Lake, by E.L. Doctorow, for instance, a book I loved but likely would never have chosen from the library), as well as non-fiction works such as Lindbergh: A Biography, written by Leonard Mosely less than two years after the aviator had died, and a book I never will forget simply because of its title: The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. The writing was slightly over the head of my college-aged mind, but I found the subject fascinating. That tome, written by Julian Jaynes, also taught me never to judge a book by its title.

Last year, I recommitted myself to reading on a regular basis. I was aided in my decision by a friend’s recommendation of a website called Goodreads.com. In addition to tons of book suggestions, the site contains The Book Challenge, in which visitors can commit to a certain number of books and track their progress over the course of the year. I pledged 24 books, and to challenge myself further, I decided I would alternate my reading between fictional works and books of non-fiction. This turned out to be the smartest decision I could have made. It helped my work immensely. Here are three reasons why you should follow the same pattern in your reading, especially if you are a journalist or other type of writer.

1.    Reading non-fiction opens your eyes to the value of research, while reading fiction hones your attention to detail. I discovered that, while reading such works as The Naturalist, a biography of Theodore Roosevelt, I began to think about new avenues of research for the corporate histories I’ve been writing, which led me to find things my subjects hadn’t remembered or which helped me to describe events more completely. Surprisingly, some of the same things occurred while reading fiction. Readers of fiction want to be able to see people and scenes in their mind’s eye, and so novelists are attuned to the creation of people, places and scenes in minute detail. Well, so do readers of history, and so non-fiction writers can apply the skill of the novelist to their own work in a credible and entertaining fashion.

2.    Alternating your reading engages both halves of your brain. My non-fiction reading found me using the analytical part of my mind, while reading fiction called on the creative side of the brain into action. You need both halves engaged whether you are writing a novel, a corporate history, a personality profile or a news feature. The novelist, for example, wants to keep readers engaged, but he or she also wants to be accurate when describing places that are real. Non-fiction writers want to gather any many facts as they can, but they also must be able to write in a style that won’t put the reader to sleep.

3.    Reading can be an excellent way to defeat writer’s block. The next time you are having trouble starting a feature article or a new book chapter, or you have hit the literary wall, close your laptop and pick up a book. In my case, I have discovered that studying others’ words can bring a new perspective to my own. It’s no substitute for taking a walk outside or spending the afternoon in a museum, but sometimes all I need is the cadence of another’s prose to unlock my mind and help me think more clearly.