I’ve got to stop hanging out on X.

The writing community has, yet again, been rent apart by a schism that seems completely unnecessary.

This time they are arguing about whether an author, a writer of books, should… *checks notes*…

Read books?

Now, to anyone with half a brain, the answer to that question should be self-evident, but as with anything on X, there are a wide variety of takes that need unpicking and, in some cases, throwing out the window altogether.

We’ll start with the take that started it all. An innocuous Tweet stating that aspiring authors should be readers: https://x.com/AmericanGwyn/status/2024851381241205057

Now, I don’t believe this to be an especially ‘hot’ take, but, as with anything on the internet, it seems to have upset a few people.

The word ‘gatekeeping’ has been rolled out again. As if the ability and willingness to read is somehow an elitist concept. These days, around 1 in 6 (7 million people) in the UK are functionally illiterate (according to the UK government website) That’s about 18%, which, on reflection, seems high, but I doubt any of those people have a desire to write a book.

The fact is that most people are literate, a wonderful side effect of schooling, and can read if they wish. So, it comes down to a choice. To read, or not to read. No one is stopping you, and conversely, no one is holding a copy of War and Peace to your head.

Now, my own opinion on the debate is that a writer should read, should enjoy reading, and feel part of the literary world to which they wish to contribute. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Which brings me to the next point the other side raises.

In the distant past, before the printing press, before the pen and quill, when man was beginning to hammer cuneiform shapes into the rock, no one knew how to write, but they did anyway. They wrote without reading, so why can’t I?

A fair point, but to that I ask.

Have you read anything from that time?

It’s awful.

Don’t get me wrong, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne is a cracking story, but the writing… oh my. It simply wouldn’t pass muster today.

You see, as with any field of study, craft moves on. You learn, you improve upon what has come before, and as time goes by, standards begin to emerge. Reader expectations evolve, and the products improve.

An old university lecturer used to say to us, “We see so far, because we stand on the shoulders of giants.” I believe he was paraphrasing Sir Isaac Newton, but the point remains.

If you don’t read what has come before, you are starting yourself at ground level. At a disadvantage. You could have the best story of the year. A wonderful high-stakes, emotional rollercoaster, that will have readers laughing one minute and sobbing the next. A story where, by the last page, your hapless reader is sitting in quiet contemplation and has begun to question their life choices.

But if your writing sucks, they won’t get past page one, and even if they do, you haven’t written it well enough for peak emotional impact.

So, how will you know if your writing sucks or not if you don’t read books in which the writing does not suck? Asking your equally reading adverse friends is not going to tell you. How will they know? They have nothing to compare it to.

Filmmakers watch other films, painters look at other paintings, and video game developers play other games. Why? We’ll firstly, because they enjoy it, and secondly, to learn.

I often read a book and think to myself, ‘How did they do that? How did they make me feel that way?’ and I unpick it, figure it out, and try to replicate it in my own work*. It’s how you grow as a writer. No craft book in the world can teach you that. You must experience it yourself.

Now, it wouldn’t be fair not to address the wild assertions thrown around by the other side of the argument, and they’ve made some doozies.

The first patently ridiculous assertion is that there’s some magic number of books you should read to be a writer.

Some have plucked numbers seemingly out of the air, while others have pulled them out of a darker place below their lower back and above their knees.

Twenty-five books a year has been suggested, as well as the wildly impractical one hundred books in the same time frame. Two books a week? Really? When will I have time to write?

As a father of two in full-time employment, reading a single book in a month is hard going. Taking my children to clubs, the park, keeping my house tidy, making sure dinner is cooked and cleaned away, spending time with my wife… I get thirty minutes a day to read (I take my book to work and read on my lunch break). Any other free time is spent hammering out the next novel.**

In my youth, before children and bills, I read a book a week, easily. But as time progressed, and life entered its serious phase, time for that diminished. I still read, because I enjoy it. I’m not forcing myself to because I feel I should be reading, but I can tell you, I’d be a much shittier writer if I didn’t.

So, in closing, writers should be readers, but to put an actual number on it is ludicrous. Read what you want, when you want, at the pace you want. But for heaven’s sake, read. Read to learn from those that came before, from those that are writing now, and improve upon it.

We see so far because we stand on the shoulders of giants.

And if you can’t be bothered with the climb, you’ll remain at the bottom.

J

*with varying degrees of success.

** or playing video games