Do reading books improve your writing skills?

[Dee Q]

Dear MRers, first of all I'm not a native speaker. In my country, English is taught as a foreign language. But honestly, I love this language head over heels and truly want to improve my writing skills. I really enjoy reading MRer's comments here because you guys all use sophisticated structure and vocabulary, which is super useful for me. Thank you! This is so much of an inspiration!

Here are some of my questions regarding the topic:
- Have any books significantly influenced your writing style?
- Have you learned a lot of grammar structure and vocabulary from books?
- What types of books would you recommend to those who want to improve their writing?

Thanks a lot!

[Lusitanic]

Me too! English is my second language! And japanese my third. I wouldn't say reading improves my writing skills, but it sure increases my english and japanese vocabulary! I love reading for the depth it gets us into the characters feelings, emotions and thoughts. And love memorizing those words, that are not used so frequently on tv shows.

[Rps]

I am an English language instructor and your question caught my eye. I always encourage my students to read .... I don't really care what you read as long as you do ... Find a gendre you like and keep reading. The more you read the more likely you are to absorb what I call friend speak ... The everyday language you will use ( which you might only get the chance to use in class ) and, depending where the book was written an insight into the cultural mind of the language ..... This is a great topic and I am glad you posted it.

[crich70]

I think I learned a lot while growing up about how proper English is written/spoken just from reading a lot of the author's who are in the Public Domain in a lot of countries. I never could quite get the grasp of things like participles and gerunds much less put them on the right part of a diagram, but I learned how writing was supposed to be written by reading books. Of course when I was in 1st grade they still used the Dick and Jane books. i.e. See Dick. See Jane. See Dick and Jane. See Spot. See Dick, Jane, & Spot. etc. but reading helped expand my vocabulary quite a bit growing up. When I was 13 I had some testing done and I already had a High School Senior's reading level. I put it all down to the joy of reading that I developed at an early age thanks to my mom who gave me my 1st library card when I was 3 and helped me read those early books. I'm sure I drove her crazy with Dr. Seuss. lol.

[fjtorres]

As a rule, yes.

Pretty much every author I have heard speak on the subject says that to be a writer you should read as much as possible; in whatever genre or field you wish to write, so you'll know what is expected in it, and in other genres and fields to understand the relative hows and whys. Plus, because reading broadly almost invariably improves your educational background and thinking skills.

Now, for colloquial *speaking* a good resource is movie and TV DVDs.
Watch a movie repeatedly, with the appropriate language and subtitles, to fine tune your hearing to the nuances of the language in question. Of course, the source material should focus on a reasonable social setting... Medical dramas and police procedurals can be very useful, urban comedies... less so.

[induna]

I have been learning Spanish as a third language since I was planning to move to Spanish speaking country. I found that reading was a huge help in acquiring vocabulary, internalizing gramatical constructions, and writing. I found novels to be the best for learning vocabulary, the best usage of the various past tenses, proper use of the subjunctive, and more subtle grammar. Newspapers are great for current usage, and, of course, many of the 'nuts and bolts' words you use day to day. I also think it is ideal to use a proper dictionary when possible, and not a translating dictionary, while reading. It also helps a lot to read good quality prose.

As far as writing goes, I found that when I had to use email quite a bit after I first moved down here, that the reading I had done helped tremendously. It wasn't very difficult at all to construct decent sentences and be understood without sounding totally foreign.

[induna]

Dupicate

[Dee Q]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Watch a movie repeatedly, with the appropriate language and subtitles, to fine tune your hearing to the nuances of the language in question. Of course, the source material should focus on a reasonable social setting... Medical dramas and police procedurals can be very useful, urban comedies... less so.

Thank you all! The quote above is a good example of those comments I've read here on MR which really brought me thrill and delight. You know, such phrases as "fine tune your hearing to the nuances of the language in question". How beautiful!

I'm particularly addicted to books written in Victorian period like "Frankenstein" or "Pride and Prejudice" (please correct me if I'm wrong) due to their flowery language use. But I'm afraid people do not really speak like that nowadays. How would you feel if I apply such language in my comments here? Would it sound natural?

I also heard that some people even learned by heart the sentences or even paragraphs they liked. Have anybody here ever done that?

Originally Posted by induna

I have been learning Spanish as a third language since I was planning to move to Spanish speaking country. I found that reading was a huge help in acquiring vocabulary, internalizing gramatical constructions, and writing. I found novels to be the best for learning vocabulary, the best usage of the various past tenses, proper use of the subjunctive, and more subtle grammar. Newspapers are great for current usage, and, of course, many of the 'nuts and bolts' words you use day to day. I also think it is ideal to use a proper dictionary when possible, and not a translating dictionary, while reading. It also helps a lot to read good quality prose.

One problem in terms of vocabulary (maybe it's just me) is that they tend to be "passive" (not used in speech or writing). Do you practice with words/phrases you pick up in books or they just go into your head and become "active" after a while?

[nickart]

Advice I've come across from a number of (fiction) writers:

Read, read, read. Write, write, write.

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Pretty much every author I have heard speak on the subject says that to be a writer you should read as much as possible; in whatever genre or field you wish to write, so you'll know what is expected in it, and in other genres and fields to understand the relative hows and whys.

Lawrence Block doesn't. Well, he does suggest that the aspiring novelist picks up half a dozen novels in the genre she wants to write in, then reads them twice (like a writer, not like a reader), then analyzes them to get a feeling for the structure beneath the words, but he doesn't believe it is strictly required. In his opinion, you can write in any genre that you can stomach reading without cringing.

He started his career in the fifties when he wrote lesbian erotica without ever having read much in the field (chiefly because it didn't really exist before as a genre) when the job opportunity came along.

I actually recommend his books on writing. Quite entertaining and insightful, and he's one of the very few authors of such books who have actually published a large number of commercial novels. There are so many authors of "how to write a novel" books that have never published anything else.

As for the question whether reading improves writing, well, yes, of course it does. The brain is a "what goes in, comes out" kind of device. I often discover brilliant ways of expressing ideas or concepts in short stories and novels, new words and phrases, or just elegant and innovative approaches.

English isn't my native language, either, though I am not sure that it matters as much as it may seem at first glance: if you are a decent writer in one language, you should do decently in the second or third language, too, at least once you have assembled enough building blocks (vocabulary, idioms, etc.), which you do by reading. Reading is like scavenging in that regard.

I believe that the brain is (or may be) language-independent in the sense that it stores information as "objects", and that words are only labels that refer to these "objects". Learning a second language "only" adds a second set of labels, and in time it will be mostly just the same. That happens when you start thinking in the "foreign" language (context-sensitive) and no longer mentally translate. For me, this occurred after a few years of intensive exposure to English. (But since I learned English mostly as an adult, and in written form before I could actually speak it, my grammar is frequently still a little German in nature.)

But it is entirely possible that I am totally off.

[induna]

Originally Posted by Dee Q

One problem in terms of vocabulary (maybe it's just me) is that they tend to be "passive" (not used in speech or writing). Do you practice with words/phrases you pick up in books or they just go into your head and become "active" after a while?

No, it's not just you. I have a larger active vocabulary when writing than speaking, probably only because I have more time while writing than while speaking. However when speaking, many of those 'passive' words tend to be used by other people in the conversation, and if I didn't know them through reading I wouldn't know what those people were saying! And when they come up, I then have the chance to use them and the become active. Reading also helps to get me thinking in terms of phrases and sentences, and not just words. Again, novels can be a big help here.

Without a doubt regular conversational practice is the only way to learn to speak well, but reading provides a solid foundation that can accelerate the process. Studying the rules of grammar can also have the same effect.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Mivo

There are so many authors of "how to write a novel" books that have never published anything else.

The ones I actually bothered with, out of curiosity, were one by Robert Silverberg and a collection of essays by SF writers on the nuances of the genre. The one that really stuck with me was from Heinlein.

I would ignore most advice from agents and other insiders. That stuff is pretty much obsolete by now.

[Freeshadow]

@Mivo

Holly Lisle is too among those who published fiction and keeps doing so, while she teaches others how to do it.

[saoir]

I always think there is too much hype put on the necessity to be a massive reader. But I certainly do think it is good to read.
One reason I think it is good is simply to oil the wheels of narrative language in our head. We all start out imitating what we think is great and then developing our own style. In anything such as sport, art, anything. Regular reading of books we like keeps our mind turning over with narrative, and when we sit down to write, we can draw on that river that is flowing through our heads. That's how I see it anyway.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by crich70

I think I learned a lot while growing up about how proper English is written/spoken just from reading a lot of the author's who are in the Public Domain in a lot of countries. I never could quite get the grasp of things like participles and gerunds much less put them on the right part of a diagram, but I learned how writing was supposed to be written by reading books. Of course when I was in 1st grade they still used the Dick and Jane books. i.e. See Dick. See Jane. See Dick and Jane. See Spot. See Dick, Jane, & Spot. etc. but reading helped expand my vocabulary quite a bit growing up. When I was 13 I had some testing done and I already had a High School Senior's reading level. I put it all down to the joy of reading that I developed at an early age thanks to my mom who gave me my 1st library card when I was 3 and helped me read those early books. I'm sure I drove her crazy with Dr. Seuss. lol.

Same here; despite having a phenomenal vocabulary and diction, the result of way too much time spent reading books, I did not do very well in English (or certain parts thereof). The nomenclature is meaningless, and none of the rules make as much sense as a working example. I know what's right when it clicks in my head.

Oh well. I made it up on the vocabulary tests. (Several grades' worth at once.)