17 ms·

To become a better writer, read as much as you can

• aetherspawn 2mo ago
  Woah. Reading this blog post was like being transported 5 years back prior to the existence of AI. It reeks of pure humanity.
  • ngruhn 2mo ago
    agree, despite the em dashes.
    • jacobolus 2mo ago
      For what it's worth, the linked article has only en dashes. (I have no idea whether LLMs use en dashes.)
    • iainctduncan 2mo ago
      you mean, because of the em dashes? Five years ago I was happil using them without having to worry about this bullshit. sigh
• msalihb 2mo ago
  to become a better chef, eat as much as you can
• SunOrbiter1 2mo ago
  "To which I say this: fuck you, you’re not too busy." What's with the abuse? Is that the hallmark of a great writer as well? Fuck this, fuck that. Pathetic. That said, good advice. Mediocre readers are mediocre writers. The reverse is not necessarily true. I've met many fantasy writers (hello Readercon!) who've read every damn series and then proceed to write yet another Tolkienesque knockoff. Their brains are pretty much like overtrained LLMs.
  • iainctduncan 2mo ago
    You are quoting him out of context. That was directed at wannabe-writers who don't make time to read. Which is completely fucking batshit crazy. If anyone deserves some f-bombs, it's them. Additionally, the very next sentence is "Joking. I would never say that. But I certainly fucking think it."
    • SunOrbiter1 2mo ago
      Who exactly is the advice for? For those who don't read, right? In that case, how does abusing them help? There's another golden rule about treating people the way--can't quite recall it, hmmm... Casual obscenity has become so normalized in the culture, you probably feel outraged I'm even bringing it up. Not reading has also become normalized in just the same manner. No one reads if they can at all help it-- not at work, not in parks, not on the commute, and not for writing. Their loss, of course.
      • iainctduncan 2mo ago
        The article is about writers, not regular people. It's explicitly directed at people trying to make a living writing. We found it because of HN, but his audience - the only one's who's opinion he should give a shit about - are his readers, who presumably know him because of his (according to the article) Raymond Chandler-influenced sci fi. I'm willing to bet those people are not put off by some swearing. :-) If you are trying to make a living writing you should a) be fucking reading and b) appreciate all the wild and wonderful facets of language.. like using a good cuss word for deliberately over the top emphasis.
      • theokrueger 2mo ago
        the author's mildly profane remarks were an amusing expression of the authors voice that characterizes their perspective better than without it.
      • Mawr 2mo ago
        I'd say excessive prudishness is even more normalized, as you're clearly displaying here. Oh no, somebody said "fuck", my delicate snowflake sensibilities can't take it! How proper you are.
• wcfrobert 2mo ago
  Completely agree! I find writing deeply memetic - in that I often catch myself imitating the flow, style, word choices, punctuation and grammar of whatever reading material I'm currently immersed in. This unfortunately does not bode well for my writing ability as I read emails and Claude output all day. Recently, I've been reading a lot of building codes and compliance documents and I've develop annoying ticks like using "shall", "need not", "take no exception", overuse of passive voice, etc. My hypothesis is engineers suck at writing by default unless they do extra-curricular reading. I read a lot! But sadly it's often textbooks, journal papers, documentations, and Claude. I'm envious of great writers, but I don't have time to read Keats. I'm immersed in Stewart, Strang, and whatever Claude is feeding me next.
  • lanyard-textile 2mo ago
    When new deltarune chapters come out, they definitely influence my writing and thoughts lol. I find myself rewording things to avoid claude and chatgpt-isms. You don't realize how much you say "You're absolutely right" on a day to day basis...
  • ingvay7 2mo ago
    > I often catch myself imitating the flow, style, Its a struggle trying to "imitate the style" in writing. In music, you could keep playing all the songs in the style of your favorite artist and possible develop a close stylistic proximity to what you're imitating but in writing do you just write prose with the same wordings? i get the keep reading to develop your style but feels like adapting a style you want to master and then make your own variant is way harder in writing.
    • klez 2mo ago
      I think the issue here might be that you're familiar with what "style" is supposed to be in music, so you know how imitating it would look (rather, sound) like. On the contrary, you may have no idea what style means in the context of writing, so you can't fathom what imitating writing style looks like. I honestly don't know precisely either, but a couple of things to mull over: Clarke and Asimov are said to have a "dry" style. Most of their novels are "story". On the contrary, Eco describes things in very minute detail (there's a whole chapter in "The name of the rose" that is the description of a door). Those are examples of elements of style you may be able to reproduce and that aren't limited to wording.
• leecommamichael 2mo ago
  In addition to this, I think one gets even more from reading after having tried to write. There's a unique feedback loop that starts happening once you start creating.
  • m463 2mo ago
    Sometimes I wonder if too much looking behind the curtain might affect you. Like seeing how the restaurant prepares your food. Or seeing that much of apple's look and feel is rounded corners.
• m463 2mo ago
  Reminds me of bill gates, who said to learn to write code, you have to read as much source code as you can. [also, I can't also think about people who I know who talk talk talk (to hear the sound of their own voice?) and never listen... is this part of what he's implying?]
• randomImmigrant 2mo ago
  I had an odd sense when reading that article… the sense that we’re in truly bizarre times, that such obvious advice needs to be given at all. That people in general don’t read, I get. But if you don’t read, why would you want to write? Baffling!
  • plastic3169 2mo ago
    It’s the same phenomenon, but I got similar strnge feeling when reading an article from the atlantic about film students who are incapable of sitting through films[0]. Why would you study to make art in a form you don’t even enjoy yourself? [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/college-students-movies-attention-span/685812/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/college-students-m...
    • watwut 2mo ago
      That article is about them not wanting to sit through long boring slow paced movies assigned in school. And they scroll the phone a lot. And they wamt to watch them at home, not in class. That is NOT the same as being incapable to sit through a general movie. That does not mean they dont like film in general.
      • plastic3169 2mo ago
        Good point, I hung too much on the headline. I guess there is disconnect between how film has been thought and how it should be taught now. Traditionally it has been building on top of the previous waves and often the avantgarde have beem the big cinefiles drawing from history (someone like Martin Scorsese, who is now deeply in the history himself). But times change and simlar to knowing how computers operated in the 70s is not that relevant anymore as we now work on top of huge stack of layers maybe art students should also look more forward and not spend time with slow films.
  • allenu 2mo ago
    I wonder if for many people today, it's not so much the art form of writing they are interested in, but rather having their thoughts and opinions validated by an audience. I mean, we live in a world where technology is constantly asking us to share our voice with the world at every opportunity. It's not asking us to phrase our thoughts well or to find meaningful things to share, but to get something out there quickly that captures people's attentions and to bask in it.
• SadErn 2mo ago
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• js2 2mo ago
  Hugh Howey on becoming a writer: > Insight #4: The best writers are the best readers. There aren’t any shortcuts around this. Successful writers read. They read a lot. And the best writers read a wide variety of books. It’s impossible to stress the importance of this insight. When aspiring authors ask my advice on making it as a writer, this is my most common first response: Read. https://hughhowey.com/writing-insights-part-one-becoming-a-writer/ https://hughhowey.com/writing-insights-part-one-becoming-a-w...
  • sixtyj 2mo ago
    This is awesome. > And I’m not even a good example of proper work ethic. I have friends who write, revise, edit, and publish a novel a month. Year after year. I have friends who have published over fifty novels in their first handful of years of writing. Both of my friends who publish a book a month make millions of dollars a year, and they are among the best writers I know when it comes to craft. I can’t put their books down. They pass like Messi.
• richardatlarge 2mo ago
  Many hundreds of hours of reading will build your vocabulary, and tune your ear to the sound of a good sentence. But it will not make you a writer. Reading as a person wanting to become a better writer should be more conscience of what they are reading. I often finish a novel and can't even remember if it was narrated, or how. That is not careful reading. I've heard of authors who, went waiting for their muse, just copied novels they liked until they got back in the groove, and this usually helped. Practice makes practice. Deliberate practice makes...
  • left-struck 2mo ago
    I think the premise of the article is more that it would be extraordinarily difficult to become a good writer if you didn’t read much. Because from the article: > One of the key things I’ve learned is this: there’s no real blueprint. So to me it’s saying there’s a lot of different ways to cook this stew but it always requires this ingredient
    • richardatlarge 2mo ago
      Necessarily but not sufficient, yes
• YuechenLi 2mo ago
  A lot of time I'm not very confident in what I wrote because I have a tendency to ramble and not get to the point quickly. Reading helps, but it's more about style, doesn't help me express myself more eloquently at all. Another thing is that I find myself using AI-isms in daily conversations more and more the more I use them to help me code. "Load-baaring" and "not X but Y" are phrases that I actively have to catch myself to avoid using now.
  • gmueckl 2mo ago
    Rambling is OK as long as you can treat the result as a draft that you can refine. I've often written emails that were three paragraphs in the first draft and 5 lines after deliberate revision. And the shorter revision was always much better.
  • chistev 2mo ago
    Rambling before getting to the point could be your signature style if you do it well.
    • Lio 2mo ago
      Almost no body does rambling well. In journalism it’s called “burying the lede” and is the most obvious sign of a poor writing, IMHO.
  • Freak_NL 2mo ago
    Your environment has a huge influence on your language, which is why the advice for anyone writing given here (read, read a lot) is not only sensible but indispensable. LLM tropes are one thing, but before those came along you could easily see how someone working in a corporate office would pick up jargon there even if they loath it. Here on HN you can observe certain phrases and words which seem to be part of what some IT professionals use — like the horridly angular orthogonal used figuratively. Reading prose written by writers who live outside of such bubbles (or who simply have a good editor in addition to their own filtering) is an antidote to that. Working on stylistic issues is a conscious self improvement thing, but you leverage your many hours of reading when you're tackling that. Reading a lot means you unconsciously get good at judging which prose works well and which grates.
• fullstackchris 2mo ago
  Mostly agree, but one very small caveat—the books we all get to enjoy as readers have been through (presumably) beta readers, agent edits, and then publisher edits, and even then a line editor as well. All those hidden decisions you will not be able to learn until you do them.
• raincole 2mo ago
  > I would’ve thought the necessity of reading in this profession obvious. But I’ve noticed a worrying trend lately: aspiring writers who don’t read. I know it's a very bad thing to say out loud, but if even aspiring writers, those who care so much that they go to writing workshops, have stopped reading, it's a very strong signal that writing/publishing won't be a viable profession in the near future anymore.
  • ron_k 2mo ago
    I’m not sure your conclusion necessarily follows from the premise. There are aspiring writers who care about writing and/or publishing, and writers who care about literature. The formers usually are weaker readers. However, most of the readers don’t want to become writers.
  • wiseowise 2mo ago
    You will be long dead before that happens.
• ciconia 2mo ago
  A while ago I took under my wing so to speak the neighbor's kid who plays the clarinet at the local music school, but apparently has listened to very little music (at music school he only gets instrument lessons and some music theory.) I had him listen to a wide range of classical music, just to give him a taste, and see what interests him. I told him: a musician who doesn't listen to music is like a writer who doesn't read books. It's not only the craft, it's also the culture that those works embody, and the feeling of belonging to a tradition.
  • BoingBoomTschak 2mo ago
    Thanks, I was going to make that analogy. Somehow, you can always tell when a compositor (or a band of them) hasn't explored music enough to develop their taste; and no, I don't mean that they should make ridiculous "music" like Jacob Collier's, but it does show in other ways, like a childish focus on virtuosity and improvisation. Very similar to those "I'm making my own language with blackjack and hookers" announcements where it's obvious that the author has only known the Algol family (Python, JS, C/C++/C#/Java and maybe a bit of ML flavour through Rust or TS) without exploring the other ways of thinking (https://madhadron.com/programming/seven_ur_languages.html https://madhadron.com/programming/seven_ur_languages.html).
  • heresie-dabord 2mo ago
    I recommend the thought-provoking short story, "Unaccompanied Sonata" by Orson Scott Card. It's a story about music craft but it's also a brilliant example of story-telling. Music and writing will change. The markets for both certainly have changed. It seems that music has proven to be more durable.
• juleiie 2mo ago
  I am not so much a writer but someone who loves how words can paint miniature splinters of reality. Operating these little diskettes that load programs straight into the receiver’s brain. I feel like Joseph Goebbels of fictional worlds. Writing a code that will smoothly execute delusion - “This is real, this really could happen. I want to see where it goes next.” If words are just source code for human brain then I wonder, when using an LLM - do you really program it or does it rather program you?
• transitivebs 2mo ago
  reminds me of the advice of unpacking your dreams in https://www.experimental-history.com/p/face-it-youre-a-crazy-person https://www.experimental-history.com/p/face-it-youre-a-crazy...
• d--b 2mo ago
  Reading disturbs my writing greatly though. I tend to mimic the author I am reading, it’s annoying. If I change the book I read while writing something, my text changes tone in the middle. I am not a good writer, and I don’t read that much, so maybe that trend goes away when you write a lot, but it’s a pitfall worth knowing
• fuidani 2mo ago
  On the subject, I cannot recommend enough Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott & On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King. Two exceptional books.
• wwind123 2mo ago
  Nowadays I mostly listen to e-books when I am doing house chores or driving or doing some other things that require the eyes but not the entire brain. Not sure if it counts as reading. If it does, then I read about 10-15 books a year. I haven't read a long-form book completely with my eyes for a long time.
• shamohit711 2mo ago
  Polite disagreement. To write (or feel the urge to write), you should have a point of view (unique povs are more interesting). To have a point of view, you need to engage with the thing in front of you. It can be a video that you disagree with, or agentic output you're belting into shape. The advice of "read more to write better" is incomplete IMO. I'd change it to "read/engage critically to write better". Else reading results in memetic ideas and tonality In fact, you'd want to read less if it means reading deeply
  • throwa356262 2mo ago
    When you think about it, humans have never been reading as much as we do right now thanks to Internet and digitalisation. Yet the quality has gone down when you compare it to, say, 1600's greatest works.
    • fugaziboutit 2mo ago
      This is attributable to survivorship bias and the democratisation of information. We aren't exposed to the 99% worst books, plays, pamphlets, and sermons of the 17th century, but we experience the dull ramblings of our fellow 21st-century citizens daily and through many delivery channels.
      • throwa356262 2mo ago
        That is correct, but if we compare the top 10 literally work of the last 20 years to the same period 500 years ago... Do you think the quality has improved? Do you think many people will read Stephen King in 500 years?
  • tokyoseb 2mo ago
    Indeed. As a young voracious reader I used to think that more reading is an unmitigated good until I came across Schopenhauer and his aphorisms. I try now to be more selective, life is short, and to engage more deeply with what I read. "The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short." “Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.”
• jerry6688 2mo ago
  You need to read a lot on the homepage, and secondly, you need to develop your observation skills, especially to summarize your views from small things.
• arnejenssen 2mo ago
  So that means that programmers should read/study the code and architecture of other programmers?
  • bluehatbrit 2mo ago
    Of course! I don't see how anyone could expect to excel at a craft without also studying the work of others. This is where AI concerns me for people who are juniors in their field (software or otherwise). You get quick answers which don't help with learning, and it's very easy to never read the code. It's like a very tempting drug that stunts growth but feels like progress.
  • cweld510 2mo ago
    Obviously yes, how can you design good systems without studying the systems created by others?
• johnisgood 2mo ago
  I thought reading is not going to do that much, as it only improves your recognition, not your ability to actively use the vocabulary. At least this is what I came to find, as I have some issues currently with "blanking" more than I would like.
  • vuvko 2mo ago
    I believe it is similar ot other crafts. You won't be a better engineer by only looking at source code. But it does help when you are analyzing a codebase to learn something applicable to your situation. So, it is not "just reading" I believe, but a subconcious act of analyzing.
  • spiderfarmer 2mo ago
    Like with any advise that ought to get you expertise or ability, if you're not goal oriented, actively gathering and acting on feedback and hyper focused on improving, you will only waste time.
• smnscu 2mo ago
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• vintagedave 2mo ago
  > Why be a writer if you don’t love reading? Why devote your intellectual and emotional energy to creating a book, when it’s a form you’re not invested in? Why write, when you aren’t steeped in wonder of storytelling? This is the key point, I think. I've seen the same as the author: people who want to be writers but rarely read books. And I don't get it. I recently finished a novel (now shopping around for agents, which was hard enough pre-AI but now...) and reading was integral to writing it. I know good sentences. I know the style of prose I like to read. I know how things can veer between florid and poetic and where the line is. I know how a sentence can be completely different if you read it as though it was spoken, instead of to yourself (some of mine are written to be read.) I know the things that annoy me: dropping out to put thoughts in italics; descriptions that specify instead of evoke; characters talking without it leading somewhere. (And much more.) How do I know this? From reading. And I want to tell the story. It was a story that grew, that I think will anger the right people (it's not too kind to Musk or VCs or the Russian Orthodox Church), and yet is simply an adventure, tumbling our characters from situation to situation like they fell overboard while navigating rapids. Ultimately I wrote a book I wanted to read. It turned out to be about post-apocalyptic startups and sea monsters. Someday I'll publish, I hope. And no doubt someone will read it and find style they dislike, learn from it things they don't want to do in their writing, either. But I also hope that there are moments in the book that will inspire someone else, in that they too will want to write, based on what they read.
  • Luucas40 2mo ago
    I also completely agree with this part. However, writing is its own muscle that needs to be trained and sometimes reading more can also be procrastinating in disguise. What helped me a lot has been: Read a lot because you love it Force yourself to write everyday, even if it’s for 5 minutes or you might postpone it forever
    • vintagedave 2mo ago
      I agree. My wife is a poet and writes every day. I don't, but before focusing on a novel I spent the past couple of decades periodically writing short stories. There is a skill to writing, and it needs the ten thousand hours just like everything else. But I cannot imagine doing it without reading first, and alongside.
• chr15m 2mo ago
  Brevity tho.
• InsiderCrush 2mo ago
  I feel that people today are already overwhelmed by walls of text. Books are a completely different cognitive load for the brain. A book is a gym workout. Social media and news feeds are lazy reading.I try to read more myself, but specifically books.
  • analog8374 2mo ago
    Agreed. And reading is not an unalloyed good. We squat over our fetish and acquire a bit of a hunch. 200 years of pro-reading propaganda may have bent our opinion. Once upon a time reading was considered a morbid activity. And it kinda is.
• wiseowise 2mo ago
  Wow, started really well, and then devolved into a mix of rambling, shaming people's usage of time, romanticizing reading, AI, social networks, and no true scotsman. Classy.
• estetlinus 2mo ago
  I guess what you mean to say is ”read as much BOOKS as you can”. God knows I am reading all day long, but it’s usually news papers, blogs, weapons grade sloptonium from a colleague, etc.
  • Ekaros 2mo ago
    I would say that you should consume type of material you aim to produce. So if you are writing for news paper maybe follow a few and check historic examples deemed good. Same goes for blogs. And really academic publications are very much this.
  • randcraw 2mo ago
    I think reading short stories is a great way to develop both writing and storytelling skills. A SS compresses the storyline and character development into a more palatable and succinct morsel than can a full-sized book. And the brevity of SSs should make them more digestible. Classic literature was written in an era when readers had more patience and fewer distractions than today. But classic short stories should offer the best of those, IMO, better-written times: more thoughtful exposition in fewer words.
• zahirbmirza 2mo ago
  There are many more people who write, than who love words enough, to consume and generate great writing. This is also why projections of AI's impact are overrated in some domains. Everyone can 'write' an app now. Relatively few will actually make one.
• deleted 2mo ago
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• TechnoBabble199 2mo ago
  In my experience, reading can make you a better writer sure. But it depends on what you read. Take AI for example, it's trained on a ton of text right? It can write, but can it write effectively? Is its writing really "good" ? The point I'm trying to make is, there's a difference between reading & learning from the patterns of what you read - and actually learning the best way to write - to actually provide a reader with maximum comprehension (If it's educational) or entertainment (If it's fiction/fantasy) Best example I can give on this is - you can learn to swim from watching hundreds of people swim - but you won't be an Olympic level swimmer unless you learn from the best. If that makes sense.
  • Kinrany 2mo ago
    The point about LLMs makes even less sense than drawing conclusions from "in mice" studies
    • beardyw 2mo ago
      Yes, the difference between humans and LLMs is the small issue that LLMs have no idea what any of it means.
    • TechnoBabble199 2mo ago
      > The point about LLMs makes even less sense than drawing conclusions from "in mice" studies Nah I disagree. Humans learn via patterns so do LLMs. They are not human, they don't actually possess intellect - but there are some isomorphisms that can do cleanly translate. I think this one does. Also, if in mice studies didn't work - we wouldn't use mice for studies - so your example kinda proves my point.
      • Kinrany 2mo ago
        Studies in mice aren't used to confirm something relevant for humans, they're exploratory. "Learn via patterns" is hopelessly vague. Archival algorithms learn via patterns too.
• ChrisGreenHeur 2mo ago
  To be a good writer - have something to say. To have something to say - live an interesting life. It’s not easy to live an interesting life by sitting in a chair and reading a book.
  • analog8374 2mo ago
    To be a good writer you must also love writing. But writing isn't naturally lovable. You rarely hear much from those guys who don't love writing, because they didn't write.
• SideburnsOfDoom 2mo ago
  "I'm one of the few people you'll meet who's written more books than they've read." - The Great Garth Marenghi https://www.garthmarenghi.com/about/ https://www.garthmarenghi.com/about/ (If you're unfamiliar, it's a comedy bit about a bad writer, somewhat the opposite of a genuine role-model)
  • bee_rider 2mo ago
    The first thing I did in this thread is search Garth. Fun show.
• Kon5ole 2mo ago
  This used to be true because most published books were well written. I don't think that's true anymore. Too much noise and too little signal so to speak. I feel a growing trend where books read like the author's main inspiration is TV shows, down to villains surprising the main character by jumping out from "behind the camera" and dialogue that reads like the book has no ability to convey thoughts and emotions except by having the characters explain them to another character. Maybe I've just gotten more picky with age but I have a hard time finding anything readable lately. Sure there's the literary prize winners, but they tend to be dull and slow - I want solid pageturner pulp! :)
  • defrost 2mo ago
    > I want solid pageturner pulp! :) In good news for some, Chuck Tingle isn't the only name in dinosaur-themed romance novels: https://nerdist.com/article/pulp-romance-novels-meets-paleontology-with-these-smutty-dinosaur-novels/ https://nerdist.com/article/pulp-romance-novels-meets-paleon...
  • amunozo 2mo ago
    There are more written books that a regular person can read in their entire life. Even if what you say is true, no need to only read modern books.
    • Kon5ole 2mo ago
      You are correct but there must surely be good modern books too. Problem is finding them. Could also be an unavoidable effect from reading many books I guess, the more you read the harder the competition is for the next book.
      • amunozo 2mo ago
        For sure! I am rereading my comment and was really poorly written. What I meant is that, even if all modern books were bad (which as you say, there must be good ones), there are still tons of older books which are really good and that have survived the effect of time and therefore are easier to spot. I don't think there is a need to read modern books in most cases though, so I am lately prioritizing older ones, especially fiction.
• sugarkjube 2mo ago
  same is true for writing code : in order to get better at writing code, reading other people's code can help a lot.
• haunter 2mo ago
  I mean this is generally true for everything from cooking to playing video games to knitting to fixing cars, observe before you act
• WhompingWindows 2mo ago
  Counterpoint: To become a better writer, write as much as you can. Reading gives you a flavor, a taste, a style, it allows you to occupy the thoughts of another human. But getting your thoughts written down? That's writing, not reading. Actually practicing the art of writing is better for your craft than reading someone else's writing. Matthias Wandel a famous woodworker on YT says it: most of his audience are watching for fun, they don't actually build projects. Would we expect a woodworker to get practically better by not woodworking, but by sampling others work? You might gain a little knowledge, but you'll never see your own limitations and where to grow if you never do it yourself. Since music comes up in this thread, it's an even better counter example. The act of practicing technique shows you the idioms of each instrument, it shows you HOW to compose for that instrument much more than listening to 100's of recordings. Chopin's genius was knowing the human hand and how it conforms to the keyboard, he knew how to compose for it better than perhaps any other, because he was practical and a virtuoso himself. When you touch and hear the instrument as you play, when you satisfy your own ear and judgment as Chick Corea says, then you're able to then better mimic others and create new fusions. Just listening to others "as much as you can" isn't going to make you a better performer or technical player at all. Save the time for doing, not using. Use the time for production, not consumption. Practice makes perfect.
  • throwrioawfo 2mo ago
    Both reading and writing are necessary, but writing alone is not sufficient.
    • TheOtherHobbes 2mo ago
      Any art needs theory, practice, and study of the greats. Unless you're some kind of exceptional genius talent out of the gate - and no one is, really - you need inspiration from other work, imitation, understanding, and practice of your own work. It helps a lot if you're obsessive and/or enjoy it a lot. Ideally both. None of these are a substitute for talent, but likewise talent isn't a substitute for them.
    • BeetleB 2mo ago
      Yes, but there's a significant asymmetry with the advice usually given. I hear "Read a lot" about 10x more than "Write a lot". I've been reading a lot for decades. I'm a crappy writer. There is a saturation point.
• andersonl 2mo ago
  I think this article is conflating the craft of writing, which is essentially literary ambition and aspiring toward literary fiction, with genre fiction which is focused on plot and story above language that is employed. Writers who aspire towards a nobel or elite critical acclaim certainly must read because their aspiration is to develop a novel and masterful command of their native language. But writers who aspire towards story, storytelling itself is an oral tradition. The author here conflates these two, citing Woolf and Nabokov as examples of voracious readers while addressing a general population of writers. It is not obvious that the genre fiction writer is losing out by reading less compared to watching tv or movies. They would still be learning about pacing, dialogue, plot mechanics, and the ability to consume more stories albeit via a different medium may be net positive EV for them. As a fun counterfactual, if Fourth Wing by Yarros was instead written as literary fiction, would it be more or less popular? My guess is, less. Which is again to emphasize that masterful craft of language vs. plotting/storytelling are distinct skills that do not face the same payoff or learning dynamics.
  • mrob 2mo ago
    The most influential work of genre fiction (Lord of the Rings) is written in a literary style by a well-read author. How many people have even heard of "Fourth Wing" in comparison?
    • andersonl 2mo ago
      If we consider best selling, Harry Potter wins multiple times over. HP is wonderful storytelling and world building while providing exceptionally mediocre prose. And yet it's been substantially more successful.
      • DonHopkins 2mo ago
        [flagged]
• TofuLover 2mo ago
  This reminds me of an article [1] (that I think I may have even seen initially on HN) analysing what writing looks like when treated like TV (consciously or subconsciously). It's a fascinating read and it made me more mindful of interiority in my own writing. [1]: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/what-not-reading-does-to-your-writing https://countercraft.substack.com/p/what-not-reading-does-to...
• wavefunction 2mo ago
  It's good to read widely, to understand what is poor quality and what strums the strings of the soul. Rejoice in this human communion
• jihadjihad 2mo ago
  “Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.” - William Faulkner
• antirez 2mo ago
  This is simply not true, even if it is commonly repeated among the folks that usually don't really write. Like how reading every source code that comes handy will not turn yourself into a great programmer, to be a good writer you need to: 1. Read selected books, and re-read good books more often then reading new stuff, to understand why they are good. 2. Read, from time to time, some bad book, and understand why it is bad. 3. And obviously you need to write a lot to become good at writing. And writing, in order to improve, is writing remembering, at the same time, the vibrations of the good authors you loved, and especially making the act of choosing of every word you put in the blank page, one after the other.
  • stingraycharles 2mo ago
    Not sure why you’re downvoted this much, as it’s a reasonable point of view. Reading as much as you can will not make you a better writer if you just read the same material and/or low quality material.
  • codingdave 2mo ago
    So you feel that reading being necessary to write well is not true, yet the first 2 points of advice include directions to read, to re-read, to understand what you read, and then to read more. And in your last point, to write while remembering what you read. Are you sure you actually disagree with the article?
    • antirez 2mo ago
      Yes. The article says that you need to read a lot to write well. You actually need to write a lot, and to read carefully, high quality, and potentially low quantity too (to use more time to write).
• lanfeust6 2mo ago
  "Write as much as you can" is a more crucial piece. Reading is of course important for forming taste. Anecdotally there are musicians who in interviews report saying they "don't listen to much (other people's) music anymore". Well, that always shows. They get self-referential and repetitive.
• elif 2mo ago
  Funny how this advice is totally innocuous and accepted universally, but the idea that LLMs are trained on the exact same material causes half of us to scream about art theft and plagiarism and a legal right to royalties.
  • harperlee 2mo ago
    “Quantity has a quality in itself”. How many books can you read in your life, and how faithfully can you transcribe them, vs. just retaining a fraction of them? What about LLMs?
• simonebrunozzi 2mo ago
  I have an even better golden rule: to become a better writer, actually write as much as you can. A real example. I read A TON, since I was a kid (I'm close to 50 years old now). I used to write a lot. I even wrote two semi-decent novels, among other things. I haven't written much in the last 10-12 years. Now I want to start a little side project, in which I will write a letter to about one hundred people, print it and ship it physically. I have attempted to write the first one a few times, and it's very difficult. I am not used to write anymore. Write more.
  • tidbeck 2mo ago
    I agree, learning by doing. Like cook food to get better, do not just read recipes.
  • beej71 2mo ago
    Yeah, it's gotta be both, I agree.
  • hombre_fatal 2mo ago
    Yesterday I saw this tweet on twitter: https://x.com/ksw_arman/status/2091201471773614095 https://x.com/ksw_arman/status/2091201471773614095 > 80% of personal websites only have a single blog post from two years ago where the author mentions they want to write more I laughed when I saw it because that describes my blog that I started this year after not blogging for 15 years. It has a single post about how I want to write again to counteract all the AI that I use day to day, so stay tuned. I have rough ideas for posts I've been wanting to write for a while. But man do I have a hard time writing one of those posts. It's so open-ended. I'll start writing something and it doesn't feel right. I know I should blow through the feeling and at least get my thoughts down, but I've become more sensitive to not feeling early progress. Like a noob learning a guitar or not being able to ollie. I didn't have that problem at all back when I wrote daily.
  • deadbabe 2mo ago
    I write internet comments every day, I think i could fill a few novels just with all my internet comments. Does that count? Or are comments trash writing.
• qwertytyyuu 2mo ago
  Nice title fix!
• jamesforestwest 2mo ago
  [flagged]
• biscuits1 2mo ago
  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me [write]." Yes, I added the editorial insertion because I'm sure that's what he meant.
• alexpotato 2mo ago
  I started a podcast recently and two things are VERY in line with this post: 1. If you listen to tons of podcasts, you slowly internalize what is a good vs bad interview. e.g. you learn to automatically ask leading questions, direct the guest in an arc (if that's what you want to do etc). One of my guests was a professional sports journalist and he mentioned "How did you learn to interview people so well??" 2. I asked some more experienced podcasters what gear I needed, what format to use etc and they ALL said: "Just go start doing it! You will very quickly learn what works and doesn't and then just iterate from there." Given that this was also an article about writing: a few years ago I was inspired by Twitter user @visakanv to start writing Twitter threads. I'm up to 200+ [1] which surprises me as much as anyone. Similar to the above, if you read a lot of other people's work and then start writing your own, you quickly develop a style. Having a style and people respond to it is fun and then you get excited about writing more and it takes on it's own momentum. 0 - https://alexpotato.com/podcast/ https://alexpotato.com/podcast/ 1 - https://x.com/alexpotato/status/2012723178577985948?s=20 https://x.com/alexpotato/status/2012723178577985948?s=20
  • klodolph 2mo ago
    Speaking of gear, there are also a lot of people who will go out and spend $440 on a SM-7b, and then use it to record somebody (1) not saying interesting (2) who doesn’t have good speaking skills (3) in a room which doesn’t sound good (4) with a preamp that doesn’t have enough clean gain to record a low-output mic like the SM-7b. It’s not like gear isn’t important but the SM-7b has become such an object of hate for me because of what it represents for podcasters. The “you will very quickly learn what works and doesn’t” is a much better starting point. (And yes, the SM-7b is great, blah blah blah. $440 is still a lot of money for most people, and it’s not $440 of ‘great’ for somebody who is starting out.)
    • alexpotato 2mo ago
      100% on the gear. I started with a couple of $40 Jabra USB headsets + a MacBook. MacOs comes with a built in equalizer that lets you "merge" two inputs into a feed. You can then use Audacity to record one user on the left channel and one on the right. Again, I didn't know anything about audio processing but with some YouTube videos, Audacity manual + asking an LLM you can really make the audio sound great. As one extreme, you can literally start a podcast with a phone and whatever audio app is included with the phone.
• cure_42 2mo ago
  I see so many solo indie game developers who don't really play games and almost all of them fail to make their game actually fun. I'm not at all surprised to learn the same concept applies to writing. I think the most intuitive case might be music. We would all be skeptical if someone said they were going to compose a soundtrack but hadn't really listened to many soundtracks or much music at all.
• pennomi 2mo ago
  As in all art, the first step is to develop good taste. And you can only do that by consuming a wide variety of content.
  • analog8374 2mo ago
    I doubt it's as simple as that. I mean we're talking about a kind of cultivation of the self, acquiring a higher way of seeing. I suspect that some kind of destruction of the old way of being is called for to arrive at this higher state. Via some kind of disaster maybe. Or a long erosion. Maybe drugs.
    • Dependance 2mo ago
      I agree with you and the upper comment. The destruction of the old self is in not feeding it. You starve the "bad taste" inside of you by only ingesting what the "good taste" inside of you likes. Kind of like good gut bacteria ?
• me2too 2mo ago
  Reading this article is like a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, I have to work with generative AI on daily basis and I have this terrible feeling of losing my ability to read and write - and think. The claude generated text has something that I cannot clearly pin-point, that my brain detects somehow and immediately makes me feel bored. I can't keep up with the reading of a long ai generated answer ("reasoning") - it really hurts. The same goes for writing - I always wanted to write both text and code. The whole experience of getting into "the flow" was rewarding - endless nights (when I was younger) spent in that state, to reach something, learn something. Now instead, the act of delegating thinking, writing, coding, and reading mainly AI generated text, makes me feel disoriented and more and more bored.
• anywheretop 2mo ago
  [dead]
• jobuildsstuff 2mo ago
  [flagged]
• nicbou 2mo ago
  To develop good taste you must try a lot of things. However it's a lot more important to actually try the thing yourself. An artist who makes art every day will run circles around one who consumes a lot of art. I read a lot, and it means that I ingest a lot of interesting ideas. I'm not sure if it made me a better writer. Writing every morning probably helps more.
  • sejje 2mo ago
    Versions of "get better at [thing]" that don't involve practice are largely misled. There are rare times where you can read and gain a new skill, but largely you will have all the available skills, and you need to level them up. Most people never truly practice. They do things that resemble practice, but doesn't have the same effect. My example is from pool: many players have played pool league for 20+ years without improving their rank. They "practice" every week by playing with their friends. Nothing about pool is, in my opinion, hereditary / "natural talent"...athleticism doesn't matter at all. I became a better player than those others in a couple of months by focused, deliberate practice on the things I was worst at. Later, I practiced one skill (a draw shot) for countless hours--I was bartending in a mostly-empty bar. I became the best in town at the skill in a couple of weeks. In all my time practicing, I never saw another person practice. People want to try all the other shortcuts and tips to avoid "hard work." It sure pays off, though.
• psadri 2mo ago
  In my experience, the thing that makes your better at something is actually _doing_ it, badly at first and then gradually improving by iteration. But for writing, I usually see the advice that says you should read a lot instead of write a lot. What gives?
  • presbyterian 2mo ago
    You shouldn't read a lot instead of writing a lot, you should be doing both, in the same way a musician should practice their instrument and listen to a lot of music. Or, for a more HN-appropriate context, imagine trying to contribute to a FOSS project without reading any of the existing code or knowing the style guides. Your contributions could be fine, but they'll never be good.
• ymc9 2mo ago
  Will reading a lot eventually makes you want to write? I haven't found that yet.
• oceansky 2mo ago
  Reading and writing are related but very different skills. I think reading too much can be detrimental to writing.
• hn9zmdcaou 2mo ago
  Learned something new today, thanks
• everybodyknows 2mo ago
  To become a writer, and publisher of work much like that of the blogger: https://nappertime.com/my-books-where-to-start-reading/ https://nappertime.com/my-books-where-to-start-reading/ Follow it. No doubt sincerely meant.
• inglor_cz 2mo ago
  Absolutely. I write a lot, and I realized that without being a voracious reader since I was a kid, I would be a Neanderthal.
• orthoxerox 2mo ago
  Just like how you need two legs to walk, you should regularly switch between reading and writing. You can't learn what to look for in the writing of others until you write something yourself. And you can't find your own voice until you've tried imitating someone else's style.
• hrideshmg 2mo ago
  One interesting thing I've just come to notice is that ever since I started using AI agents, ive not had a single moment of 'flow-state' whereas I used to semi-frequently have such experiences prior. I feel like some parallels can be drawn between the reading and coding brain in this regard.
  • klodolph 2mo ago
    I take breaks from AI agents and write a percentage of commits purely by hand, partly to keep experiencing the flow state, partly because I think I need the expertise.
• beej71 2mo ago
  I bought an Xteink X4 a few months ago and it's constantly stuck to the back of my phone. I've really picked up my reading pace since then. If I have 5 minutes, I'm in a book. I did read on my phone a bit before that, but somehow found it not compelling enough to keep up with. Maybe the LCD screen? Maybe the fact that it was a phone? Not sure.
• analog8374 2mo ago
  To read as much as you can, have a love for reading. How do you acquire a love for reading? Why would you want to acquire a love for reading?
• utopiah 2mo ago
  I regular question experts. I literally walk up to them and ask how they get that go and every single time the "trick" has been an approximation of "I do this a lot" and by a lot they mean more than everybody else. If you didn't watch Kung Fu Panda then it is worth it to learn what the "secret" is all about. TL; DR: yes and it works for everything else too. Just do the thing!
• barrettle 2mo ago
  [flagged]
• yipinwong 2mo ago
  Good writing. Maybe I am too used to OREO format, where point is made, example given, and point re-iterated in tech or non-fictional format unlike the author's more of story-based narrative. The author seems to be branch off to a polymath path, consuming ideas from many different fields. A caution is that, the author needs to plan on what to learn and set scope and boundary on how much to learn in each field (unless you are Leonardo Da Vinci, who still struggled in some fields. He was damn smart but his ADHD stopped him from building something even better in some instances). Anyways, fun writing. --- My anecdote: The more I read, the more I see the context of why authors write certain things based on events, and political affinity s/he had. I started converse with books and see points that are not right per my understanding or mis-represented. Now we can use AIs, or Google, or search books to verify author's assumptions. The authors points might have had been true at the time but not at current point. It's just fun to gather more insights on how to think as I read more. I emphathize with the author's enthusiam. I used to write blogs, but not any more as I stopped reading for awhile during covid time (bad instances even with 3 shots of vaccines). I am starting again, surely but slowly, and I cannot make an excuse as the author mentioned as my daily phone screem daily time is 2+ hours.
• nwyin 2mo ago
  i think this take gets misinterpreted and misapplied. here are some other sentences to think about. to become a good chef, eat a lot. to become a great producer, listen to a lot of music. to direct great films, watch a lot of movies. these sorts of advices superficially soothe the reality that you're spending too much time consuming and not actually creating. or even practicing creation.
  • nojvek 2mo ago
    It’s more akin to. Why aspire to become a good chef, if you don’t enjoy culinary experiences ? Why aspire to be a director, if you don’t love watching movies and living those experiences? Many people want to build great apps, but don’t want to to debug and read code. Just let codex rip.
    • mckn1ght 2mo ago
      I’ve been debating a lot of people on that last point. A lot of anti slop professors want to bring the debate back around to the mechanical process of coding. I think that’s misguided. To me, building software is about understanding the users’ needs, knowing what UI patterns work well, how to integrate into the larger platform ecosystem, and ultimately, solving the problems the users have. Making it about debugging arcane, temporary idiosyncrasies in the platform, 3rd party tools etc is like telling writers they should typeset their own book on a printing press.
      • nojvek 2mo ago
        Yeah but to build a great user experience, one ought to understand some internals about the browser or the mobile sdks. LLMs build so much slop without much regard for mobile responsiveness or accessibility. Or coherent design systems. Get a huge domaine hit from a prototype. The real struggle comes from maintaining the app, growing user base, making sure it’s reliable and performant. Personally I find that vibe apps are great at prototyping. For a long lived app, deffo needs a lot of human guidance. One must have good taste to guide LLMs.
  • daseiner1 2mo ago
• thunkshift1 2mo ago
  ‘Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers’ - speilberg
• deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
• rob_c 2mo ago
  Its like your training an organic llm...
• sonicrocketman 2mo ago
  The same is true for code.
• effnorwood 2mo ago
  [dead]