If someone has an inborn talent for writing along with the desire to write fiction, it’s crucial to read, read, read, and to write, write, write.
The value of reading fiction cannot be overestimated if one wants to write fiction. It’s fascinating to read novels by different authors and see what they do-how they use language, metaphor, sentence structure, dialogue, descriptions, and how they transition from one scene to another, or from the present to the past, and back again.
A reader can learn a great deal by observing these things, by looking beyond the story’s content and observing the writer’s form. It’s a process-learning about writing by reading other writers-it happens gradually, incrementally, and without the reader quite realizing it. It happens with time and exposure. There’s no substitute for reading the genre in which you would like to write.
Again, Stephen King’s advice is worth repeating: no matter how talented you are, you’ve got to write in order to get better at it. So, while nature is important when it comes to writing, nurturing one’s inborn ability (by reading) is critical to being a writer.
