Can reading novels interfere with your writing?

I read a funny article on AlterNet today:

http://www.alternet.org/story/146967/the_10_most_harmful_novels_for_aspiring_wri...

The idea is that some novels are so popular "their effects have generally been disastrous: they inspired younger writers to imitate them, they created awful new genres that debased readers' tastes, or they promoted literary or social values that we could very much do without."

I was especially impressed by his description of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian "The more metaphors and similes you can throw in where they don't belong, the more the critics praise you. The effect is like eating a nice firm dog turd garnished with whipped cream and a cherry on top, served on a fine porcelain plate with a silver spoon.'' Great metaphor!

Very funny. And, unfortunately, truer than not. Thanks for sharing!

I tend not to be so dogmatic when it comes to pernicious influence of books and other works on writing.

Hunter S. Thompson supposedly typed The Great Gatsby word for word as a way of learning the book from the inside out. If East Asia proves that reverse engineering can create great follower economies, then why not novelists. Why not say, I was the man who made a career out of making passable copies of Salingers' prose?

Because the act of noveling is supposed to be about creation? Perhaps. But there are already too many stale genres--or perhaps genres that only work when they are stale--to suggest that copying is always a bad thing.

I think the point of the article is that most of the novels listed can only be done once before becoming stale. That could be the case.

The point in the end, is whether the author can tell a good story. We all have one model to follow: Beginning, middle, end.

When I read, it definitely effects my writing! Sometimes it prevents me from writing because I get so involved but also, it changes the way I view and percieve the world, so it's hard for me to concentrate on my own thought. Reading always gets my creative juices flowing but not always in the direction I want them to go.. But reading can also help me reformat and remind me about how I should structure my writing. Unforntunately I prefer reading to writing :o/ but every once in awhile, I just start writing for hours and hours.

I think reading other works is a vital part of being a writer. The key is not to directly imitate authors which you like in terms of their style, but to let your writing be informed in a more subtle way by them. This can range from writing about similar themes/experiences to the types of characters used or even (if you're writing non-fiction) ways of incorporating your own life/knowledge into your writing. With practice, you tend to find a writing style unique to yourself anyway. Recently I've been very influenced by my reading of Virginia Woolf in terms of the way in which she approaches her writing, but I wouldn't really imitate her style directly as it's not the way I would normally write.

>3 DanielClausen:

I don't think that article is trying to say that writer's shouldn't read, or that they shouldn't learn from what they read. I think its saying that writers should be careful that they don't let there admiration for another writer's work prevent them from writing in their own way and their own style. That is a statement I have to heartily agree with.

Its also important to learn from the mistakes of those you admire as well as their successes. If you just immitate someone else's style, you're going to immitate their mistakes as well.

Great books don't happen when writers copy what has already been done. Great books happen when a writer actively tries to find their own voice and accidentally discovers something new.

A Professor I once had: "Don't just read good books; read only the best." Can't go wrong with the Classics and great writers in general. I think the writer of this article was just being provocative by listing Hemingway, Salinger, Cormac McCarthy. Even the great writers were/are influenced by what they've read. (The same goes for the great music composers and all artists.)

I also believe an "aspiring young writer" can learn from reading a bad novel and discerning why it is bad. If one wants to imitate another writer, one can always write fan-fiction as in fanfiction.net

Edited to correct link.

Very true, bookmonk.

Although saying that he is listing those authors just to be provocative isn't entirely fair. Even the best authors have to learn as they write and that means even the greatest authors have one or two "bad novels" to their credit. Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea is a perfect example. Hugo so fell in love with the Channel Islands and the lifestyle of the people who lived there that, to the great exasperation of his readers, he digresses far too often and for too long. You read Les Miserables and then Toilers of the Sea and you see his personal learning curve quite clearly.

I think every aspiring writer should read The Lord of the Rings trilogy just to watch Tolkien's learning curve. He wrote that series over a 20-year timespan and his writing skills developed considerably during that time. At the beginning of the series his writing skills are limited, and he seems to be writing just to entertain himself. By the end of Return of the King, he has become a highly skilled writer, and he weaves several levels of thought into every event. I think that's why this series also causes so much controversy among critics over whether it's a great work of literature; Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King aren't even in the same league.

Part of my day job is technical writing. On one occasion I was responsible for putting together a top-level specification of about 400 pages. Sometime during that project, I begun the Barchester Chronicles of Anthony Trollope once again. The influence of Victorian English, it seems, was apparent in my editing and writing, and several reviewers remarked on the style...

>8 Gail.C.Bull: (LovelyPride)

Yeah, I think I shot from the hip with that remark. I think what got to me was his comments on For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, a novel I rank highly.

I also agree with you that even the greatest writers can produce weak work - either a complete novel or parts of it. (There is definitely a learning curve.) Having achieved the reputation of greatness, publishers will publish anything these writers submit even without editing or proper proofreading. This is particularly true among contemporary popular novelists e.g. Stephen King or Carl Hiaasen both of whom, because of their "brand", could get their grocery lists published. They've both produced excellent novels but they are almost too prolific to ensure constant quality. An aside: King's only non-fiction book On Writing is so much better than much of the how-to writing books.
On the other end of the spectrum, some great writers, as they enter old age, don't know when to stop writing. It is sad when the last works of a great writer are embarrassingly clones of earlier masterpieces, or downright bad.

Addendum:
The writer of the article in question (see message #1) says:
As a kid, I knew a few veterans of the International Brigades who'd actually fought in Spain instead of reporting on it, as Hemingway had. They called this novel For Whom the Bull Throws. But Hemingway's style was fatally imitable, and I dropped my plagiarism of Salinger to plagiarize Hemingway instead. Politically, Hemingway didn't know what he was talking about, but

He talks about his plagiarism. He should know plagiarism is a federal crime - (U.S. Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. §§ 101 - 810)

His comments on For Whom The Bell Tolls contain several errors e.g.
1) One does not have to be a veteran to write well about combat. That is where genius can surpass direct experience.
2) Hemingway was in combat zones ("embedded") in WW1, The Spanish Civil War, and WW2. He was wounded by mortar fire in Italy in WW1 and, for "The All American Male" carried an embarrassing wound all his life. "Despite his injuries, Hemingway carried a wounded Italian soldier to safety and was injured again by machine-gun fire. For his bravery, he received the Silver Medal of Valor from the Italian government—one of the first Americans so honored." - from http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/spring/hemingway.html
3. Hemingway knew (and loved) Spain very well. While I do not feel good about his "afficionado" status on bull-fighting, I have only to think of the scoundrel the composer Wagner versus the outstanding music he bequeathed to us, to draw a clear distinction between the life-styles and works of any great artist.
4. The comment "it sounded cool to spend your days blowing up fascists and your nights in a sleeping bag with a hot Spanish babe". It's a novel, for Heaven's sake.

>10 bookmonk8888: (Bookmonk)

I went back and read the article, and I think Killian was making fun of his own youthful mistakes rather than criticizing Hemingway's work. For example, "it sounded cool to spend your days blowing up fascists and your nights in a sleepng bag with a hot Spanish babe," refers more to Killian's youthful interpretation of Hemingway rather than the content of the actual book.

But I empathize with you reaction to his remarks; it's always hard to hear negative or incomplete interpretations of works that you understand and admire.