the craft: reading is fundamental
Latest column is live. This one includes tips on how to get the most out of your writerly reading experience, including how to break down and analyze stories.
As comics fans, we blaze through books like they’re going to spontaneously combust before we get to the end. Most of the single issue comics (22 pages, for those here who aren’t familiar with the form) that I read these days take no more than, oh, 7 minutes for the once-over. Manga? Well, reading an entire 200 page book in the time that it takes me to ride from Court Street to 49th on the R train isn’t unheard of. I sometimes have visions of folks laying tummy down on their beds (that’s the best way to read comics, see), inhaling pages in a frantic haze of “enough is never enough”, then throwing the finished books to the side in a frenzy to get on with the next thing.
So when I come over here to talk, yet again (for this is one of the most clichéd writing topics in all of writing topic-dom) about how important reading is, I can’t even remotely insinuate that my audience doesn’t read. Comics people (and SFF people, for that matter) read, by cracky. As a budding writer, you don’t need me or anyone else to remind you that reading is fundamental. But there may be something you are forgetting, so I’ll remind you of that.
Are you reading like a writer?
Reading like a writer is fundamental.
