Reading and Writing
by Libby Hellmann

Originally posted Sunday, February 18, 2007

I admit it. I was in a slump. A funk. I didn't want to face the computer. I was honing the art of procrastination. Nursing a full blown case of Writer's Block. Part of it was probably the cold weather. Part of it is that I'm in the saggy, baggy middle of my thriller. And part of it is just my perverse nature.

At the same time, there's been some recent blog chatter about process and what to read when you're writing. Whether you should read at all. Whether you should read Books about Writing. Or take courses. Since I've been in procrastination mode, I'm happy to weigh in.

I'm one of those writers who never took a writing course or workshop before I started writing. (I walked five miles to school in the snow, too). I took the requisite English courses in college. But that was it. I wasn't on any kind of crusade against the written word. It was simply that I had no plans to become a writer. I was going to be a film-maker. The Lina Wertmuller of the US, in fact. Making dramatic, layered, and beautiful films.

I did get a masters degree in film production. I even worked on a few features. Unfortunately I never became Lina. Or even a distant clone.

Still, during my film days, I read a lot. Mostly thrillers: Le Carre, Ludlum, Follet, Deighton. After a while, I moved into mysteries. My first was Jerry Healy's The Staked Goat, thanks to my mother, who passed it along after I complained that thrillers were all sounding the same. I read widely. I read often. And then I started to write. It was that simple.

I still read all the time. Especially when I'm writing. And I agree with James Hall, whose recent essay in the MWA newsletter talks about the importance of doing just that. For me good writing is a template. I deconstruct it. I see how another writer builds their action scenes, how they combine dialogue and narrative, how they develop the voice of their characters. Not only is it fun—almost like working a puzzle or er—a detective story—but sometimes it even gets me unstuck.

Which brings me to Books on Writing. Again, I think the best way to learn to write—besides reading—is to write. Join a writer's group. Get some feedback. In fact, I usually avoid books on writing. But I've just run across a book (thanks, Judy!) that's different, because its thesis is that in order to learn how to write you must read. Period.

It's called Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose. In it the author says the best way to learn how to read is by close reading. She says those who say "oh I can't read so and so..." or "I can't read anyone while I'm writing" are basically full of beans. That you absolutely SHOULD and MUST read good writers while you're writing. Not to plagiarize... but to see how they constructed things. The architecture of their books. For example, how they move from lyricism to violence, or how they parse the rhythm of their prose. Prose (the perfect surname, isn't it?) loads her chapters with excerpts from authors like Flannery O'Connor to James Baldwin to Emily Bronte, Raymond Chandler, and more. There are chapters on sentences, paragraphs, narration, character and dialogue. There's even a chapter on "Books To Be Read Immediately," although as it goes on for five pages, I'm not sure how immediately I'll get through them.

If you have a love of language—and what writer doesn't?—you will happily inhale this book.
You might even find inspiration in its pages. Or a path that cuts through Writer's Block.

I did. I'm back to writing. And feeling much better, thank you.

All content © Libby Fischer Hellmann.