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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25497
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25497
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

To write fluently, you have to have a ready of flow of language at your command, and that will come from all you have heard and read. If you binge read one author, their language will invariable be what is flowing in your head for a while.

The key to developing your own tone is not isolation from influences but variety. Don't binge read anybody. (That may suit you as a reader, but you have to start reading like a writer if you want to be one.) Read widely and deeply, and make the classics a significant portion of your diet. You are not likely to slip into writing like Dickens or Conrad, but they will broaden your pallet of language, making you less susceptible to accidental pastiche.

Make sure the you regularly include writers whose style is very different from your own. If your prose is naturally spare, read Steinbeck and Dickens. If your prose is naturally ornate, read Hemingway or McCarthy.

With all these voices running through your head you will not be overly influenced by any one.

Of course, this is only a secondary benefit for wide and attentive reading for a writer. No one can master a craft without first (and continually) immersing themselves in the work of its masters.

Original score: 5