Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How Can I Reliably Find Well Written Novels?

Reading broadly is one of the best things a writer can do, aside from writing a lot, but reading only what you consider good writing is somewhat limiting. Books that have issues have a lot to teach...

posted 7y ago by Neil‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:48:04Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25556
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T05:48:04Z (over 4 years ago)
Reading broadly is one of the best things a writer can do, aside from writing a lot, but reading only what you consider good writing is somewhat limiting. Books that have issues have a lot to teach you, too. If you avoid issues you're shortchanging your education as a writer.

If you keep finding yourself writing in a pastiche of the styles you've read, perhaps the problem isn't that you need to tightly control your input but you need to become aware of why this is happening.

Understanding why you have the impulse to pay homage to writing you admire will allow you to use this talent (and it is a talent) in a way that services your own personal stylistic goals.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2016-12-16T19:05:24Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 5