Influence of Reading on Writing

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There have been times in my reading, when I said to myself that I wished I could write like (fill in the blanks of the authors). The problem with that wish is that if one writes like another author, one is being somewhat disingenuous, like taking on someone else's persona, or writing style.

"Good writingà.is closely allied to good reading: both are creative and involve the whole person- emotions and intellect" (Anon 2003 1). The fact is that seeing someone else's construction of character, plot, even sentences and paragraphs, dialogue or paraphrase, can help us become more focused in the sort of writing we do. And yet, there is a danger in trying to become like someone else. Do we want to write mysteries? It won't hurt to read the different types of who-dun-its, from Agatha Christie to Erle Stanley Gardner to Ellery Queen and John Grisham. But, perhaps the worst review a writer could get is if some critic says "He (or she) writes like another Agatha Christie" Or, we could hear that we literally "stole" the plot from Arthur Conan Doyle or Rex Stout.

Perhaps what should influence is perspective. How does a successful author write about his characters and their traits, not merely how he plotted his writing. Thbis perspective comes from our understanding people as people, not just as characters. And, even in college writing courses, this takes the perceptive professor or instructor well beyond merely suggesting that his/her students read. "Our

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ter tend to get is that either their characters are not fully formed, or their plots are derivative. IO believe it was Shakespeare who claimed there were only seven original plots in world literature. I have no idea what they are, but let's just take a couple and see if authors living in different eras had the same plot. We all know Romeo and Juliet. Lovers who cannot be together die. Juliet commits suicide. Hundreds of years later, Tolstoy had his heroine, Anna Karenina, commit suicide because she could not live with her lover. The plot of two cultures clashing and making it impossible for any happiness is found in the famous movie, "The Blue Angel", and in Dreiser's "An American Tragedy". Of course, we cannot overlook Cleopatra and Caesar, or "Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw with essentially a similar plot, as was the opera "Madam Butterfly". So, it would be fair to say that by reading, we can discover a plot that would be suitable for something we want to write. So, suppose we read some of these mismatched couples plots by famous writers. Maybe that would give us the idea of writing a contemporary story about an Asian-American boy in love with a Caucasian boy. But, his tradition-bound family who sacrificed to escape from, sa
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Rex Stout, Madam Butterfly, READING WRITERS, Somerset Maugham, Louis XVI, Cause Effect, William Saroyan, Practice Survivor, George Orwell's, Gangsta Rappers, similar plot, initiating cause, reading simply, cause effect, books 1954, 2003 1, william saroyan, agatha christie, tend write, sort writing,
Approximate Word count = 1546
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

Influence of Reading on Writing

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