“Just read more books.”

A lot of writers say “READ MORE BOOKS. AND SOME MORE BOOKS. READ AND WRITE” to people who are asking how to get better at writing craft, and even to people who never wrote but are trying to figure out how to.

Okay. Yes. It is important. Reading is one of the best things you can do.

But STOP READING NOW!! AND READ BELOW INSTEAD!!

I am like, really? You have been writing for a long time (or a while) and say “would love to help new authors” but your actual advice is just read more? For real? Maybe “read fiction writing for dummies” would be better? Or “Wikipedia it” at least? 

So, if this “just read more books” is really good advice and works, I can start generating amazing stories after reading a massive amount of books, right?

 If I watch Shohei Ohtani’s game-winning home runs for 3 hours straight, I would know how to hit the home runs, right? I'll mix Ichiro Suzuki for the variety, because I am ambitious.

Yes. Understanding how others–especially successful authors write is very important, but give me a break. How can you learn from it if you don't know the basics? Or don’t know where to look, what to look for? If you know how to analyze books while you are reading, yes, indeed, reading more books will help you.

Am I saying you don’t need to read at all, then? 

Oh, no, that is not what I am trying to say. No No No.

Here. Let’s read this together ↓ From a classic famous Novel Jane Ayre (probably many YA never heard of?). Tell me what you think of this sentence. 

Jane: “I was a discord in Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage.”

Let me guess what you are thinking.

“Okay…? So what?”

“She was a discord…?”

“She didn’t fit in / she was ignored / she was an outsider”

Something like that, I am guessing.

If you are a seasoned writer, you would say, “very powerful Telling with a metaphor.”

Yes. It is very powerful Telling. Because I still suck and I am still learning, If I were to write, I would have written; She was alienated, she hated being there because she couldn't fit in.

For people who are not familiar with music, discord in the text is not the famous discord chat, it means dissonance, or tones that clash and sound unpleasant when played together in music.

If you read the book, Jane is actually the one who was abused, but she is saying she is the noise and she is disturbing the family. A very sad, very powerful sentence that tells you she thinks she is the bad one. Jane is seeing the Gateshead Hall as an orchestra and everyone including servants are creating beautiful harmonious music while she is alone and destroying the melody. Beautifully crafted sentence.

Let’s see another one. It’s from Harry Potter (1).

“Harry had slipped through Voldermort’s clutches for a second time, but it had been a narrow escape, and even now, weeks later, Harry kept waking in the night, drenched in cold sweat, wondering where Voldemort was now, remembering his livid face, his wide, mad eyes–”

Here is a breakdown.

Telling: “Harry had slipped through… Harry kept waking in the night,”
Showing: “drenched in cold sweat,”
Telling: “wondering where Voldemort was now, remembering”
Showing: “his livid face, his wide, mad eyes–”

The author beautifully forwarded the time with past, factual info (tell), added Harry’s body reaction “drenched in cold sweat,” and landed a visual image of Voldemort’s face. If it was all Telling, it would be: wondering where Voldemort was now, remembering how terrifying he was.

Not as good as her original sentence. It doesn’t scare the reader.

Oh. You know what Voldemort looks like? So you can totally picture how terrifying he is so there is no need to SHOW, just TELL he was terrifying?

Not so fast.

That is because you watched the movie(s). When the 1st Harry Potter book came out, there were no movies, so if the author just used “how terrifying he was", the readers would only know: Ok, the dude was terrifying. But how?

When you read a book, ENJOY IT FIRST. And if you loved the book, go back and turn your analytical eyes and read it again. Which sentences were Telling and why? What was the effect? Why did the author use Showing instead of Telling here? Why did the author choose a specific word rather than common vocabulary and how did it work?

This is what no one tells you when they say “JUST READ MORE BOOKS”. If you just read without analysing, the most you get out of it is: this book is written in 1st-person POV and present tense. Does that information help your writing in any way? 

“Oh, this writer is talking about Showing and Telling again.”

I know you didn’t say it but you were thinking it lol

It is because understanding Showing and Telling is the core of the writing craft. If you are able to write both and be able to decide which one to use when, your story will become alive (Polishing what you wrote comes later lol).