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I was having a conversation the other day with one of my friends, they're a person who carries a book around with them constantly. Taking every moment to read. But they've never read what I call my 'trashy books'. Those little poorly edited books with a giant picture of a man's chest in some various supernatural scenario that you find on spinny racks at airports. We both write, now while I throw out novels like vomit with writing that needs A LOT of work, they write like no one else I've ever read. The quality of their writing craps all over the last three award winning novelists I've read recently...However, they can't ever seem to finish anything. No short story. No novel. And their confidence is extremely low.

And what I think is missing is learning the formula and structure that those crappy novels give you. Most of the time they have a basic structure and are part of a series. They're formed around their sexy time scenes, and I remember quite vividly in my teens one day realising how to structure a novel after reading some vampire story.

I haven't read as many great classic novels as I have trashy fiction. Which is probably why my writing needs so much work. But I can structure and finish a novel.

Do you think, to be a writer, you really need to read -everything-?

I think reading across the spectrum shows you different styles, different ways, how it's done/not done.If you want to write literature, you need to read literature, BUT you should also, once or twice, read its opposite, aka popular fiction, to see what NOT to be done in your type of stories. Same goes vice versa for popular fiction v/s literature.

I have a basic formula I follow for all my books, derived from the 'trashiest' of them all - Harlequin category romances. Here's how it goes for me; all my books follow this layout:

Characters meet - External Conflict - Internal Conflict - Black Moment - Resolution.

As simple as that! If I'm writing a shorter, say 15-30K story, I dial down the external conflict to just them meeting and then focus on Internal Conflict (GMC comes into play here) and so on.
If I'm doing a longer book (80-100K), then I will find ways to multiply the External Conflicts leading to a slow burn of the Internal Conflict.

Clear as mud, right? *wink*

I used to have the same problem. I'm sure your friend has an ending in mind and their beginning has been written. What they don't have is a middle. That transition from beginning to end. It's a lull that they aren't excited about writing, so they move on to something more exciting. I did this a lot when I was younger. For me coming up with a basic outline fixed the problem. I had a basic idea of what to do with that middle lull that bridged the gap and got me through to the ending I had planned. I have found that I must keep my outline vague, so I still have planning to do for that chapter. Sometimes it is just 1 sentence or even just a single word. It's just enough to give me a direction for that specific part in case I get stuck. The hardest part of finishing a story is forcing my way through the parts I am not excited to write or trying to figure out how to make them exciting.

In response to both Bisky and Brian, I don't think you should be reading OR writing anything that you are not interested in, let alone not excited about. If you are putting off, skipping or dreading a section there's something else wrong.

From a writing perspective this should be an indicator, I think, that you need to chop that out or shift around.

Now if you're reading something that you think is terrible, sure you can use it as a guide for what to avoid, but more than likely you're going to not finish it or be so brain numb that you toss it. Or you'll think it's so bad you'll dismiss it outright and not even take anything away from it as a learning.

The only thing I ever took away from reading things that I thought were terrible was "I reckon I can do better". That doesn't help with self-doubt and impostor syndrome, but it got me on this path :D

Being a genre writer who does not have a BA/MA, I can't see myself going and reading literature to be honest. A lot of people get that exposure in courses I think and it just doesn't attract me and I can't see how it might better my writing. I'd rather read more Poe, Lovecraft, etc.

I do think that if you have an inkling to go try something new though you should definitely read in that genre, even if you plan on your own spin on it.

And don't forget, one's trash is another's treasure!

I think that if you are not excited about writing a particular scene then as a writer you should come up with a way to make it exciting. Sometimes there are scenes you can't skip over or they contain important details that you may need to find another way to reveal.

I don't mind people reading lousy books for fun, I read dumb Cowboy books and pulp fiction, some of it is silly, I used to like comic books back in the dark ages, not so much these days. I think variety is good and elitism is not, personally. If you get all snooty about the Right Sort of Books© you kind of lose me.

I think you should read what you like. If you force yourself to read things you don't like, you just won't read. And not reading certainly won't help if you have a problem with your writing.

Force yourself to read things you don't like? Nah, life is too short for that.

While I hate the book elitism (someone said to me I only wrote fantasy becuase I was young and inexperienced, lol) I do feel like some writer's write the wrong sort of thing. Subjects inappropriate for the genres.

For instance I've never been so offended as I have been when a prolific cheeesy paranormal romance series I used to read approached the subject of male on male rape and the effects of longstanding sexual abuse. The writing was no where NEAR good enough to approach a subject in a concise and meaningful way (I.e. he found his soulmate and everything was hunkydory afterwards)

I read the authors note saying it helped her get over her own childhood abuse. But to me it screamed of lack of research into a subject and pushed the ideals that men aren't as affected by sexual violence as women.

If I want to read a trashy romance about vampires, I don't want a half-arsed attempt at mental health analaysis. I'd like to see that more in fantasy. But Christ, how did that get past the editors?

Bisky wrote: "I was having a conversation the other day with one of my friends, they're a person who carries a book around with them constantly. Taking every moment to read. But they've never read what I call my..."

In short, no, not everything. But I wold say "ANYthing." Whatever genre, whatever level of quality and whatever the intended audience is, a writer of fiction can get something out of reading it, provided there is some joy to it for them.

To be honest, I don't think as a writer you *have* to read everything. Let's face it, if I'm not into it I won't finish reading it. I do think that every once in a while one should pick up a book that is not nestled in that "preferred genre", it may surprise you, teach you new things.

Now to the issue of never finishing anything.
I don't think those two things are necessarily related. I think this particular problem is rooted in having a low self esteem in combination with having a killer sence for literature, paired with incredibly high expectations of what you *should* be writing/what you want your finished work to look like. Every writer knows that there is this gap between "what I want to write" and "what I am able to write". We all know that this gap will slowly close with time and, most importantly, practise, yet, it's very frustrating.
(seriously, when looking back at what we wrote a couple of years ago, there WILL be cringing. Lots of it).

But yea, that just what I suspect, I'm not a therapist and have NO credentials in this field.

Except for also not finishing stuff because I think I suck. I don't have a killer taste in literature, though ^^

I don't know if you have to read every type of book. Although, thinking about this, I realized that I have tried pretty much every genre over the years. Some I decided I don't like others I do, and the types I like have changed over the years. There are a couple of topics I won't touch with a ten foot pole, but in 10 years who knows. I've always read what I'm in the mood for. I do love a good series.

As far as "trashy" why not? Does it make you a shallow minded person if you do? Honestly, if someone thinks that, it seems to be a bit narrow minded to me. Besides, you never know what you might learn, be it something you might use or something you will stay away from.