writers

A worrying trend I am noticing these days is that would-be WRITERS are no longer reading. It’s bad enough that your average Joe is either too stupid or too lazy to pick up a book, but now even aspiring authors are becoming functionally illiterate (which may explain Trumpism and the popularity of Dungeon Crawler Carl, but I digress…) The lack of reading comprehension is evident when Redditors have trouble formulating complete sentences or using proper grammar. It’s apparent these would-be storytellers are more interested in video games and anime, but lacking the resources to create their own content, they resort to what they deem a cheaper, easier alternative (books). Of course, if they knew how much work goes into becoming an author, I think they’d reconsider learning to program.

This does not bode well for the future of literature or, for that matter, our civilization, which is founded on the written word. But expecting people to care about your work when you refuse to care about anyone else’s is beyond hypocritical. You cannot honestly learn to write well enough for anyone to give a damn without reading as if your life depended on it (which it may).

So, my advice to all you would-be storytellers is simply: GET OFF REDDIT; GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA; HIT THE BOOKSTORE, and READ READ READ!

For my latest podcast, I thought it’d be fun to answer some random questions from the r/writers subreddit, despite the fact that the answer almost lies in more reading. So, if you’re dreaming of seeing your name in print on a bookstore shelf someday, you owe it to yourself to give this one a listen!