You’ve probably heard this before: “If you want to write, you have to read.”
It’s one of those phrases that gets tossed around in writing advice circles, usually followed by a shrug and no real explanation.
So let’s dig into it.
Because it’s not just a vague platitude—it’s a truth. A deep, structural one.
You can’t write well if you don’t know what good writing feels like.
That’s it, really.
You need to read so you can learn the shape of stories.
So you can get a sense for what pacing feels like, not just when you’re looking at your own manuscript, but when you’re inside someone else’s.
Reading lets you internalise things you can’t always name.
The subtle rhythm of dialogue.
The way tension builds across chapters.
How exposition can be folded neatly into action—without dragging the story down.
You don’t just see these things. You feel them.
And eventually, you start to replicate them—first unconsciously, and later with more control.
Reading is fast. Writing is not.
I read quickly. Always have.
If a book grabs me, I can devour a hundred pages in an hour without even realising it.
But I don’t write anywhere near that fast.
Most people don’t. Writing is slow. It’s granular.
You build it one word at a time, like laying bricks while trying to imagine the whole house.
And that’s what tripped me up, early on.
I knew what good stories felt like to read.
But I didn’t yet know how to make them feel that way as I wrote.
So I did something weird.
I picked a couple of passages that had made me stop and go “Wow.”
Scenes that hit hard. Phrases that felt like lightning. Whole chapters that were structured so beautifully that they made me go back and re-read them, just to experience them a second time.
I typed them out.
I wasn’t analysing them. I wasn’t pulling them apart sentence by sentence. (Although, I did do that later… a story for another time, friend).
I just propped the book open on my desk, and typed.
Word by word. Punctuation and all.
Not for plagiarism. Not to memorise them.
Just to feel what it was like to write them—to have those words flow through my fingers, onto a screen, at my own speed.
To feel the weight of a sentence that reads in three seconds but took me a minute to type.
It wasn’t a magical breakthrough, but I learned something.
I learned how much deliberate slowness goes into creating something that reads effortlessly.
How clean prose doesn’t happen by accident.
How much trust good writing places in the reader.
I learned things about word choice, and pacing, and repetition for effect.
Do you need to do this? Of course not.
Might you learn something by doing it?
Maybe.
Reading gives you the fuel. Writing teaches you how to burn it.
So yes—read widely, read deeply, read often.
Not just in your genre, not just your favourites.
Read things that challenge you.
Read things that confuse you.
Read things that make you feel like you’ll never be that good—because that’s how you grow.
Read things that aren’t very good, and feel smug about how your writing will be (or maybe is?) better than that.
And sometimes?
Pick a line, a paragraph, a chapter—something that stopped you in your tracks, something that made you sit up and pay attention in the best way.
Type it out.
Just to feel what it’s like.