Why I’ve stopped reading thrillers since I started writing them myself

Many writing guides advise you to read as much as possible in the genre in which you want to write. I do precisely the opposite. Here you’ll find out why you too should consider ignoring this advice.

The idea seems very obvious at first: If you want to write good thrillers (or romance novels, science fiction stories, etc.), you first have to read a lot of successful books from your genre so that you know what the readers want.

I don’t want to contradict that. I’ve read a lot of thrillers too. I love this genre and am a big fan. But I stopped when I decided to write thrillers myself.

I learned a lot from the great masters, but I had to leave them behind to find my own voice.

We humans are complex adaptive systems, and that makes us very effective imitation machines, among other things.

Children learn their mother tongue through imitation, not by learning grammatical rules or memorizing vocabulary lists.

They use idiomatic expressions and the unique vocabulary of their parents and other close relatives. Later, their language is further influenced by their circle of friends and other peer groups to which they belong.

As adults, we also know the phenomenon of linguistic adaptation. Anyone who has ever spent a long time with people who speak a different accent will be able to confirm this. Sooner or later, we will inevitably begin to incorporate some of the unique features of the foreign accent into our own language.

In addition to unique vocabulary and idioms, we also imitate speech melodies very easily.

All this shows how influenceable our language, which is perceived as so individual, is. And of course, we are not only influenced by spoken words. Everything we read also shapes our thinking and, ultimately, our language.

When we write ourselves, we access a vast, even unconscious, treasure trove of information. Formulations that we choose are often considered to be our own invention, although, in reality, we have read or heard them elsewhere before.

We imitate other people in our daily communication and writing.

In writing, we are also influenced not only by foreign words and idioms but also by narrative structures that we have encountered before.

And this is also the reason why I stopped reading the genre in which I write myself. I want to avoid suddenly unconsciously using a Grisham formulation or a Patterson plot twist.

It’s unlikely that a reader would notice such borrowings, but it prevents me from developing my own narrative voice.

Meanwhile, I have not only stopped reading thrillers. I don’t read any fiction anymore. I have written the last twenty-eight novels without having read another novel during this time.

I think that helped me to develop my own narrative voice.

I don’t want to forbid anyone to read, but if you’re a professional writer, you should at least consider avoiding the books that are most similar to your own.

There is a danger that at some point, these books will no longer be like yours, but your books will be like others.

Professionalism in art also has a lot to do with independence and distinctiveness. As an author, you should always keep this in mind and do everything you can to preserve and cultivate this distinctiveness.

Read also:

do you want more of this?

Receive weekly emails, and don’t miss any of my articles.

subscribe here http://bit.ly/ReneJunge