Never Stop Learning
When we start to write we know what we learned from school, but that isn’t enough to know how to write great fiction. So we read, take more classes, and absorb blog posts on the craft of writing.
After all that work we feel we know enough to put down a good, well-written story on the page. Once we know enough to finish a decent project, that is the time we often stop learning. We may be reading the occasional blog post, but we are not devouring knowledge as much as we used to. Instead, we are spending that time on our own writing.
While we certainly know more than we did at the beginning of our journey and we do need to spend time writing, it is not the time to fall of the learning wagon. Although we may be having success with the knowledge we do have, there is always more knowledge out there—knowledge with greater depth—and we would be wise to seek it out.
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway was a successful author and is a household name in literature, yet he never considered himself or anyone else a master. If all notable authors are still students, then we are certainly still students.
Never Stop Reading
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time—or the tools—to write. Simple as that.”
Stephen King
Never, ever stop reading.
We use what we put in our minds to write, and if we aren’t putting anything new in, we certainly aren’t getting any more ingenious at writing.
It is essential for a writer to read other writers’ writing and take note of the various styles, plots, and characters they utilize. Reading teaches us, inspires us, and gives us new ideas for our own works.
In addition, how are we supposed to stay in love with writing when we don’t read? We all started our writing journey by loving books, so if we stop reading them, then we lose the magic in books that we found so many years ago.
Reading and writing go hand in hand, and, according to King, if you don’t read your writing will suffer.
Be an Apprentice
Always be a student and you will be ahead of the game. There is so much in this beautiful craft that we do not know, and if we write then we should try to do it to the best of our ability.
Learn always. Read Always. Study the craft and follow the advice authors who have gone before you left. They found out these things on their own, and they are now passing it on to you so you have a chance to build upon it.
Take Action
1. Go to the Recommended Reading page and choose a book from the Nonfiction for Writers section and/or Fiction section
2. Get the book(s) that interests you today and practice being an apprentice of the craft of writing!
Subscribe to Sarah’s Newsletter for Writing Resources, the Latest Content, and Book News
We won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at anytime. Our Privacy Policy
S.J. Siedenburg is a thriller & fantasy novelist, an editor, and a bibliophile with a passion for stories and helping writers finish their novels. She’s the author of the guidebooks Character Presentation, Before the First Draft, and the How to Write a Novel online course. Six of her short stories have been published through writing contests. Sarah lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” —John 1:5
2 thoughts on “What Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King Teach Us About Writing”
Yeah, so King isn’t wrong, but I don’t think his advice about reading is the best, either. I’m a huge fan of Terry Pratchett, so allow for bias, but I’d guess that for every novel he read he was reading three or four times as many non-fiction books on a variety of subjects.
We need to read about everything from the biography of Harriet Tubman to medieval Chinese agriculture to taxation systems to the life story of a New York drug addict, not specifically as research, but simply to broaden our knowledge and learn about the interior and exterior lives of other real people.
And we need to be living our own lives as fully as possible, too.
A novelist whose main input is other novels will never produce work that touches people’s hearts and souls. They may be prolific, they may be “great”, but they will waste their writing career.
I completely agree that reading a wide variety of genres is invaluable to learning how to write better. In this quote from King, I don’t believe he was specifying reading only novels. In my commentary on the his quote, I chose to focus on reading fiction as the example, but it is certainly not the only application 🙂