LogFAQs > #877860225

Zeus posted...

tbh, the thing I worry about is that reading pulp novels will actually decrease my literacy, given that many are incredibly poorly written. As a kid, I read tons of poorly written fantasy novels -- including a lot of D&D ones -- which gave me some poor writing habits.

Well, I was mostly referring to non-fiction reading or good fiction. I AM the person who's railed in the past about what I refer to as the Unholy Trinity - aka, the writers who basically became ultra-popular for churning out shit-dreck work that the masses lap up because its easy for the borderline illiterate to read books that are only borderline literature.

A lot of people always call out that "genre trash" adaptations are bad (ie, video game and RPG novels), but that almost goes without saying, and most people know going in that it's garbage (which is why the main audience for most of it is teenagers). I find stuff far worse when it appeals to a larger, older audience who actually think they're reading "literature", when they're essentially reading bad fan fiction or work deliberately calculated to appeal to people who don't actually like reading *cough*Dan Brown*cough*.

That being said, even reading crap genre trash or pulp stuff is still better than not reading anything, and doubly so if it eventually acts as a gateway into deeper reading. I know I'm not the ideal example, but I know I basically started out reading comic books and Choose Your Own Adventure books, and segued into fantasy and sci-fi novels before eventually picking up the habit of reading straight-up classic literature and history (ie, all the stuff they try to force you to read in high school and college, I know willingly read for pleasure as an adult). So much so that I don't actually read as much of the "lighter" stuff as I used to... though I still do as well (I basically just read Joe Abercrombie's Before They Are Hanged after finishing a book about the formation of Western culture in Europe circa the 11th century and before starting a book about the Byzantine Empire).

As for writing and RPing, even terrible novels can help make you better at writing - even if just by providing you good examples of what NOT to do. Sure, someone who reads nothing BUT pulp crap may not be able to see the weaknesses in the work, but someone who reads that AND other works broadens their experience and gets a much better view of how things work narratively.

It's one of the reasons why the best writers always say that, if you want to become a writer, you should read as much as you can, across as many different subjects as possible. And why it's always the worst writers who say they go out of their way to NOT read other books, to keep their work from being influenced by other writers. A good writer WANTS to be influenced by other writers. Preferably as many other great writers as you possibly can. "Creativity is hiding your sources".


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