Gotta Write

One of my favorite authors is Chuck Palahniuk.  He has a really interesting writing style, and he always has a great way of keeping the reader guessing.  If you don’t think you know him, you’re probably familiar with a movie based on one of his books: Fight Club.  If you thought the movie was intriguing, try reading one of his books!

His writing style is really distinctive.  One day after I wrote a big chunk of my book I reread it and realized something…I was writing like Palahniuk.  I don’t think it was because I’m anywhere near as talented as he is, but I think it had more to do with the fact that I was reading Invisible Monsters and apparently I was picking up on the writing style without even realizing it.  I wasn’t imagining it either, because a couple of my readers actually mentioned the similarity.

What are authors supposed to read? I know that most people argue that you can’t be a good writer unless you read a lot, but I wonder if it might be time to be put other fiction away when you’re in the midst of writing a story.  Do other writes deal with this?

Just to be on the safe side I’ve put fiction away for a while and instead I’m reading Freakonomics (which, by the way is super interesting).  If I start integrating socioeconomic theories into my story then I’ll know that I’m getting entirely too involved in the things I’m reading.

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