Read Twice, Write Once
By Daniel Stallings, East Sierra Branch
While working on this workshop addition with my dad, the phrase “measure twice, cut once” frequently darts into my head. Cue your restrained laughter, no doubt. The turn of phrase emphasizes how you should plan for twice as long as you execute your plan. But after our February meeting this year, a twist to this proverb of home improvement popped into my brain. Read twice, write once. And I thought about how appropriate it was for being a writer.
Successful writers across genres and media tend to gravitate to the same piece of sage advice for any wannabe writer: READ. Read often. Read a lot. Read good writing to hear how it sounds. Jennifer Crittenden, our February speaker for Ridge Writers, definitely touted it as one of her key pieces of advice. And as my little reinvention of that classic saying suggests, you should really read twice as much as you spend time writing.
Why? Because that’s how we writers learn our craft. Scads of knowledge can be gleaned from the actual act of writing, and I’ve always been a proponent of encouraging writers to finish writing to learn all you can from it. However, you can’t and shouldn’t write in a vacuum. You need to read what’s out there. And you need to see what makes up the music of good writing. Think of it like almost any other profession. You’re dissecting the story to see how it work. You are taking apart the composition to find out why the pieces fit together. You are sharpening your eyes to see why authors make certain choices, thereby formulating your own theories and processes for your own work. If you read twice, write once, you will be able to write more effectively every time you sit down and dream up your stories.
“Read Twice, Write Once” first ran in the March 2020
Writers of the Purple Sage,
newsletter of Ridge Writers (CWC East Sierra Branch)