Comments | moschus: fiction is important. dammit.

moschus

fiction is important. dammit.

Feb 10, 2011 13:57

cross-posted from Tribal Writer

1

Most aspiring fiction writers don’t read enough fiction, which is like a fighter going into the ring with one hand tied behind her back. The game is over before it started. I’ve written about this before - Reading is the Inhale, Writing is the Exhale: Developing Writer’s Intuition - and posted about it in ( Read more... )

Comments 13

cornerofmadness February 11 2011, 04:00:28 UTC

very well said

OMG i <3 u! no_bull_steve February 11 2011, 09:16:07 UTC

excuse my text language but you had me at...
"Most aspiring fiction writers don’t read enough fiction, ...and I always encounter resistance (generally from aspiring fiction writers who don’t read enough)."

I know you mean ME! And yes...I'll admit you were right! I learned this from you. I now read at least 7x the fiction I did when we first met.

I love this post. You said everything in 2 pages that it took Robert McKee a 400 page book to say! Keep it comin'....and I'm HOPING to read some new Musk fiction soon. And yes, I mean THIS Musk!
;-D

Dickens on the dock ext_336405 February 11 2011, 18:59:06 UTC

Hi there,

I agree with everything you say, and hate to be picky, but don't think the docks the Victorians waited on were in England, but New York. I could be wrong (there's a first time for everything).

Re: Dickens on the dock moschus February 11 2011, 19:46:17 UTC

I smack my forehead. :)

ext_428193 February 14 2011, 08:20:57 UTC

I think there's a difference between saying fiction "has value" and fiction is "important." Its important to society, and its nice, but reading fiction is not an important part of most adult lives ( ... )

moschus February 14 2011, 16:00:21 UTC

You sound like an engineer.

Read a "good percentage" of the "great, classic" novels by the ripe old age of 22? Oh please. Come on. Don't cut yourself off so early. Great fiction gets so much richer as you get older and more mature and able to bring a lot more to the experience.

Fiction develops empathy, the ability to see things from different perspectives. That is a very big deal, and something that certain engineers, and "logical" thinkers, could use a lot more of.

Fiction develops insight and understanding into the very experience of being human: it's where technology, politics, religion, psychology, etc., intersect and collide, depending on what kind of novel you choose.

And that is fucking important.

moschus February 14 2011, 16:12:10 UTC

By the age of 22 you don't have a solid education under your belt; you have a solid foundation to what should become a lifelong education. When you get to be as ancient as I am -- 38 -- and look back and see yourself at 22, and how much you thought you knew at the time, you'll see what I mean. :)

ext_428193 February 15 2011, 02:13:14 UTC

Eerily perceptive - I AM an engineer! (You can probably guess how I came to discover this blog, ha-ha.) I definitely see your point about fiction helping to develop empathy. And based on how naive I currently think of my 18-year-old self as having been, I'm sure you're right about the older/wiser thing too.

I'm not even sure what my point was in the above post to be honest... I don't want to come off as sounding like I think fiction is unimportant, I guess I was just spouting off my rationalization for why I read so much less than I used to. Anyways its nice that you respond to comments on here, thanks!

"fiction is important. dammit." pingback_bot February 16 2011, 14:19:11 UTC

User natalief referenced to your post from "fiction is important. dammit." saying: [...] that repository of knowledge it can draw on in the future. tribal X - fiction is important. dammit. [...]