Reading the Classics

My friend advises to stick to the classics because their voices carry over time. When it comes to reading for the point of learning to become a better writer of fiction, here this advice may be misleading: technology changes the readers mind. What I mean by this is today we get what we want when we want it. I want to tell someone something I text it or email it or call them on my cell phone. If I want a coffee, there is a Starbucks on every corner. We have low attention spans. The writers of the classics mostly wrote a time before this, even largely before the age of cinema (or at least the fast paced action packed cinema we know). Dickens would spend many pages introducing a scene, while today we want to get straight to the point. We want the action and excitement, or at least want to know why we should care. Hemingway wrote very similar to a screenplay, before screenplays were so prevalent (the main difference in my view is he wrote in past tense). If I wanted to read something in his “minimalist” style, I would pick up the screenplay to Inception or The Matrix and at least be intrigued by the plot.

My advice is to read the classics, but to keep the above in mind. Don’t mimic them if you are an author, and try to be patient with them if you are a reader. But better advice would be to read such short stories as T. Coraghessan Boyle’s King Bee, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Crazy Sunday, or James Mathew’s Grenade, or novels such as Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth or my personal favorite, George R.R. Martin’s adult fantasy The Game of Thrones. These are great books to learn how to keep a reader engaged, how to develop characters, and how to keep dialogue exciting and meaningful. I hope this is helpful!