I am always slightly baffled by novelist friends who say they don’t read novels while they are writing one. It seems to me a bit like saying you don’t want to go to France while you’re trying to learn French. There is so much to be learnt from other writers that it is deeply foolish to avoid them.
In general, I think it’s a mistake for a working or would-be writer to read only The Greats. If you read nothing but Dostoevsky it seems to me you’re bound to get depressed because you’ll never be Dostoevsky (or Dickens or Austen or Eliot). But if Dostoevsky was writing now he wouldn’t be Dostoevsky either. At the risk of sounding simplistic, any writer writing now is a ‘contemporary writer’ and it is from her/his contemporaries that he/she has most to learn.
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood Frankie and Stankie by Barbara Trapido
As a plot-driven novelist, I always feel slightly in danger of concentrating too much on story and not enough on style. So I feel I can learn a huge amount from writers like Ian McEwan and the Canadian Margaret Atwood. Both of them write fantastic stories but are never afraid of complexity. See McEwan’s and Atwood’s . I have also learnt a huge amount from writers who are not afraid of comedy – black comedy in particular. Hilary Mantel’s early books, and are great examples – along with anything by Barbara Trapido.
Other writers’ flaws are sometimes as interesting as their strengths. Helen Dunmore’s latest is structurally all over the place but a classic example of a book which works despite breaking all sorts of rules. The main plot – a mother recovering from the accidental death of her child – is chopped up and broken by all sorts of unrelated diversions, but the warmth and humanity of Dunmore’s writing shines off the page and you forgive her anything. Graham Swift’s East Anglian classic contains whole chapters of pure history, but these are integrated so well into the story you go with him all the way. One of the great things about being a novelist is reading other writers and realising that there are as many different types of novel as there are stars in the sky – and there is an infinite amount to learn.
Louise Doughty is the author of four novels, the latest of which, , is about a Romany family living in Central Europe during the Second World War. She also writes plays for radio and has worked widely as a journalist and broadcaster in London, where she lives.
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