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Aryan patel

Lauren roe

Engl 1310.002

March 5,2020

Importance of reading in a writer's life

The essay ‘reading to write’ by Stephen King, is very effective to persuade his audience. Stephen King is

well known for this horror fiction today, he has written dozens of novels and short stories. Kings writing

took off in 1974 with his first fiction “Carrie” including “Salem’s lot” and etc. Kings were not a writer

from the beginning, after his graduation he started working as a janitor, laundry worker and a high school

English teacher before he was known for his horror fiction. In this essay, Stephen King uses humour,

personal experience and direct references to illustrate how important reading to become a successful

writer.

Stephen King starts the essay with the purpose of acknowledging his audience with the importance of

reading, he begins by saying that a writer must do two things above all others ‘Reading a lot and Writing

a lot’ and also says that there is no shortcut in this. As a writer who lacks tools that helps the writer in a

higher quality of writing, a writer must read and write a lot as it helps us with word selection, writing

style and it also improves one's knowledge as they read more. He also explains how he reads for fun and

not for learning, he enjoys reading about fictional stories. He also says that not every book you read must

be a good book. It might be a bad one, and also assert that bad books have more to teach than the good

ones. He also explains that a person should read in one's free time and he/she must enjoy reading, cause if

they don't enjoy reading and must read it for the knowledge.

The intended audience for this essay is every one that writes which might imply to everyone, as in today's

society everyone needs to write in schools, jobs and who wanna become a writer. Writing is a critical

element in one's life nowadays, some courses also require writing essays or writing reports, etc. Reading

is crucial as it helps some people with boredom and supplies interest for them and helps them get

distracted, reading also helps people gain information that they previously didn't know. Moreover, writers

must know how much time they should spend reading to be more successful and satisfied with their work.

A majority of the fans from the audience like his writing because he tells his audience about the books he

has read and his humour also helps them connect with him more. He also used personal references in the

essay to make his audience more familiar with the topic about the importance of reading in a writer's life.

King's main belief in this essay is that he is trying to acknowledge people about the benefits of reading for

the writer. In this essay, the author says that every book you pick up has its own lesson and also explains

that a bad book can teach you more than a good book. Moreover, he shares his past experience with a bad

book and talks about the novel of Mr Murray Leinster ‘ASTEROID MINERS’, that he read when he was

in 8th grade and describes how terrible the book was as the didn't consist of a proper plot of the story and

the word choice was also not that good. He also elaborates that this book was more of less successful

novels that Mr Leinster wrote, he also explains some of the mistakes that Mr Leinster made while writing

this novel such as Leinster was obsessed with the word ‘zestful’ and used that word on many occasions in

the novel and he describes this novel to be a bad book which then he says that this book was an important

part of this life as a reader. He also uses humour to captivate the audience and states that bad prose can

help a writer more than a semester at a good writing school. He also states that this helps a writer to find

his/her writing style and can also refine one's writing style.

The second thing he claims in this essay is that a reader must enjoy reading because if a person is not

enjoying it they will not have an interest in the thing they do they will not succeed more. Therefore he

gives an example of this son Owen and shares this experience about it. He says that when Owen was a

child he fell in love with the instrument of saxophone, so king decided to get owen a saxophone for his

Christmas present and lesson with a local music man, but seven months later King observed that Owen

was not taking any interest in playing sax. King also explained how he realised that Owen was no longer

interested in playing the instrument. He says that Owen stopped practising sax while in his free time.

Practising makes a person more skilled in the thing they do. Moreover, readers should read more as

reading can enhance the writer's knowledge about writing and can experience different styles of writing.

In conclusion, Stephen King was successful in persuading his audience about the importance of reading in

a writer's life. He also elaborates that reading helps an individual in various ways such as expanding one's

knowledge, he also states that reading is a necessity and it can't be cheated in a writer's life. In this essay

king also states how important reading is in everyone's life nowadays as people have to write about job

essays, college essays, etc. He also talks about this personal experience with it and shares his childhood

memory of the book that made him realise how bad book was a better teacher than a good book as the bad

book helps us see how not to write and how to improve to not to be a bad writer. Moreover he also shares

about his son Owens experience with saxophone playing and that example explains how if you don't take

interest in doing a thing ones not going to achieve the best at it. So Stephen King is a really good writer

and he knows to gain audiences attention.