Thought Pollution

Why do so many people misconstrue being a writer with being a reader? I understand using a solid basis of literature to make appropriate works for the current literary mind, but wouldn't reading dilute the self-realization the work to become nothing more than a hack of derivitives?
Does ignorance of cannon (of any type) instill originality, good or bad, in the work?

all good writers are well read readers
No one cares about your snowflake originality faggotry
kys

I agree that nobody cares about the individual originality but what if the originality squelched, from the individual, reading famous works, dulls a genius in the making?
And do you concede the point that the act of reading obscures true originality?

I don't think I can offer an answer, but I was thinking about this the other day. I was thinking about how I stopped reading consistently a while ago and how I want to write now. But I became nervous because I thought my drop in reading would make me a poor writer. Someone told me that to be a good writer, writing is more important than reading (practice makes better, etc.) but would reading not significantly improve my writing capabilities? I think so.

No, it doesn't. You have to know what's been done before you can break out of it. Anything you think is "original" has likely been done before, and you wouldn't know it because you didn't read it.

Also, it's canon.

I would disagree only in the aspect that reading does not make you better at writing.
I think it does, but at the sacrifice of original perspective

I would agree that one risks walking over trodden ground, but my main point is that reading famous works to get perspective with always affect the reader, and therefore, they will lose that which makes them unique and adhere to acceptable practices.

>canon
Yea, my mistake.

I don't think you've thought this through very far. Can you give me a concrete example of what you're saying? What makes someone "unique" that reading will take away from them? It's like saying to make avant-garde music you have to play guitar without knowing how to play guitar or ever having seen someone play guitar. If you're a musical genius you might come up with something interesting but it'll likely be shit to everyone except the player. Avant-garde artists know exactly what norms they're breaking, they're a reaction against them.

This.

OP is very generation snowflake; muh precious feelings muh self expression...nobody cares, its boring

so I would say originality does not depend on what has been done, but what an individual comes up with in moments of creation without a basis of pre expressed thought.
Now, I understand this idea is most likely not shared, but the argument I press forward is that of which people cannot create truly original works if influenced by a prior work.
You can claim originality from a comment on a work, (through an original thought on the subject) without making a truly original statement; for it rests on the shoulders of another idea.
The same goes for literary styles and literary tactics.

I in no way intend to personify myself with this question, but merely wish to introduce the idea and discuss it's viability.

your idea is stupid and you're likely 18 and think youre very smart
fuck off

No human ever had a single original thought, ever. At all. Your "ideas" and "muh creativity" is just the result of the brain mixing up shit already experienced. Even if you don't read, don't consume other media and never talk to people and live in the wildness, the ideas you will push out will be limited by your life, while with reading you can add the pool of the lives of others into your experience pool to mix up some more interesting stuff. Also give you a hand when it comes to turning the idea into words.

You don't have to read too much and your main job as a writer is being a writer but by not reading, you're just being wilfully ignorant, which is very unlikely to help you.

Also this.

But your feelz and self expression ARE crucial, to make the work YOURS, just it's not something one really need to worry about too much due it coming almost by itself.

It's more a matter of time investment than thought pollution. If you go up to a video game developer and tell them you're fit for the job because you've played a lot of videogames, they'll laugh in your face. You need to read to be smart in general, but the idea that writers have to do even more reading than anyone else ought to is a meme.

Though it's possible I'm actually just holding non-writers to a higher standard as opposed to actually proposing that the writer's reading standard is actually lower than stated.

Cool, thanks for the feedback.

Yea that's a great answer, thank you.

eeeeehhhshut-thefuckup

>to personify myself
nigger

originality is highly over rated this late in the game
you have to generally be shit to be original after 4000 years of art

I think if you want to be a writer then apart from writing, reading novels is one of the best things you can do. But reading isn't as important as lit says it is. They are cucks who want to pretend that reading is extremely valuable.

>Why do so many people misconstrue being a writer with being a reader?
Because you can't do one well without the other.

>I understand using a solid basis of literature to make appropriate works for the current literary mind, but wouldn't reading dilute the self-realization the work to become nothing more than a hack of derivitives [sic]?
Work is only derivative if it draws heavily or exclusively from a single source. Reading an entire canon prevents this.

>Does ignorance of cannon (of any type) instill originality, good or bad, in the work?
No. Most authors who ignore the canon (think YA types) wind up poorly restating centuries-old ideas and contributing nothing new. Originality comes from responding to ideas that are prominent in the canon, not coming up with something "totally new."

>(think YA types)
They are pretty obsessed by the canon actually, way too much leading to them sticking to a well tried formula BECAUSE most YA writers are teens or English majors, who never looked beyond the Western canon and genre lit. Thrillers and romance stuff differ more despite sticking to the same formula, but in the end only postmodern memes really stick out.