Reading While Writing

How what you read shadows what you write.

YOU WILL WRITE LIKE WHAT YOU READ. it's a fact, it's true. If your reading fifty shades of grey, then whatever style your completely in love with will shadow into your writing, and it won't be good. 

I'm writing a re-telling of Peter Pan, and I realized how much my writing styled J.M. Barrie's after about eight thousand words. Guess what. ERASED EVERY SINGLE WORD AND STARTED OVER. It didn't sound original, interesting, or real. It sounded like a thirteen year old who wanted to sound cool. Trust me, I would know. 

So, read read read, it will make you better. But if your so in love with "The Lucky One," and the style of the writing wait a week or even a month because you know precisely what will happen. Movies are completely different, be as obsessed with The Avengers as much as you want, it won't effect your writing. Unless of course you suddenly are adding Captain America to the story randomly. 

If you write, read over it and see if your sounding too much like another writer. Sometimes this will happen even if you don't read a book. Just because you love the writer you will sometimes shadow them without knowing it. 

But all in all, STAY AWESOME MY FRIENDS.