Which Is Easier: Reading or Writing?
1 Jul
Sometimes, Writing is Easier
The Baltimore Sun has an interesting guest blog post that I think is a worthwhile read. It offers a creative, and innovative take of the relationship between the reader and the writer. If you have time, click here to read it.
Basically, Lackey – the writer of the piece – compares the relationship of reader and writer to that of dancing. When you’re dancing, you have a lead and a follow. Both people are integral, and the dancing won’t work if one person messes up. Similarly, if the reader and writer don’t sync, then the text is useless.
It’s an interesting comparison, and I like it. Yet as for the premise of the question – is reading or writing easier? – I actually don’t know. Reading well can be a hard skill to develop, just as writing well is a hard skill. Since we often place the emphasis on the latter, it may very well be that reading is indeed harder.
Personally, I think writing is easier. Writing YWS (as in the code and design behind it) is much easier than reading books like Ulysses. In one, I know exactly what I’m doing, where I’m going, and how to get there. But with the other, I have to stop to consider the text and let the words play around in my mind. Plus, as Lackey notes, when you’re tired, it’s always easier to write. I’m often writing (or coding as the case may be) at 3 am in the morning, but it would be a struggle to read at that time of night.
So it’s an interesting question. Your thoughts?
Actually, Nate, reading has always been easier for me. I can understand a book more easily than trying to write, epecially at night. I usually am reading at three am in the morning, so I might have just grown use to doing it.
Whenever I’m reading, it just feels natural and understandable and it’s like it doesn’t take much thinking. But whenever I’m writing, sometimes it feels like I’m racking my brain for words to put down. Like I have to really really think.
That’s just my personal opinion.
The metaphor is a bit skewed, I find. People can dance perfectly fine without a partner. I do it all the time.
When it comes to the actual question, though, one must ask what kind of reading and what kind of writing the person is doing.
I break reading into two groups: Reading for fun and reading to critique/for school. The former is pretty easy and I’ve been known to stay up until midnight reading for fun. (Mostly re-reading old books, but it falls under the category of “for fun”). However, it’s really rare for me to critique something after eight pm because I’m tired.
Writing is also broken up into two groups: Old ideas and new ideas. I can work on old ideas at any hour of the day, and I often do. For short stories it’s a bit different, but I still find it easier to write an idea that I’ve been thinking about for a little while. Sudden insperation tends to have too many holes.