I’m one of the few writers who will downplay the importance of reading. This came from years of watching aspiring writers talk about their goals — and saying that they had time to read two novels in such-and-such a month and no time to write their own.

Of course, I’m not against reading. That’d be insane. What I’m against is the idea that reading tons of novels makes a person better at writing them. This just isn’t true. The story I often tell is about my childhood piano lessons. My teacher would tell me every week to spend hours practicing. She never once, in eight years, told me to go home and listen to music.

That’s not to say listening to music isn’t going to help you play piano. I’m sure it does. But if I spent ten hours listening to a song instead of practicing it, I would never have gotten better at actually playing it.

Anyway, this tip is about one of my all-time favorite reading exercises: trivia books. You see, I feel like there’s only so much I can learn by reading novels. At some point, I inevitably see writers shift over to a sort of mimicry when they read too much of the same author or even genre. Their stories start to look far too much like the one they’re reading. If you’re going to read, read for inspiration: not direction.

And trivia books are excellent for this exercise. They’re designed to be consumed in short sessions — often a page at a time. My favorite series, the Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers (yeah, I’m serious), include wild stories and facts that are extremely useful for plotting out unique novels. Rather than seeing something in your genre and saying “how can I make that my own”, you’re reading about historical craziness that can easily be adapted to your characters.

Give these books a try!