To Walk With Giants

Reading and writing are, and have been for a long time, a significant part of my life. They have helped me mature in ways that no other hobby can. I first learned to read and write like any other child. My mom taught me sounds, and how those sounds correspond with the letters of the alphabet, and so on. But, my journey was not without its struggles.

Around the age of five, when I was able to read and sound out words well, I would often choose the thickest books that I could get my hands on. I would sometimes read them all the way through, but mostly, I stopped halfway. However, with any book I finished, I would come running to my mom, ecstatic that I could tell her I had read a book from front to back. She would then ask me about the plot. In a panic, I would often realize that I could not remember the events of the book I had just finished, and that I truly had not comprehended it one bit. Every time I completed a large tome of a volume, I would be overwhelmed with discouragement that I could not recount it. Book after book, no matter how long they were, I felt disappointed in myself.

It was then that my mom gave me a helping hand. I was very artistically-minded and fond of drawing. So, for every book I read, she told me to draw a picture that summarized each chapter once I finished. This was the one tool that greatly enhanced my comprehension, and after two years of practicing this exercise (my comprehension has always been on the slightly slower end), I began to excel in my comprehension skills. At the age of 7, I could now read a book and remember the plot. I could recall the characters’ journeys and their struggles. I became a truly avid reader, and in turn, it became a hobby of mine. Wherever I would go, I could be found with a book in my hand. Most often, it was of the fantasy genre. I was fascinated with the thought of creating a world so different from our own, where nothing is bound by physical rules, and where I could meet the giants of that world face to face, walking alongside them through the story. 

I believe my love of fantasy books in particular arose from the drawings my mom had me make all those years ago. Not only was I good at drawing, but I found a sense of comfort in seeing the sketches of maps and cities in the books I read. Watching The Lord of the Rings movies pushed me to want to read the books. I attempted J. R. R. Tolkien’s series, and almost immediately gave up. I had trouble keeping my focus on it and came to believe it was too complex for my understanding. I set the book down for a year or two, reading other less challenging books in the same genre before picking Tolkien’s series up again. My reading level had greatly increased since attempting it the first time. Now that I could fully grasp the meaning of the series, I read each of the three volumes front to back and they soon became my favorite books I had ever read.

Once I had experienced the world of The Lord of the Rings, I knew that there was something different about the fantasy genre compared to any other genre in reading. Tolkien’s books have long been my favorite series. The depth he evoked through the story of Frodo and the ring, and the expansive lore that portrayed itself throughout the land of Middle-Earth seemed to open my mind to the possibilities of worldbuilding. To think that a man such as Tolkien had created a living and breathing world from scratch–and one so otherworldly and different than the real world–was astonishing to me. If a man had done it, I could too, right?

A few years later, I came to the world of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. Again, I was astonished at the depth of lore in the story, and how his characters’ journeys spanned a fourteen-book series, each volume adding to the last with the depth and creativity of the world. I found it amazing how someone like J. R. R. Tolkien or Robert Jordan used words to craft an entire universe with their own hands. Eventually, I began to want a world of my own like Middle-Earth and the Wheel of Time. I wanted to walk with the giants from my own mind. I wanted to create an entire land that didn’t exist, and I wanted to be the only one who knew about it (and the civilizations I built, of course).

So, I began putting my ideas onto the page. That seemed the most useful way to make the lands in my head a reality. Words were the best way to capture the depth of history and the emotional conflict within the characters. Drawing pictures could capture them well enough, yes. But the stories behind those pictures are told through words. I began a long period of time when I was around the age of seven writing my own fantasy stories. Sure, I almost always gave up after only one chapter, but I was inspired, and when I think back on it now, that is truly all that mattered at the time. Now, when I look back on every story I wrote, every land I crafted, and every giant I walked with, I cannot help but be grateful. 

In the beginning, my own writing lacked any depth or character development at all, which is to be expected of someone that young. I was mostly focused on whether or not the scene I wrote was “awesome” enough to be made into a Hollywood movie. One story that sticks out in my mind lacked any type of cohesion whatsoever. From what I remember, it consisted of a boy wanting to go on an adventure, finding a friend, and tossing a dangerous, powerful glass orb into the ocean that, I kid you not, had a note on it saying, “throw me in the ocean”. Before you ask: no, this had nothing to do with the plot. Then, if I am correct, an empty dingy floated up to the protagonist out of nowhere, and that is where I ended it, giving up on it at probably ten pages.

I may grimace (a lot) when I read through what I wrote when I was much younger, but every single one of those words was practice. Because of that practice, I write even better stories now. Not only has practice helped me, but with the passage of time, I have gained life experience that I can apply to my stories. The hardships I face and the inner battles I conquer have helped to shape my character, and have helped me to shape the characters in my world. No longer does the protagonist have no meaning or internal conflict, but now, my characters are what drive the story forward. They make mistakes just like I do, and they conquer them. These days, I can truly say that I am proud of my works and the worlds I have created, and I am excited to share them with the world. All this time, I have kept the giants of my world to myself, but I hope that soon, my family and friends can see them too.

My journey with reading and writing has been a long one. But both hobbies have taught me more than I could have imagined when I started. I realized that my journey was just like the journey of one of those characters in the stories that I read or wrote. I started the story with a certain mindset (that the length of a book revealed something about the worth of the story upon those pages, or that my story could only be good if it had constant action). Then, I continued to fail in my skills because of that mindset. But once I overcame those misbeliefs, a whole different world was opened to me.

I came to understand that it is not the length of a book that determines the quality of the story, but the characters and the lessons learned throughout the journey on those pages. Reading is not simply following the footsteps of someone in a far-away land who has no connection to our real world. Reading is learning about the human experience. It is watching people fall. It is watching them hurt. It is watching them pick themselves back up and learn from their failures, and it is truly walking with the giants in those stories, not as figments of imagination, but as friends. And hopefully, reading is ultimately taking the lessons in a story and applying them to our lives, because we humans are not so different from the characters in those stories.

A couple of years ago, I read an American History book called Land of Hope. In it, there was a quote from the Jewish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. It has stuck with me for years. “When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren't told or books weren't written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day. The whole world, all human life, is one long story.”