To be honest, I hadn't thought of a connection between fiction reading and writing copy before.

I read fiction as a mental break from all of the non-fiction and research I do every week for my business and copywriting projects.

The one author I can think of who might be helpful is mystery/suspense writer James Patterson. His early books in the Alex Cross series like Kiss The Girls or Along Came A Spider do a great job of fast story telling and using words to create a mental image for the reader. Not every fiction writer pulls it off... the best ones write so the reader gets pulled into the story.

Story-telling style copy has a lot of the same elements in my opinion.

First book of Patterson's that I ever read was Kiss The Girls. Sat down at 8 p.m. to read it and wound up staying up until sunrise to finish it. Went the bookstore and bought Along Came A Spider the next day... stayed up all night reading that one too.

A few years ago, they made both of those books into movies and did a complete hatchet job of the great books. Skip the movies and read the books instead.

Mike