It’s so self evident that most people forget to mention it. To be a writer, you have to read. You have to love reading. Most people start writing because they love to read. But it still needs to be said because sometimes people want to be writers because they love a TV show and want to break into Hollywood but writing a book is much easier than being a filmmaker/screenwriter, or they thinks it’s a fast way to riches (because we’re all just like JK Rowling!).
One of the best ways to become a better writer is to become a mindful reader. At its simplest, mindfulness is paying attention. What’s happening around you, what your body is doing, what your mind is thinking. It’s often associated with Buddhist meditation practices, as well as western psychological analysis. What are you thinking/feeling/doing? Why are you thinking/feeling/doing this? How can you change it?
My Masters degree is in English Literature — not creative writing, like a lot of people assume. I have an MA, not an MFA. (There’s a whole other essay into why that is. I’ll save it for later.) Basically, I spent two and a half years reading, and analyzing what I read. It’s a bit more complicated than that because the academic study of literature incorporates a whole history and tradition of critical theory and analysis. But I always started with my own emotional reactions to a text. Did I love a poem/story/novel? Did I hate it? Why? How did the work I’m reacting to get this way?
As a writer, you can study your emotional reactions to a story and use that to get better. Do you love the novel you’re reading? Hate it? Why? Is it something about the character? The plot? The writing itself? This is why it’s so valuable to read books we don’t like as well as books we love. If you have to read a paragraph, a page, or a whole book over again to figure out what you loved about it, or what you hated about it, or what about it is bothering you, then do it. Make notes. Pay attention.
Then, whatever you learn, do it. If you hate books where the heroine has a really low self esteem and keeps thinking about how plain and ugly she is — even while half a dozen super hot men are trying to get in her pants (not that this is a personal pet peeve or anything), then don’t do that. If you hate it when an author uses exclamation points all the time — and not in dialog — then don’t do that. If you fall in love with a book — why? Is it the characters? The plot? The way it all comes together and the end? How can you make that happen in your own work?
Two of my early inspirations were Ray Bradbury and Robin McKinley. I learned a lot about writing from them both. In fact, I’d read their books and be in awe, thinking how do they do that? How can I do that?
With Bradbury, it was his descriptions. Dandelion Wine’s main character, twelve-year old Douglas, contemplates the first day of summer in his small Midwestern town:
“A whole summer ahead to cross off the calendar, day by day. Like the goddess Siva in the travel books, he saw his hands jump everywhere, pluck sour apples, peaches, and midnight plums. He would be clothed in trees and bushes and rivers. He would freeze, gladly, in the hoarfrosted ice-house door. He would bake, happily, with ten thousand chickens, in Grandma’s kitchen.”
–Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
Bradbury taught me that prose can be poetic, that finding descriptions that are new and stunning — not clichés — can kick a reader in the gut and draw them in. A vivid setting can weave a spell. Simple, direct, concrete descriptions are best. Just a couple of descriptions — the right descriptions — can build a whole world.
Robin McKinley taught me about protagonists, and making your reader fall in love with them. That giving them the right weaknesses can help the reader put themselves in the character’s shoes. Weaknesses we all share, like insecurity, isolation. Couple that with admirable qualities like courage, kindness, intelligence. When it’s done well, readers will follow that character anywhere.
Warning: This will ruin a lot of books for you. And movies and TV shows. You’ll start picking apart everything. The ability to get lost in a story will become a rare and valuable thing. This is why so many fiction writers read a lot of non-fiction. But the ability to analyze what you read — to read mindfully — will make you a better writer.
What fabulous lessons have you learned from your favorite authors?
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When I began writing and reading up on craft stuff, I started noticing things in the books that I read. Before, I used to just read it for the story. But now, little things pop out at me – punctuation, word choice, POV hopping. Some good and some not so good.
As for lessons I’m learning … how to hide/use backstory/history/research effectively, without info dumping by scattering it throughout a story.
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Structure! I found a website that really helped me see how structure works but it wasn’t until I read books and saw what the website said in action that it clicked for me.