How To Read A Book: For Writers Who Want To Get Better At Writing
Reading should be fun. After all, we’re writers. Reading is part of the deal. For a lot of us, it’s a pass time we wish we did more. There are so many books to read and not enough cups of coffee and comfy chairs. Or time. Never enough time, especially when we’re spending all available time writing.
We’ve all heard the advice: writers should be readers. It’s my go-to when I’m stuck on character development or a plot point that isn’t working, and so on. If I’m stepping away from time spent writing, for whatever reason, I want that time spent in an effort at improving my writing. Reading is one way of doing that.
I’m a visual learner. In college I would take my notes and use different colored highlighters for sections I was studying. I would rewrite my notes in colored pens. Underlining and boxing in words helped me pay attention to what I was reading. The same goes for reading as a writer.
So, don’t hate me. I write in books. If a book belongs to me and it’s not a special edition, I enjoy nothing more than taking a pen and underlining, starring, drawing arrows from here to there, defining, and expounding in the margins. If this isn’t something you can bring yourself to do, or if you don’t want to get your library card revoked, keep a notebook.
But why study a book?
- Vocabulary. I had to look up the word “effluvium” (I highly recommend you look this up and then use it as much as possible.) the first time I read Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! If you read a lot of Faulkner, you know he loves this word. I looked it up and wrote the definition in the margins. This is how vocabulary is built. If we admitted how many times we didn’t know a word or forgot the meaning, and then looked it up, we’d be doing ourselves a major favor — because things are more than awesome.
- Dialogue. Have you ever read a conversation that sounded stunted, unnatural, or made-up? Dialogue that isn’t written well can be painful to read. It takes you out of the story. It’s distracting. As writers we want our dialogue to sound the way people actually talk. The more dialogue you read, the more quickly you’ll spot what works and what doesn’t. The tried-and-true test of reading aloud is a further step in identifying problem areas. The ear is very good at picking up what doesn’t sound right.
- Metaphor/Imagery. Her mood was an ocean, the tide came and went; her happiness, a swirling sea green, rose to a crest, and then violently crashed to the deepest, darkest of blues. Using imagery can be tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it’s like actual icing on a cake. A good metaphor can make your story that much richer. The trouble lurks in word choice. When reading, pay attention to how other writers use words to make subtle connections through imagery. Think of the example above: Does it make sense that mood can come and go like the in and out of an ocean tide? Tides come and go with regularity; we can plan for the movement. The swirling of her happiness, the rise of her mood, and then fall seems more haphazard, more unpredictable. Personally, I think it works because there is a predictability in what goes up must come down. We know that waves in the ocean come in and out just the same as we know if a wave crests, the rush of water will also fall. Words like rose, crest, swirling, crashed, deepest, darkest, blues create continuity through the ocean image while implying the ups and downs of someone’s mood. The more accustomed you become to dissecting word-choice and meaning while reading, the better your images will become in your own writing.
- Format. The publishing industry goes through trends. And it’s not just about genre. Think about the way the words are laid out on the page. Do contemporary books use chapter titles? Is the prologue dead? Is it appropriate to use content warnings? Are titles getting longer or shorter?Font, line-spacing, character size, and margins are usually standard because of printing practices, but because e-books and self-publishing are more popular there is slightly more room for change in those areas. The great news is content is broadening. Notice all the agents looking for POC characters and authors, differently-able-bodied characters, lgbtqia inclusion, etc.? When you’re reading, pay attention to the people that AREN’T included in what’s currently published.
- Overall Story-telling. The more you read, the quicker you’ll know if a book is for you. But, can you tell bad writing from good writing? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Without getting philosophical, I think most of us can tell when we start reading something that doesn’t work. Opinions aside, if sentences are too clunky, characters way underdeveloped, dialogue sounds phony or cliche, plot devices are tired, and/or the story has no forward motion, then it’s probably bad. Just bad. Ask yourself what’s going wrong, then don’t do it in your own writing.
Take notes. Scribble in the margins. Highlight the heck out of those pages. There is no perfect book, or short story, or poem. And close to perfect is hard to find. Read a book that you like and figure out why you like it. Read a book that you love and learn from it.
