My friend, the author Scott Archer Jones, recently had a post on his blog where he analyzed “Walker Brothers Cowboy,” a short story by Alice Munro, for point of view (POV). For the purposes of this post, we’ll set aside the controversy surrounding Munro’s (and her daughter’s) personal lives. I understand the issues and am as disgusted by what happened and what didn’t happen, and I’m as equally appalled by Neil Gaiman, Cormac McCarthy’s actions, and other artists and writers who have done hideous things in their lives but whose works I (and thousands of others) admire. But this post is about unlocking your writing potential: how to read with purpose for better results.
Scott’s short post dives into point of view (POV), tense, craft, and more—all things writers should consider when reading as a writer, meaning when reading other authors’ works to see what works (and maybe what doesn’t) in order to improve their own writing. Analyzing texts, as Scott does line by line, forces writers to focus specifically on what is happening when, and how the author pulls off what they pull off by utilizing specific words in a particular order to achieve maximum effect. There is a vast array of ways writers can improve their writing by leveraging certain practices, including these five:
Reading a novel line by line and evaluating (as Scott does) precisely what is happening
The point of reading something line by line is that you get down to the minutiae. You read each line to understand what the writer is achieving with each sentence, which makes up each paragraph, which makes up each chapter, and so on. Great books don’t usually have extraneous words. As George Orwell said, “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.” Brevity is why Ernest Hemingway became universally recognized as such an important and influential writer during the 20th century: he departed from the style of other writers of his time, changing how writers wrote. His writing is straightforward. He limited adjectives. He wrote short, declarative sentences. He focused on realism. Yes, reading a book line by line and analyzing what the writer is doing can be a tedious, mind-numbing process. But give it a try. You don’t have to do this for an entire book, but it’ll help you get a better understanding of why your favorite book or writer continues to get read long after they’ve kicked the bucket or why they’re currently printing money through their books.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
--George Orwell
Reading outside the genre in which you write
It’s easy to just read fantasy if that’s what you enjoy. Or historical fiction. Or romance. But you’re probably limiting yourself to the same tropes and styles and themes that have become part of that genre. Sure, they’re probably expected, but that doesn’t mean you have to stick to the same old stuff. Explore the options writers of other genres consider when writing their books. Just because you write literary fiction doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from science fiction. J.K. Rowling, however much you like Harry Potter or detest Rowling’s politics, sold over 600 million books worldwide. She obviously did something right, and you can learn from what she did by reading one or more of her books to get a better understanding of why her books are so popular. Don’t be averse to exploring other genres—you never know what you might find.
Taking notes on the choices writers make for plot, themes, characterization, etc.
This one is obviously related to the first item above. But it’s coming at it from a different angle. Create separate notebooks or word documents or whatever meant just for plot or themes or character development or dialogue or setting. Ask yourself how your author created the world in which her characters live. Are you dropped immediately into a jungle? Do you smell the damp vegetation? The slight floral scents? Can you clearly picture the shadows on the dirt in front of her characters? Do you hear the calls of the birds in the trees? The buzzing of insects nearby? The low growl of a panther somewhere in the bushes? Jot down what you felt and how the author made you feel it. Then try to write something similar for your book. Don’t copy them, right, but develop the same feelings they did using different words. Great writers steal while good writers borrow.
Copying an entire book to get the feel of writing it
This one is a pretty big ask for yourself, but you might enjoy it and learn a lot from copying a completed manuscript, one that’s been edited and edited and edited until it was good enough to publish. I’ve never done this myself; I think I’ve copied maybe a chapter from one of my favorite novels. But there are plenty of writers who have copied entire novels. It gives you the feeling that the writer who wrote the novel felt, and that may provide you with a better understanding of how it feels to write something you love.
Asking questions of character motivations, plot, themes, dialogue decisions, etc.
Why did Shakespeare give Lady Macbeth blood-stained hands? What was achieved plot-wise by Jay Gatsby befriending Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby? What themes did Mailer explore in The Executioner’s Song? What did you feel when you read the exchanges between characters in Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love? Ask yourself as many questions about what an author does to achieve progress in their novel in one of these areas. Did they accomplish what you think they set out to achieve? Did they fall short? Would you have written something differently? Make sure you question your own writing. Is your plot based on causality? If it isn’t, you may want to reconsider removing or adding something so that you tighten up your plot.
Of course, the above are just a few of the things we, as writers, can do to learn more by teaching ourselves how and why authors we admire do what they do. We read the books we love. We have created this thing called the “canon,” or the set of agreed-upon books that everyone should read and/or that we as readers and educators believe should be read for one reason or another. Canon, by the way, is derived from the Greek “kanon,” which meant “straight rod.” A canon is the standard by which other things are measured, be they literature or anything else. Some of the books in the literary canon include War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, anything by Shakespeare, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, and so on. These books and plays have been translated into dozens if not hundreds of languages and have been read for decades if not hundreds or even thousands of years. The Epic of Gilgamesh, an ancient epic poem from Sumerian literature, has been around since about 2700 BC. That’s some staying power!
If you’re like me, a writer with an extensive education in literature, you’ve not only read and written papers on many of the books in the canon, you’ve probably learned about (or realized on your own) that many of the works we read today, including those from decades and centuries past, are derivative of some other work that came before it. This isn’t a bad thing; no one is accusing anyone of plagiarizing here. Only that we learn from previous works, which is what this post is about. As beginning writers, most of us have probably mimicked one or more of the writers we love. The first novel I ever wrote was written in the style of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I had written some horrible poetry prior to my first novel attempt (which I titled “Two Down Beats”), but once I read On the Road, I was hooked.
I knew I had to write a novel. Of course, the novel was pretty bad, but it got me writing, and it got me understanding how Kerouac had done what he had done. I understood what the power of literature can do to someone (I sold all of my things, broke up with a girlfriend, and then drove around the country with a friend drinking, smoking pot, having romantic relationships, and writing about it). Maybe you imitated Hemingway. Or Proust. Or Dashiell Hammett. It doesn’t matter. You wrote through it. It was a step in the right direction. Now you know it was practice, and you’ve moved on to write about what interests you and in your own voice rather than your hero’s character’s voice. It’s progress, and you should be proud of that progress.
Cully Perlman is an author, blogger, and Substantive Editor. He can be reached at Cully@novelmasterclass.com or Cullyperlman@gmail.com
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