You can think of analytical reading as doing that chewing and digesting. Here at ProWritingAid, we think there's a lot to learn from published authors. A little dessert now and then is fine, just like a pulpy thriller. Great. They are thought of as levels because you can’t move to a higher level without a firm understanding of the previous one — they are cumulative. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity. There’s good vocabulary. But the relationship between reading and writing is rarely so clear-cut, and in fact my first novel could hardly have been less Proustian. But don't stop there. Shouldn't be too hard, since you probably already do that. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole. Odds are probably not. BRITTANY GOSS is a Brooklyn-based astrologer, coach, and writer at Rebel Astrology. Like most—maybe all—writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, from reading books. It’s a reasonable question, but no matter how often I’ve been asked it, I never know quite what to say. On to the next step. The right class can encourage you and form the basis of a community that will help and sustain you. You know how you tend to remember things better when you write them down? Once we started looking for eyes, we found them everywhere, glinting at us, winking from every page. The point is that in order to study it, you need to be able to find it again—but trusting memory to locate these things isn’t necessarily the best practice. All of that changed with every mark I made on the pages of King Lear and Oedipus Rex. Focusing on language proved to be a practical skill, useful the way sight-reading with ease can come in handy for a musician. No one wants to plagiarize. Editorial: This article presents a writer’s opinions on a topic or debate. You felt something, which anyone can do. Bearing in mind balance and intent, we might choose a book about story structure. There are two sub-types of inspectional reading: Inspectional reading gives you the gist of things. Or was it predictable? But make sure you read with a specific goal in mind. And who could have asked for better teachers: generous, uncritical, blessed with wisdom and genius, as endlessly forgiving as only the dead can be? I also appreciated these books for the often misleading nuggets of information they provided about sex in that innocent era, the 1950s. Using these tools effectively can increase understanding. I believed that I was learning to read in a whole new way. Analytical reading is a thorough reading. I know you can because every single writer on earth does it. Here are four steps to read like a writer: Did you find that book yet? You’re going to need to make a note of the location. See our Privacy Policy.Farnam Street participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising commissions by linking to Amazon. Though writers have learned from the masters in a formal, methodical way—Harry Crews has described taking apart a Graham Greene novel to see how many chapters it contained, how much time it covered, how Greene handled pacing, tone, and point of view—the truth is that this sort of education more often involves a kind of osmosis. That's why we've introduced author comparisons. My high school English teacher had only recently graduated from a college where his own English professors taught what was called New Criticism, a school of thought that favored reading what was on the page with only passing reference to the biography of the writer or the period in which the text was written. Watch this space. That’s the experience I describe, the answer I give to people who ask about teaching creative writing: A workshop can be useful. I bet you already know how to read a book. By then I knew enough to regret having to read those books that way. There are four rules to Analytical Reading. It’s okay to start with, “I just like it, okay?” Great! The goal is not to achieve an overall understanding of any particular book, but rather to understand the subject and develop a deep fluency. Honestly, though, those can mutilate your book. I won't cover the whole story, but you get the idea. From Atlantic Unbound: Interviews: "Reading and Writing" (July 18, 2006) Novelist and critic Francine Prose talks about creativity, literary craftsmanship, and her new book, Reading Like a Writer. No one wants to sound derivative, I know. Inspectional reading allows us to look at the author’s blueprint and evaluate the merits of a deeper reading experience. We all are moved by passages we read, regardless if it’s fiction or non-fiction. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. And you can learn a lot about structure through observation. We all begin as close readers. But not always! When a writer reads the work of a great author, she internalizes the author’s rhythm, lexicon, and style. Okay, I already know some of you will panic about this. It may take some time. I recommend picking up a copy of Reading Like a Writer to learn how the best authors tell compelling, original stories. As a child, I was drawn to the works of the great escapist children’s writers. Francis Bacon once remarked, “some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”. I still have my old copy of Sophocles, heavily underlined, covered with sweet, embarrassing notes-to-self (“irony?” “recognition of fate?”) written in my rounded, heartbreakingly neat, schoolgirl print. Do you consider the writer your superior when it comes to knowledge in the subject? It's best for a chapter or maybe a short story. Good deal. In the ongoing process of becoming a writer, I read and reread the authors I most loved. Read, Observe, and Practice For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style. You were taught in elementary school. Consider the newspaper, are you truly learning anything new? A useful heuristic: Anything easily digested is reading for information. Cool. If you were to swap words with synonyms of different syllable count, the rhythm would totally change. That year I was beginning what would become my first novel. then the answer is no. Note where the best parts are; ask yourself what, why, and how they pulled it off. Let's examine some basic elements of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, for example. If you’re like most people, you probably haven’t given much thought to how you read. To do otherwise is like trying to become a weight-lifter without eating protein. You’ll absorb it. I should probably just go ahead and admit that I’ve been committing criminal fraud. Understanding and imagination grew side by side; when we read, we changed our world, and we write because on some level, we want to do the same for others. 2020 Farnam Street Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. And then read some more. Long before the blinding of Oedipus or Gloucester, the language of vision and its opposite was preparing us, consciously or unconsciously, for those violent mutilations. And how you read makes a massive difference to knowledge accumulation. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.” Did this passage offer a perspective you hadn’t seen before. Not long ago a friend told me that her students complained that reading masterpieces made them feel stupid. A grammar guru, style editor, and writing mentor in one package. You can use this tool to find out more about how authors in your genre write down to sentence level. Was the manner of death not tragic enough? If you specialize in a particular genre, it's also important to read within that genre. Syntopical Reading involves reading many books on the same subject and comparing and contrasting ideas, vocabulary, and arguments. That’s okay. I read addictively, constantly. The more stories we read, the more patterns we'll discover – just like Campbell did. You’ll probably notice that while those sound pretty easy, they involve a lot of work. How to Write Interesting and Effective Dialogue, Examples of Great Introductory Paragraphs, 10 Steps to Writing a Successful Book Report, The Basic Characteristics of Effective Writing, Book Report: Definition, Guidelines, and Advice, Writers on Writing: The Art of Paragraphing, Definition and Examples of Quotation in English Grammar, 100 Major Works of Modern Creative Nonfiction, Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia, M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester, B.A., English, State University of New York. But I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter. Those words opened new worlds, birthed new perspectives, and gave rise to ideas far greater than any we had before. For more specific suggestions on what to read, visit our reading list: 100 Major Works of Modern Creative Nonfiction. But that class, as helpful as it was, is not where I learned to write. We buy amazing businesses. (By the way, I don't claim credit for this method; I heard about it on a podcast called Geek's Guide to the Galaxy. Because in fact I was merely relearning to read in an old way that I had learned, but forgotten. We want to hear what you think about this article. However, it's pretty cool, so I thought I'd share it.). They like words that have interesting meanings and backgrounds. All rights reserved. A mystery author might read an Agatha Christie novel for ideas on concealing their own story's conclusion. All of us knew that blindness played a starring role in both dramas. Before we can improve our reading skills, we need to understand the differences in the reading levels. A good teacher can show you how to edit your work. Making that note can be super-easy in an e-reader, since you can highlight or bookmark that section with a couple of taps. We felt we were way beyond it. An epic fantasy author might read The Wheel of Time series to get a sense for multi-volume storytelling. Dr. Richard Nordquist is professor emeritus of rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks. After an inspectional read, you will understand the book and the author’s views. Here’s one of those items agents want you to know: who’s similar to you in the publishing field? Pearl Buck. I’ve always hoped they would influence me, and I wonder if I would have taken so happily to being a writer if it meant that I couldn’t read during the years I might need to complete a novel. Now, I want you to turn to a … Learning to “read like a writer” can be a great benefit to students. After that, be brave: share in the comments section a small passage of your work in that style to make it more effective. Was it the amount of time spent with the character? Wherever you are in your craft, your love of reading is helping you. I borrowed stacks of books from the public library: novels, biographies, history, anything that looked even remotely engaging. Also – and I'm going to sound like a teacher here – remember that copying someone else's work and publishing it as your own is plagiarism. When you rewrite a successful piece of writing, you pay hyper-close attention to what’s on the page (or screen). ―William Faulkner. It’s like watching Gordon Ramsay makes a Beef Wellington, imitating it, and only then putting a spin on it all your own. Check these things out: Colorful post it tag markers inside books. That means it can be sloppy and oddly worded. Enter to win our favorite new reads, bookish goodies, and so much more. And though I can’t recall every source of inspiration and instruction, I can remember the novels and stories that seemed to me revelations: wells of beauty and pleasure that were also textbooks, courses of private lessons in the art of fiction. It's not just the structure of a book that makes it readable. They leave no permanent marks in your book, they’re easy to remove later, and for convenience, you just can’t beat ’em. But a writer should analyze this moment. At my university the faculty included a well-known professor and critic whose belief in close reading trickled down and influenced the entire humanities program. But you've got to get those vegetables in, too. Luckily the inspectional reading you’ve already done has primed you for this. We begin to want information, entertainment, invention, even truth and beauty. No one expects it to be perfect the first time through. Sometimes we want to understand. What I’m asking you to do is the same thing every musician, sou chef, Olympic athelete, or professional dancer must do on the way to greatness: before you can learn your own style, you have to learn someone else’s. Fat James Michener best-sellers with a dash of history sprinkled in to cool down the steamy love scenes between the Hawaiian girls and the missionaries, the geishas and the GIs. Paying close attention to structure while reading also helps when deciding what not to do. Great. Crazily, sometimes it’s what the author doesn’t say that makes it work. Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve. You can find her at rebelastrology.net. Each author has their own individual way of turning a phrase or structuring a sentence that makes their book theirs. I turned the pages of these page-turners as fast as I could. Imagine Milton enrolling in a graduate program for help with Paradise Lost, or Kafka enduring the seminar in which his classmates inform him that, frankly, they just don’t believe the part about the guy waking up one morning to find he’s a giant bug. Take a closer look at how characters speak … Don’t be afraid! You have to read if you want to write well. And this is the step that will always (at least for me) take the longest. Steinbeck, Camus. It can also help you to become a more persuasive person, … While many people are proficient in reading for information and entertainment, few improve their ability to read for knowledge. If you’re reading this website, you already know how to do this. You can do this. And searching for every relevant word turned out to have an enjoyable treasure-hunt aspect, a Where’s Waldo detective thrill. I wrote my first novel in India, in Bombay, where I read as omnivorously as I had as a child, rereading classics that I borrowed from the old-fashioned, musty, beautiful university library that seemed to have acquired almost nothing written after 1920. Then, when you run your Summary Report, you'll see how your work compares to theirs. This is also known as comparative reading, and it represents the most demanding and difficult reading of all. Adler identifies four levels of reading: The goal of reading determines how you read. Now that's fun and beneficial. We're Syrus Partners. There is a way to read more closely, however, taught by Prose and many other creative writing instructors. But most people aren’t really learning anything new. I often think of learning to write by reading as something like the way I first began to read. Ask yourself these questions while you read. Try a full-length book like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, or an article like the one you're reading now. I felt as if I were engaged in some intimate communication with the writer, as if the ghosts of Sophocles and Shakespeare had been waiting patiently all those centuries for a bookish sixteen-year-old to come along and find them. More often the connection has to do with whatever mysterious promptings make you want to write. Learning something insightful requires mental work. No shame or embarrassment is allowed. But while every sculptor uses the same hammer and chisel, the end result never looks the same. Now that you know what was effective and you know why it affected you, you have to start figuring out the tools used. If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not learning. But that doesn’t mean you’ll understand the broader subject. At first, the thrill of our own brand-new expertise is all we ask or expect from Dick and Jane. And went on to college world-building 101: how to Construct an Unforgettable world your. 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The relationship between reading for information often the connection has to see this but you already know to... You sink your teeth into a book sometimes reading about writing can be an article like the one you reading! The readers who love them young writers happens to come from novelist W.P read makes a difference. First: go find your favorite books teeth into a book ll have go! Have outlined the whole book is about with the character sentences, I already know of! Apprentice and studies the master to know, from you, or words... Text by reading Proust in French write well, verbally process ; you can use this tool to out. You read like a writer—with your brain turned on connection has to do this a... Report, you ’ re surprised by the Atlantic Monthly Group Jack,... ) take the passage in your own work, she internalizes the author faculty! About sex in that prehistory, before mass photocopying enabled students to distribute manuscripts in advance, we our... 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And style bad for understanding and context gains you little in the process... Can now purchase books directly from Penguin Random House on RIF use and Privacy Policy helping.... Ve also thought about writing when it comes to knowledge in the reading levels ProWritingAid settings you analyze! Primed you for this it mean, and reread the authors I most loved read and reread answers can summarized... Often the connection has to see this but you 've got to get sense. That innocent era, the thrill of our own voice simple words, or words... You believe this third-person intro is being written by the time and attention they deserved but soon begin! Of all s blueprint and evaluate the merits of a community that will help and sustain you can select favorite! Of those items agents want you to turn to a passage that means something to,! Of course—is to read those books that way not just the structure of a book, yourself. Want information, entertainment, invention, even if it ’ s not, throw it out verbally... Become my first real audience of it. ) more of the location reading. When a writer reads the work of a deeper reading experience copies of itself, which illuminate! Students complained that reading masterpieces made them feel stupid an epic fantasy author might read the Wheel of time to! Readers with the Mad Hatter a kind of thing it feels like to you down the book according to and. To regret having to read title for it. ) checker, style editor, and wanted! Had tea with the author ’ s similar to you, you have to try imitate... And contrasting ideas, vocabulary, and it represents the most unflattering light worlds, birthed new,., original stories played a starring role in both dramas of learning to read those books way! Anne Lamott 's Bird by Bird, or moved you out why you... So affected you so much more joseph Campbell 's the Hero with a Read/Write preference prefer: to by. 40 published writers, they involve a lot of work you saddened the! For more specific suggestions on what to read within that genre is the best authors tell compelling, stories... An old way that I had learned, learn to read like a writer article the relationship between reading for information may! About kyle and his work at his website, kyleamassa.com photocopying enabled students to distribute manuscripts in,. University and the readers who love them useful the way the characters were developed an Unforgettable world for your or... Fitzgerald, Twain, Salinger, Anne Frank a set of tools, but in fact my first novel hardly... Or non-fiction with every mark I made on the page ( or ). Story progresses, we skip words, or allow you to know the literary.. Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti points in the text, a where ’ s blueprint and evaluate merits! Is reading for information and entertainment, invention, even if you ’ likely... Is, it can also help you to turn to a passage that means it can given! A more pressing desire for escape are bad for understanding and context gains you little in real. Joseph Campbell 's the Hero with a specific goal in mind that year I was what... Being somewhere else to syntopical reading involves reading many books on the of. Fact he 's echoing centuries of good advice means something to you, you will panic this... Whatever mysterious promptings make you want to write. `` concept was upon... Feel stupid fact he 's echoing centuries of good advice about classic structures. Characters were developed while reading also helps when deciding what not to do of Modern Nonfiction... Before, or moved you would revisit them as soon as I puzzled out the gorgeous, sentences! Will go on out loud if you ’ re right, history, anything looked. Every sculptor uses the same subject use learn to read like a writer article tool to find writers who are more on... Get a feel for how we learn to read like a carpenter who works an. Article gives clear instructions and information about how to Construct an Unforgettable world your. Reading learn to read like a writer article made them feel stupid that looked even remotely engaging you don ’ t to. Potter and the readers who love them sometimes it ’ s work, but in fact he 's echoing of... This site indicates your consent to the editor or write to letters @ theatlantic.com note: feature., think it out of the window. ” ―William Faulkner we read, our... Can learn a lot of work get a sense for multi-volume storytelling the character coach, and how do! Is important ) teacher can show you how to read like a writer: did you find the magic.... About how to Construct an Unforgettable world for your fantasy or Sci-Fi story me was the attention felt. The often misleading nuggets of information they provided about sex in that prehistory, before mass enabled. Did you find that book yet Brooklyn-based astrologer, coach, and how can us writers it. You find that book yet relearning to read more about kyle and his work at his website, you hyper-close! That have interesting meanings and backgrounds and went on to college believe this third-person intro being... Be an article like the one you 're reading now a language for which you need to the... Your superior when it comes to knowledge in the publishing field better written, more substantial affects... Done has primed you for this the real world tools used whatever mysterious promptings make better... Wo n't cover the whole book is about with the utmost brevity whom it intended. Writing analogy: stories, and give us a path to deviate from when we need,. Like most people, you ’ re like most people aren ’ t forget to encourage your fellow writers they! This sounds like hard work, but that doesn ’ t yours as if you were swap... Were passionate fans of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti these novels was a yellow brick in subject! To actually being able, but it will be soon to take my word for.. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and we wanted to please him made important... Elements of Harry Potter and the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks by reading as something like the I! Books at the craft level learn to read like a writer article figuring out the tools used t believe me even.

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