If you have sought writing advice in the past, you have no doubt been told to read a lot. Stephen King is so serious about reading that he says if you don’t have time to read, then you don’t have time to write. Reading is that important to writing. It’s your window into the author’s world, and see how masters of the craft make magic happen on the page.

When you read for pleasure, the story plays out as a movie in your head. You can’t take it so easily when you read to learn. You must dive into the details- dissect the text and see what makes it breathe. This is reading with a critical eye.

To read with a critical eye, rewind back to high school. If you took a literature class, then you already know how to examine a work. You were expected to make arguments about how the writer accomplishes certain goals. Emulate this mindset as you read.

Let’s go to school.

Learn the Craft

Constantly seek out more knowledge about writing. There are endless guidelines and tropes to learn about and knowing these things will give you insight. How are you supposed to look for something if you don’t know what you’re looking for?

There are endless online resources for learning about writing, from masterclasses to video essays on YouTube. Read critiques of your favorite books. Watch people break down scenes into their components. Read our “Craft” posts. Learning new concepts will allow you to see them play out when you start practicing and reading.



There are endless online resources for learning about writing, from masterclasses to video essays on YouTube. Here’s a list of some of our favorites:



Hello Future Me (Tim Hickson) – Hickson makes video essays on all aspects of writing and worldbuilding. If you are looking for a place to learn how to build a world that feels consistent and lived in, he’s your guy. He also has a book on the subject that you can pick up here.

Overly Sarcastic Productions – OSP takes old stories and tropes and puts them in a digestible and funny format. If you want to learn about story telling of old or writing structure, they have your back.

Brandon Sanderson – If you don’t already know him, Sanderson is a best-selling fantasy author. He has a series of lectures on YouTube where he discusses everything from worldbuilding to publishing.

Lessons from the Screenplay – LFTS takes deep dives into movies and pulls out invaluable knowledge on how they were crafted. If you are interested in learning how to write great screenplays, check this channel out.

Daniel Greene – Greene reviews and critiques new book, movie, and television releases. Critiques like his help you learn what doesn’t work so you can avoid it in your writing.

There are tons of subjects to learn about. Whether it be dialogue, the Hero’s Journey, worldbuilding, exposition, characterization, etc., start learning the basics. If you already have a grasp on these concepts, that doesn’t mean you get to skip class. There will always be holes in your knowledge to fill.

One of the big breakthrough learning moments I had was learning about the Hero’s Journey. I started with a theoretical understanding. I knew the steps and what purposes they served in a story, but I didn’t know how it actually functioned in storytelling. Then I started looking for it in books and movies. I saw how other creators used it, and my understanding slowly transformed into something more concrete.

You can learn about something, but you will gain a deeper understanding by watching others and practicing.

Practice

Now it’s time to take all that knowledge and put it to use. Take the concepts you’ve learned and put them on the page. You might not completely understand how to use them at first, and that’s okay. Test yourself.. Make deliberate moves to implement these ideas into your writing.

As you use them more, you will start to hit roadblocks. You’ll be trying to pull something off, and it won’t be working. Maybe you can’t work subtext into your dialogue or you can’t figure out how to work in a crucial step of the Hero’s Journey. It might be uncomfortable. That’s good, it means you’re challenging yourself. Work through the issue, and keep moving forward.

Roadblocks will indicate what you need to study further. The more you practice, the more questions you will have. Those questions will guide your eyes as you read. They will focus your attention on how master storytellers solve those problems.

Reading Critically

At this point, you’ve learned the rules, you’ve implemented them, and now you have questions. Keep those questions with you as you read. Study how authors work with those concepts. This is where you will gain real insight. Anybody can be told how to write dialogue, but not everybody can write great dialogue. Watch how the masters put all of the pieces together.

Take notes as you read. Anytime the text makes you feel an emotion, make a note. Whenever something grabs your attention, make a note. Whenever you get bored, make a note. These notes will make it easier to dig into the text.

To dive deep into a piece, read it at least twice. First, read it normally. Take some notes, but don’t analyze yet. You want to experience the story as a regular reader. Dig deeper on your second pass.. Reading twice will give you the chance to see details you may have overlooked on the first pass, and those details may help answer your questions. The pieces of the puzzle will be more obvious on the second read.

Reflection

When you’re done reading, reflect and try to answer questions posed during the practice section. Tackle these one at a time. Pick a question and find the reading notes you’ve made on the subject. Look for all the notes that relate to your question. Then ask more questions. Here’s an example:

Initial Question: How do I make a moment have emotional impact?

Now let’s say you are reading Lord of the Rings, and you get to the part where Gandalf fights the Balrog and is killed. You make a note because it makes you sad.

Now ask the question: Why does that moment make me feel sad?

This question may have multiple answers, and those answers may spawn more questions. I advise using an outline to represent it.

Why does that moment make me sad? I liked Gandalf Why do I like Gandalf? He cares about Frodo He has a sense of humor and wisdom He has cool powers I relate to the other characters’ grief Why do I relate to their grief? I care about those characters My father passed away suddenly and Gandalf was like a father figure Gandalf was an important member of the team Why does this loss make me feel sad? The mission is already so bleak, losing the most powerful team member makes it seem hopeless

There are plenty of avenues you can take here. You could get into dialogue and pacing, or you could get as specific as language and syntax. We’ll stick with the questions I outlined for now.

After creating this series of questions and answers, you can start to draw conclusions. Think about how these answers relate to your initial question.

First, moments are emotional when they affect characters that I enjoy. I enjoy characters when they are fun and relatable. I should make my characters likeable.

Second, moments are emotional when I can relate to them. I should write moments that people can relate to.

Third, moments are emotional when there are stakes. Stakes raise the tension in a scene and draw out emotion. I should make my emotional moments have stakes.

Before starting this process, perhaps your “emotional moments” were relatable and had characters you cared about, but they lacked stakes. Now you have the tool to add stakes to a scene to raise the tension and make them more emotional.

This entire process is about adding things to your toolbelt. The more you do it, the more tools you will gain.

Miscellaneous Advice

This process doesn’t just work for reading great works. You can apply this to anything, and I advise you try it out with books and movies that you don’t like. While reading good books, you will add tools to your tool belt, but when you read the bad ones, you will learn what not to do. This list will help you avoid bad form and tired tropes.

Don’t get too lost in the weeds trying to find out what the author was trying to do. Focus on how it affects you and why. You should only care about the things pertaining to your research questions because of their relevance to your writing. If you go too deep then you risk copying the style of the author you’re learning from, or wasting time trying to decipher their intention. Instead, learn the things relevant to your writing so you can establish your own voice.

Write out the lessons that you learn. Keep a log of the things that you’ve learned and how you learned them. Returning to these notes will help keep your tools fresh in your brain. Over time you’ll build up your own personal style guide, and with enough practice, you’ll start using your tools without thinking about it.

Jazz

Jazz musicians spend years learning and listening. They are experts in music theory. But when the best jazz musicians play, they don’t think about music theory. They channel feelings into music. The theory is in their bones. It’s no longer just an understanding of harmony but a new language – a language they use to speak in ways most can’t.

Read, watch,listen, and write until it is in your bones. Then when you sit down to write, you won’t have to think. You’ll channel feelings into story. The concepts you learned will be second nature. Story will be a language of your own, and that’s the mark of a master.

Weekly TL;DR: Become a constant student of writing by asking questions, studying the things you read, and applying the things you learn to your writing.

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