Workshop Taster
Reading to Write
Some aspiring writers I meet say they are so busy making time to write that they don’t have time to read. This is paradoxical to me. All writers should read. It is important, as you are building your writer’s skills, to begin to read in a way which develops your sensitivity to the way in which particular writers use all aspects of their writing craft to share their vision of the story with their readers.
A guide to applying this more directly to your own writing:
It is possible and often desirable to go try this process with any writer from Dostoyevsky to Dickens, Brontë to Woolf. However, if you wish your work to strike a chord with a modern audience it is useful to apply this quality of attention to a well regarded contemporary work – say something written in the last five years.
Now!
- Choose a book.
- DON’T read on-line or newsprint reviews of the book you have chosen. Discard any commentary you have already scanned. These will warp your unique perception.
- Read the novel or story very quickly. Don’t think! Just enjoy.
- If you find you don’t like it, find another story that you do – you can’t develop your own writing by analysing what you don’t like about a writer! You will drown your own talent in negativities. Don’t waste your time.
- Put the story to one side and, without referring to it, make a list of the five things you most enjoyed about it. These things may be anything at all. There are no right or wrong answers here,
- Beside each item on the list write a single sentence about why this element makes the story work for you.
- Consider structure: How many chapters does it have? How long? Does the writer use chapters at all? How does the arc of the story work? Where do the high points or dramas occur in the story? If there are chapters what is the relationship between the end of one chapter and the beginning of another? Look at a single chapter or section very closely. How does the writer use the length of the paragraphs? Can you spot deliberate use of long or short sentences?