The Best Path to Better Writing

There is no shortage of classes on line, at colleges and at writers conferences that promise to improve your writing.  All may be valuable (I regularly teach writing classes myself) but I believe that the best way to become a better writer is through reading… but you have to read the right way.

Read technically – If you want success in a particular genre, read what’s popular in your genre and note the commonalities.  Look at the book like a product being sold. How long a book do these readers prefer? (Fantasy novels and thrillers may range over 100,000 words.  Mysteries suspense books skew closer to 80,000.) How long are the chapters? How many major characters? How important is the setting? What are the conventions in this particular genre? (Cozy mysteries keep the violence off screen; hard boiled detectives have strong if untraditional moral codes; in Westerns, cowboys are more philosophical and skilled than they ever were in real life.) You may not choose to stick to these conventions, but you have to know and understand the rules to break them successfully.

Read emotionally – Let yourself just be a reader and FEEL the book you are reading. If you react strongly to a particular scene, ask yourself why.  Is it because of the use of particular details?  Key words?  How did this writer get you to feel this way?  When you read dialog that really feels right, try to figure out exactly what the reader did in that dialog.  If you find yourself breathlessly flipping the pages, back up and see how that writer hooked you so solidly and dragged you along.  And what if a scene doesn’t move you?  Go back and try to figure out why you didn’t like it.  Then you can say, “Well, I know not to ever do THAT!" 

Read comparatively – When asked how I learned to write mysteries I usually answer truthfully, that I outlined three books I particularly loved and deconstructed them.  Thru this technique I was able to compare these favorites objectively.  I could see how plots were developed, what they all had in common, and how they varied. In later years I’ve come to compare books in a different way.  I find it valuable to read more broadly, in a variety of genres. I’d never write a romance or science fiction myself, but I learn things from these other genres that I can apply to my own writing. Every novel has SOME romance in it.  Why not learn how to display that from the experts?  Every fiction author has to deal with suspension of disbelief.  The best sci-fi authors excel at that.  And while I’ll never write poetry, I have learned about how to use the language and a bit about rhythm and flow from reading it.

There’s nothing wrong with classes and critiques, but there is no better way to improve your own prose than by paying attention to that of others.