Five Tips For Reading Like A Writer

Like many of you, I read compulsively. I love books, paper books, ebooks, picture books, any books. I read a lot for pleasure. But I also read like a writer. This means that I notice things that other authors are doing so that I can improve my own writing.

Every book is full of possible lessons for writers. Each time I learn something new from someone else on the page, I feel my storytelling possibilities growing.

Here are five useful tips for reading like a writer yourself.

• Make notes and highlights. Some eReaders have seriously useful highlight and clipping capabilities. Use these when an author does something dazzling. Otherwise, good old pen and paper are just fine.
• Read certain paragraphs aloud. When you hear how your favourite author uses language it’ll help you transform your own writing.
• Notice technical skills on the page. If you don’t know how to punctuate speech, or if you struggle with how to use flashbacks, or if you wonder about sentence length or how to end chapters, take novels you adore and see how those authors managed these aspects of their writing. To paraphrase Stephen King, add to your writer toolbox. Think of each skill you pick up as another tool in your writing toolbox and notice tools that you’re missing. For example, it took me years to try writing in third person. Every time I see another writer doing it well, I make notes and appreciate their skill. Another technical aspect I note is good dialogue – when I see an author using great dialogue, believe me, I make notes.
• Pay attention to writing that doesn’t work for you. It sounds contrary, but actually it’s really helpful for you to notice what type of writing fails and why. What is the author doing that makes the story clunky or makes the dialogue flat? You can learn lots from what is unsuccessful. Also, with writing that doesn’t work for you but that everybody else just LOVES, try to figure out why. Make notes, read it aloud, think about how each sentence is formed and what the author is trying to achieve.
• Finally, and maybe this should have been first: read widely. Read lots of things you never normally read – broaden out to sci-fi, romance, poetry, plays, shampoo bottles, everything. Notice how every author uses words, not just authors you go back to time and again. In this way, you’ll broaden your own writing capabilities.

Reading like a writer helps me appreciate the written word – but I also remind myself to read for pleasure too. If I’m getting too writerly and forgetting the fun, I take a breath, turn the page of another book, and dive in. Now, where did I put my book?

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