How to Read Like a Writer

A Guide to Improving Writing through Reading

Learning Objective: By the end of this post, you’ll know how to improve your writing with close, analytical readings of your favorite books.

In last week’s craft lesson, we learned a five-step exercise for developing our individual styles as writers. In addition to this exercise, we also discussed the importance of (1) reading widely across genres and (2) doing close readings of our favorite books. In the comments,

Carmen

asked an excellent question about close readings:

I also get frustrated at the advice to "read widely" because I absolutely do but I don't know how to take what I read and use it to make my own writing stronger, so this newsletter is helpful! Do you have any more exercises or advice for reading like a writer?

How do we learn to read like writers?

This is such a good question. Craft analysis isn’t often explicitly taught because it's an implicit skill most writers develop as they work on other concrete craft skills. As you probably know, I have a lot of feelings™ about MFA programs, but craft analysis is one of the concrete skills that many MFA students hone over the course of their programs. This skill is often developed in seminar discussions during a craft course. But how can a writer develop this skill on their own?

I’ve found that there are three types of writing that we—as writers—can read closely in order to (1) learn to read like a writer and (2) improve our own writing abilities. The three types are:

1. “Bad” Writing

2. “Good” Writing

3. Writing Outside of Our Chosen Genre

“Good” and “bad” writing are subjective, of course, and the exercise below will ask you to define good and bad writing in terms of your own taste and style interests. Defining what works for you as a reader and what doesn’t in concrete terms is one of the first steps of learning how to read like a writer. Before we jump in, you know what to do: take anything that’s useful to your writing life and leave everything that’s not behind.

How to Read Like a Writer

1. Read “Bad” Writing

For me, the first step to reading like a writer is to notice what you notice about a story. When you love a story and feel emotionally satisfied by it, it can be challenging to pinpoint what craft and style elements actually make the story effective. But when you hate a story, it can be easier to identify what exactly the writer is doing on the page that’s ineffective for your own story sensibilities. In my writing life, my analytical skills have grown the most by reading ineffective writing.

Here’s an example. A few months ago, my partner and I drove from Tampa to Key West and back. Roundtrip, we had sixteen hours of driving ahead of us, and we had planned on listening to an audiobook. As we bombed down I-75, I put on the full cast audiobook for Fourth Wing¹. I chose this book because it was the kind of book that neither of us would ever read, but it’s also so deeply ingrained in the zeitgeist that I had to see what all the fuss was about. I also loved Twilight as a kid, and Fourth Wing seemed like the type of book my high school self would have enjoyed. That said, I went into the book fully knowing what kind of writing to expect, but I hoped to at least be entertained on this long, boring ride to the very end of Florida.

We couldn’t make it past the twenty minute mark in the audiobook. I was willing to tough it out until the Turn into Act II, but my partner—who is an engineer and very much not a writer—refused. As we drove past Bradenton, he rattled off all the things he disliked about the book:

1. The diction is repetitive and unvaried.

2. The imagery is limited, and the things that are described in detail are random.

3. Whenever the characters speak, they say things that each of them already know solely because the reader needs to learn something about the world. As a result, there are no in-story stakes for the dialogue in the first twenty minutes of the audiobook.

4. He hates the word “rucksack.”

I thoroughly agreed with each of these points (especially #4), but I was really struck by how quickly and specifically he could identify the craft and style elements that were ineffective for his tastes. We’ve been together for nearly ten years, so naturally, he’s picked up some craft concepts from me. But still, I was blown away by how this “bad” writing unintentionally enabled him to (1) pinpoint exactly what he disliked about the book and (2) discover the qualities of what he considers to be “good” writing.

“Bad” writing is one of the best teachers because it teaches us what story elements are important to us as writers and readers. As you read “bad” writing, notice what you notice about the ineffective storytelling. Here are some questions to guide your close reading: