Reading like a Writer

I have a friend, who reads a lot but doesn’t write very much, who gets really irritated with me whenever we discuss books.  She claims I’m a snob; she doesn’t understand why I can’t just “relax and and enjoy the book.”

I do enjoy books.  Reading is my absolute favorite thing to do when I’m not studying or writing.  The difference between my friend and me, though, is that as a writer, every book that I read helps me to hone my craft and my art.  It’s not that she doesn’t read well, it’s just that she doesn’t write, and so doesn’t read like a writer.

A writer should not read passively.  When a book is really, really good, I might lose myself in it, but later, when the book is done, I always go back to try to identify just what it was the author did that made his/her book so absorbing.  And when a book is really, really bad, I’m always tempted to put it down and stop torturing myself, but instead, I try to identify just what it is that makes that particular book so unreadable.

So I’ve begun keeping a notebook, a reading journal, in which I jot down my thoughts about what I’m reading at any given moment.  There are a few key elements that I pay special attention to when I read:

• Plot.  I have a hard time with plotting, sometimes, and I think that the best way to learn how to do it effectively is by seeing what works (and what doesn’t) in someone else’s writing.  How does the author move his/her story from point A to point B?  Do the characters actively move the story along?  Does something external (outside the characters’ control) happen that the characters have to react to?
• Characterization.  When I read a book in which I feel that I really get to know a character, I try to identify the cues that the author gives me about the character’s personality, motivation, background, etc.  How much of the character’s personality controls the progress of the novel?
• Dialogue.  Does the dialogue feel authentic?  What kind of tags does the author use in dialogue?  How much slang/idiom do the characters use, and how much formal speech?  How does the author differentiate characters through dialogue?
• Language.  This is especially important to me; the books that I like the best all employ language in such a way that it emphasizes the meaning of a story, the differences between characters, the mood or the setting.  It doesn’t have to be lyrical or poetic; it just has to achieve an effect.
• Setting.  How does the author evoke a sense of place?  What details does he/she use to make the setting come alive?  How, when and where does the author insert these details?  In a good novel, the setting can be a character in and of itself; how does an author achieve this?

Most importantly, though, a writer must read, and read a bit of everything.  It’s how we know what’s being published currently, what’s been done to death, what’s fresh and new, what works and what doesn’t.  Just as a doctor or lawyer does research to stay current in his field, so must a writer.

And, too, read because you enjoy it.  Writing makes a great excuse for reading. 

Where do you get your ideas?

There’s a great essay at Neil Gaiman’s blog about creativity, and where his ideas come from.  Read it.  It’s terrific.  Then again, I think that almost everything he does is.

It’s reassuring; it’s good to hear a well-established writer talk about the ideas that don’t work, about the ideas that do, about wrestling them into a shape that’s palatable for public consumption.  It’s good to know that having to struggle, sometimes, doesn’t mean that I’m completely unfit to be a writer.

It’s an interesting exercise, too, to try to figure out where and when you get your best ideas.  Mine tend to come when I’m between activities, or trying to work out a problem, or at the edge of sleep.  And, of course, when I’m in the least convenient place to write them down, like driving in heavy traffic, or giving my son a bath, or stir-frying snow peas.  And often, I lose them as quickly as they come.  I’ve taken to repeating a word or two to myself, over and over, as a mnemonic to try to hold onto them just a little longer.

Sometimes I suffer from a dearth of ideas, nothing to say, and no way to say it if I had something. It happens when I’m too stressed out by life, too busy with the mundane details of motherhood, marriage and mortgage, to generally fried to write.  My favorite quote from Gaiman’s essay:

My idea of hell is a blank sheet of paper. Or a blank screen. And me, staring at it, unable to think of a single thing worth saying, a single character that people could believe in, a single story that hasn’t been told before.

It is.  Hell, that is.  But if I force myself to write, to put words on paper, even if they don’t really mean anything, eventually my creative side will become frustrated at being so sullen and puke something out.  And if I keep the creative side happy and busy, it doesn’t stop spewing them out.  Not all of them are good, mind you, but they’re ideas nonetheless.

So.  Where do you get yours?

Originality, Innovation and Good Writing

When I was in high school (longer ago that I’m going to admit here), a writing teacher told me that there’s no such thing as a new idea.  She said that, chances are, no matter how original you think your idea may be, at least a hundred people have had it before.

It’s kinda scary, really.  Most magazines’ guidelines for writers say that they want, fresh, original writing.  So writers try to innovate.  And when they do, their writing often suffers, more often than not.

I’m not a big fan of “experimental” fiction.  By that, I mean fiction that is self-conscious in its originality, fiction which pushes the envelope for the sole purpose of innovation.  When I read a story, I want a story.  I want to be transported.  I want to get lost in a story, and I can’t do that when the story continually stands up and shouts, “Look how unique I am!” at every sentence.  Stories that are innovative and good don’t do this; you only realize how fresh, how original the story is after you’ve read it, digested it, thought about it for a while.  A story that is original is unique because there is no other way in which that story could have been told.

But it’s important to be fresh, I think.  So, if there are no new ideas, and reaching for originality for its own sake often ruins a good story, what’s a writer to do?

I think, really, that a writer should just tell a story in the best way she knows how.  This is what I strive for: to be un-selfconscious in my writing, and to let the story tell itself.  Nobody else has my perspective on the world, my set of experiences, my voice.  Yes, there are writers who may have a similar outlook, but they aren’t the same.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t avoid cliches, overworked ideas, things that have been done to death.  But we can re-invent some of these things, make them new with our own unique interpretations of them.

Or, rather, we can try.

Great site for writers: DeepGenre

I love this blog. It’s written/maintained a number of authors: Constance Ash, Carol Berg, Barbara Denz, David Louis Edelman, Kate Elliot, Katherine Kerr, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Laura J. Mixon, Sherwood Smith and Lois Tilton.

There’s a lot of info here; discussion on a number of writers’ first novels, 13-line critiques, ins and outs of writing craft and business…I could go on.

So check it out: DeepGenre.

Consider the audience

One of the things I like about blogging is that it forces me to consider audience as I write, even if what I’m writing is a collection of insignificant musings.

I work part-time as a writing tutor at a small university; I work with a number of students who are in developmental/remedial writing classes.  These are students who struggle with writing, and one of the things they struggle with most is audience; they can’t conceive, it seems, of writing for an audience.  If what they say makes sense to them, they reason, it should make sense to everyone else.

But this phenomenon isn’t limited to inexperienced writers, or to people who don’t enjoy writing.  When I have taken writing classes and workshops, or participated in writers’ groups, most fledgling writers, when asked why they write, answer that they want to express themselves.

But writing is not just self-expression; it is communication. Unless you write on paper, in a notebook that you plan to keep entirely private and never, ever show to anyone, writing is a two-way street.  It is not enough that your writing make sense to you, the writer; if it is to be successful, it must also make sense to your reader.  And if you want to be paid for your writing, considering audience is absolutely crucial.  Editors of publications consider their readership when they buy stories; writers must also consider readership when they try to sell stories.

So this begs the question of how to consider audience while you’re writing.  There’s probably an infinite number of ways to go about this, but there are some of the things I try to pin down when I begin a story; these helps me to focus the story and keep it consistent, and if I have a target audience in mind, editing becomes easier after the first draft is done.  Some of the things I try to keep in mind:

• What do I want readers to gain/take from this story? 
• What age group is likely to read this story?
• What genre, if any, does my story fit into?

If I have a general theme or idea, target age group and target genre audience in mind when I begin writing, it becomes easier to consider whether my language is appropriate for the age group I’m writing for, whether my story fulfills genre expectations, whether or not it’s cliche for the genre I’m writing in, and so on.

This is true not just for fiction, but for blogging as well.  Since my blog is public, and I have a (somewhat loose) connecting theme in my blog, I’m able to consider who might be likely to read the blog, and what they might expect from a blog on my topic.