This week I shared the following quote on social media:
Is it really that simple?
Of course.
And not at all.
The real challenge comes with how we approach both reading and writing. Today, I want to dig into the reading part.
A good book can transport you to another world, distracting you from all the craft that went into creating it. You may be inspired as a result, imagining similarly brilliant prose and carefully crafted plots spinning from your fingertips onto the page via your laptop keyboard with ease. Or you may feel discouraged. How could you ever begin to write a book that brilliant?
As for the latter, you can write a great book. At least you can write the best book you can write and who knows how brilliant that can be until you try. As for the former, take heart. That book, despite its pretty perfect appearance now, did not just spill out of the author whose name is on the jacket. They toiled with an idea for some time, came to the page and left it, threw pages in the metaphorical (or maybe literal if they’re pen to paper or typewriter writers) wastebasket, banged their head against the desk, fiddled with only that one paragraph as the sun rose then set on their day, revised and rewrote and polished. No matter how successful or brilliant they are, they still had to work at writing that book.
And guess what? You can learn from that work.
Take another look at that book you loved. Grab a highlighter or some sticky notes and see how they did it. How did each scene or chapter start or end? Plot out the trajectory of the first half and second half of the story, what changed at the midpoint? Answer questions about the book like it’s a report for your fourth grade language arts class: Who is the protagonist? What do they want? What do they need? What stands in their way? What decisions do they make and what were the consequences? What did they get in the end–what they wanted or what they needed, neither, something else? What questions did you have at the end of a chapter? What propelled you to turn the page rather than turn off the light and get some sleep?
Now, find a book that you aren’t as into. When did you want to put it down? Why? What is missing? Revisit the same questions as above and see if you can figure out what’s not working for you. Is it a craft problem, a personal taste discrepancy (nothing wrong with that), or are you reading at a bad time in your life (context can be important to our personal experiences with a book)?
I believe stories are stories, so you can do this with shows you’re bingeing and movies as well. Some shows are easier to pause or abandon than others. I recently binge-watched The Partner Track on Netflix based on the novel of the same name by Helen Wan. Each episode left me wanting to see what happened next. There was no question about whether I wanted the next episode to run. I let it play while I made dinner, folded laundry, and snuggled under a blanket in my unusually quiet house this weekend.
At some point I realized how deep I was in. Why did I need to keep watching?
For me, it was the protagonist’s clear motivation: to make partner. It colored every action and decision she made. I was rooting for her while internally yelling at her to not do that next thing because it would clearly not work out how she thought. Her motivation drove all her choices until she’d lost her moral compass thinking she was doing the “right” thing. I couldn’t wait to see how she’d finally come to realize that she needed to play a different game entirely instead of trying to follow the rules everyone else ignored for a game she could never win.
While The Partner Track did it well, I’m also learning a lot from another show I watch that I’m not finding as compelling. I’m not desperate to see what happens or stay up past my bedtime to see what’s next. There are multiple seasons and this most recent one I’m watching is starting slow for me–I can see they are setting something up, but I don’t know that we needed all this set-up to get to the juicier conflict awaiting us. It’s making me impatient, bored. But, I’m waiting to see if it turns around and how. For now. Because I’m invested in the characters after several seasons, otherwise, I may have just dropped it. The difference between this season and previous may be that I can see the set-up. It’s too obvious, which, to me, means it’s taking too long. Just get to the point!
If you want to improve your writing, immerse yourself in stories. Read, watch, listen and use your critical eye (or ear) on them. Dissect them. Ask yourself what’s working and what isn’t as if you were beta reading a story for a friend. Don’t let it diminish your enjoyment of a book or show, but do perhaps jot a few observations down after a reading or watching session of things you’ve noticed that are holding your interest or even just note how you’re feeling after that chapter/episode. You can always go back and do a deeper dive later to figure out what elicited that feeling or kept you turning the page.
The more attention you pay to the stories that captivate you, the more you can use them as a road map to enhancing your own craft. The more attention you pay to the stories that lose you, the more you can be on the lookout for those moments in your own work and fix them.
Read. Read. Read.
It’s just that easy.
And hard.
Featured Photo by David Lezcano on Unsplash