Here is an excellent post from Ruthanne Reid over at TheWritePractice, “4 Steps to Read Like a Writer.” It is a pretty common concept that good writers also read a lot. Reid takes this idea and presents four ways to get more out of your reading as as writer:
- Mark passages that move you for easy location later
- Ask yourself three questions;
- What was powerful?
- Why was it powerful?
- How did it achieve that power?
- Mimic your favorite voices
- Practice (of course!)
The post explores each of these points in detail, with examples and links to more.
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Along these lines, this book by Francine Prose explores the works of some of the world’s literary masters, doing much of what Reid suggests above. Why did these writers works survive? What makes them “good” writing? From Amazon’s description:
She takes pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot’s Middlemarch. She looks to John Le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue, to Flannery O’Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail, and to James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield for clever examples of how to employ gesture to create character.
