[Writerpreneur] Day 14 - Lesson 0206:How Reading Backwards Helps the Professional Writer Train his Craft
When the author really engages you, then you're trapped in their world as a writer yourself...
How can you read to improve your writing technique?
With any good book in hand, the average reader hurries along to find out how the story ends. Meanwhile, the professional writer reads slowly, noting with care not what happens to the hero of the story but what is happening to the reader.
The pro’s concern is not as to whether the story ends happily for the hero, but as to whether the story proceeds happily for the reader. That is what really matters. And until the beginning writer learns to read with that care, he cannot claim to be a professional writer.
Now it is human nature to follow the story. And a good story will find the beginning writer starting to read for technique, but finding themselves plunging madly on, as the author of the story intended him to do. To avoid this, the beginner's best method is to read the story backward. In fact, reading a story backward is the quickest method of forming the habit of reading for technique.
This is the method:
Read the first pages of the story, or the first chapter of the book—far enough into it, at any rate, to learn what the book or the story is about. Then tear yourself away and turn to the last chapter of the book, or the last scenes of the story, and read those pages. This gives you an understanding of the goal where the author wants to lead you.
Now you know what he was trying to do. You have the problem stated, you have the answer. Now you are ready to see how he worked it out.
Here is where we begin to read backwards.
Read the story backward, one scene at a time — or the book backward, one chapter at a time. Having read Chapter I, and Chapter XX (the last), we now turn to the beginning of Chapter XIX, and read that. Afterward, in sequence, read Chapter XVIII, Chapter XVII, Chapter XVI, and so on until you are back to Chapter I again.
In reading backward this way, you will always know what follows, and you will inevitably concentrate your interest upon the devices and methods used by the author to lead you to his goal.
Those devices and methods reveal his technique—which is what you wish to study. Before you realize it, you are focusing on the technique of writing, instead of following the story like a donkey after a bundle of hay. You are reading as a professional writer now.
Then, when you have read the book backward, begin again at the beginning of Chapter I and read straight through the book to the end of Chapter XX (the last chapter).
This time, since you know the story, you will be on the lookout for other things which escaped you the first time. A third reading will show you even more. You have heard readers say that a good book grows better with each reading. Just as the professional writer finds new devices of technique each time.
Rereading good models gives you a constant supply of new inspiration and techniques.
Having a library of models to dip into can fuel your writing to new heights.