Writing Advice: Reading Critically

I’m working on this book about how to write a novel, and a lot of the exercises I suggest involve reading other books to understand techniques to apply to your own. So I thought I’d write a little bit here about how to read critically, because a lot of people aren’t used to that.

First off, reading critically is separate from reading for enjoyment. They aren’t mutually exclusive, although if you start making a habit of reading critically, you will find that poorly-written books are less enjoyable than they might have been previously. By contrast, though, you’ll find more ways to enjoy better-written ones as you start to look at the craft that goes into them.

Reading critically involves a lot of asking “how?” and “why?” as you read, especially when you encounter something that strikes you particularly strongly in either a positive or negative way. It’s also important to ask those questions when there’s a smaller feeling that something isn’t quite right, but you can’t put your finger on it. What you’re trying to do is take a reaction like “I just couldn’t get into the story” or “I loved this scene, it was so powerful,” and ask “how did the writer do that?” and “why did they make that choice?”

It helps if you’ve studied literature or creative writing, but you can also learn to do this by reading other people’s critiques of those books. I don’t always agree with book reviews, but I often find something interesting in how the reviewer views stories and what they expect of the author, and sometimes I find a way to say more formally something that I’d been feeling. Someone might drift away from a book for many reasons: the characters weren’t compelling, or the setting wasn’t interesting, or the stakes weren’t there. Someone might love a scene because it reveals a character moment, or because it showcases the setting in a cool new way, or because it ties together a number of plot threads.

I usually try to read through a work once without getting too critique-y, so I can experience the story. Then I can go back, think about the parts I really liked or really didn’t, or sort of liked or sort of didn’t, and do a closer read to figure out how those moments were supported or not supported by the story to that point.

A lot of times, there will be points where the author’s intentions are clear, but I don’t immediately know what they are. Every word in a book is chosen by the author, so if something is prominent, it’s because they wanted it to be, because it had meaning for them. This is especially true in significant locations: at the beginning and end of the book (and less so, the beginning and end of every chapter), at the introduction of the protagonist, the introduction of the plot, the resolution of the plot, and the moments of the protagonist’s character journey. Often, asking, “Why did the author include this scene?” has led me to a new understanding of what the author was doing with the story.

Reading critically will not only help you understand other work; it will help you improve your own writing. Looking at how other authors approach their work will give you more ideas about your own, and seeing what works and what doesn’t for you will help you shape the way you approach your own writing.