First off, learning to read again

Yes, you read correctly in this short piece I will teach you that to become better writers you need to re-learn how to read. Explore how writers approach paragraphs, how they string together thoughts, how they build paragraphs and chapters. It’s very fascinating once you delve deeper into the book you are currently reading or re-read some old favourites, but with a new twist. I recently read a book on close reading, which is the method by which we all were taught to read in elementary school, but somehow forgot to retain into adulthood. The book is entitled “Reading Like A Writer” and is authored by Francine Prose. It is a very well written thoughtful book that teaches the reader how to read books from a writer’s perspective. In essence it teaches you to take the writing apart and delve into every word. Go ahead re-read a paragraph implores one chapter, savour every passage and every turn of phrase. Prose also discusses how there are times the writer intentionally leaves things out and only slightly [refers] to a subject letting the reader draw conclusions or sometimes leading them down the wrong pass so as to catch them by surprise several chapters later. I would say this is the first book any aspiring writer should read and then go back and re-read some of your favourite authors. In fact, once you’ve read this book and know the genre you plan on writing, then by all means go to the bookstore and buy one or two of the same genre and read them critically and imagine how you would have written a certain passage. As I have noted, once you start reading again, if you haven’t in a while, you’ll note that your thirst for reading returns. You start yearning for a few minutes to spend alone with a good book curled up in your favourite chair perhaps sipping some wine or huddling a warm cup of coffee.

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