How to Read Like a Writer

Abstract

The first step to becoming a successful writer is to become a successful reader. Helping you develop your critical skills How to Read Like a Writer is an accessible and effective step-by-step guide to how careful reading can help you improve your craft as a creative writer, whatever genre you are writing in. Across 10 lessons – each pairing published readings with practical critical and creative exercises – this book helps writers master such key elements of their craft as: Genre – from fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry to hybrid genres such as graphic narratives and online forms Plot, conflict, theme and image Developing characters – physical descriptions, psychological depths and actions Narrators and points of view – 1st, 2nd and 3rd person narratives Scenes and settings – time, space and place Structure and form – length, organization and media Language, subtext and style