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Post by ScintillaMyntan on Jul 9, 2023 20:51:34 GMT -6
Do you look at books or other media differently now that you're more experienced at writing than before? Have you ever returned to something you read in the past and thought differently of it?
This question occurs to me because on a whim, I recently decided to restart the seventh Harry Potter book. I read the other books as a teenager but stopped in the seventh because a friend spoiled the ending for me and I was too angry to continue. Some thoughts I've had as I now read up to and beyond where I left off: • That's a lot of comma splices— But on the other hand, how is it that I only learned last year that if you have a full sentence after a colon, you capitalize the word that follows the colon? My boss had to correct me for not doing that. This book has a lot of that structure. • It's simply quite cool how I still remember in-universe facts, such as what particular spells do. It's like recalling knowledge from another world. • Like with so many things, I see events in the story differently than I would have in the past, thanks to both anxiety issues and the ways of healing I've implemented. I can see how if I wrote the story, it would address or give a different weight to the things that are newly important to me.
• Unfortunately, it also makes me aware of how anxiety tempts me to distort stuff into coping-daydream material. I'm now so fascinated with how these characters consistently use magical skills that reinforces their belonging together as a special secret community. It appeals unhealthily much to my fears of being unworthy or left out. Whereas when I was younger, I just thought, "ooh, cool wizards." You would think it'd be the opposite—
• This series is so rich with inventive little details that flavor the setting, the exact sort of detail I find really fun to come up with on the spot in the course of writing. I should write more things that have opportunities for those. Maybe these books are how I got that interest? It's charming because here they're often kind of used whimsically, humorously.
• I find myself more critical of the worldbuilding than before. It seems pretty implausible, for example, that the Wizarding community didn't pick up more mainstream culture, though maybe some hardcore Harry Potter fan is going to swoop in and explain that. I'm fine with suspending disbelief, but I make these observations a lot more than I used to.
• I often worry when writing fantasy that I don't have enough of a consistent explanation for magical phenomena. If I was writing a story with, say, both fairies and magical stones but nothing else fantastical, what underlying principle allows both to exist and no other fantasy stuff? But this series doesn't seem to bother with anything like that at all, yet I don't mind it as a reader. Maybe I'm overthinking it?
• Reading this book is bringing back the type of enthusiasm for reading and writing I had as a child. When I get bored reading it, I sometimes flip ahead to look at later chapter names. I remember doing that as a kid, not so much anymore thanks to e-readers and chapters that are untitled or less interestingly titled. As a kid it would make me want to come up with my own chapter names, and I sometimes did that for books with untitled chapters, and other times I just came up with ones for a nonexistent story for fun. And now I almost want to do it again, almost.
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Post by Sundrinker on Jul 10, 2023 18:47:43 GMT -6
Now when I enjoy reading a particular passage in something, I do pay more attention to how the writer sets up the scene; the descriptions, the turn of phrase, if the author uses a particularly clever or vivid metaphor or simile, etc.
Something I'm sensitive to is pacing, so I pay particular attention to what the written does and does not emphasize. I'll read a passage over and over to try and figure out what about it works so well.
On the other hand, I have less tolerance for writing that's clunky. Let's say I'm trying out a demo of some RPG I'm on the fence about buying. If within reading the first couple of sentences it feels laborious to read, I'll start skipping the almost all the text. Usually that's also a red flag that the rest of the game (besides maybe the art) is going to be underwhelming to me.
I'm also more forgiving to unoriginal plots. That used to be one of my top reasons to dismiss something right off the bat. Now I'm more willing to give those type of plot a chance and see if it can hook me in.
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Post by RAVENEYE on Jul 11, 2023 10:07:03 GMT -6
Good question! Loved your answers, too. Great insights into what aspects of writing and reading matter to you both.
Sometimes it would be nice to read a book like a non-writer reads a book. Just fly through it without feeling the need to study how a scene is built well and how abstract ideas are expressed. AND to read a book as a non-editor reads a book. Without looking for more efficient ways to write a description, and counting the sentences in a row that begin with the same pronoun. "He ... He ... He" and "I ... I ... I" and thinking "Jeez, author, could you not figure out a more interesting way to write that paragraph?"
I've never been a fast reader, always enjoyed taking my time and lingering on the words themselves. (I do not understand skimming through gloriously written stories and finishing a novel in a day or two. Ahem, Mom.) But now I find myself constantly revising sentences on the fly as I read through a story, taking out unnecessary words, replacing dull verbs with exciting ones, leaving off wordy ends of sentences (amazing how many ends of sentences are useless, especially in older styles of writing).
And this is in well-loved literary or household name books. I catch myself asking, "Jeez, Raveneye, who are you to "correct" these masters? If they can write this shlop, so can you. Chill out. Be kind to yourself and the stories you're writing."
Another thing I find myself doing now is recalling how intimidating or challenging a particular author's style was to me a decade or two back (example, I loved GRRM's style and longed to emulate it), but when I go to read that same story now, I find the writing so ... simple and basic. Like, WHY did this once intimidate me? Even more startling, when I started mentally editing THAT once-intimidating content to "improve" it.
No doubt about it, writing and editing definitely changes how a person reads a book. Like, big time.
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Post by saintofm on Jul 30, 2023 21:00:51 GMT -6
I am not sure where to start either. If nothing else, tells you what you like and what you want to avoid like the plague.
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Post by Mazulla on Aug 14, 2023 11:28:31 GMT -6
As others have mentioned, I definitely dissect books more now than I used to. If I see anything that I thought was interesting or clever or expressive, I pay attention and try to learn from that. If I see sentences that I thought were difficult to read or were off-putting, I instinctively reword them in a way that makes more sense to me. While I still very much enjoy reading, this does make it more exhausting and I can't absolutely devour books like I used to, lol.
And because I am not only reading for enjoyment but also to "study" an author, I find myself being way more picky than I used to be. If it's not bringing me joy and/or the writing style is overtly simple OR unnecessarily detailed, then I will put that book down and just not finish it. Example: An author I used to like but his style shifted to describe every. single. minute and unnecessary detail (drudgery!). An author that had a really interesting mythology premise but it was a) simply written and b) kept switching to modern English (as teenagers would sound today) in a medieval time period.
But then there are other authors that have greatly influenced how I write today. I try to emulate them in my own writing, and it's exciting to find more authors that challenge me.
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HeRoCoMpLeX
Smoke
"If one drinks much from a bottle marked poison, its bound to catch up with one sooner or later."
Posts: 7
Preferred Pronouns: He/Him
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Post by HeRoCoMpLeX on Sept 10, 2023 0:07:22 GMT -6
Like everyone else, it has most assuredly caused me to get hung up on things like sentence structure, repetitive sentence starters, continuity issues, etc, etc, etc. I also catch my mind drifting off on a particularly well written turn of phrase. Something like, "Damn, I wish I'd thought of that." Most of the time I'll take it a step further and think about how I would have used such a well-crafted sentence or concept in a story of my own if I'd come up with it.
It hits me the hardest while watching TV and movies.
Let me preface this by saying I have no idea how to write a screenplay, nor do I have a desire to write movies, plays, or TV shows. I understand that writing like that is different than fiction writing, and I respect the talent it takes to do it. Having said that, I can no longer watch TV/movies without nitpicking the story to death from a writer's standpoint. Lazy storytelling, gaping plot holes, and flat characters jump out at me like a shiny red brick to the teeth. Drives me crazy!
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