Reading to Learn (as opposed to Learning to Read)

I'm always seeking to hone my craft. I've taken college courses on writing, I've participated in contests. I've read books on writing, I've submitted work for critique. But I think the way I like best to work on my writing is to read. I stick mostly to my preferred genre of Speculative Fiction, but I'm not averse to anything that catches my eye. Stephanie Plum novels, Victorian dime novels, the occasional literary fiction. I even read the Twilight novels, but that was more along the lines of "never ban a book you haven't read." I felt that I couldn't honestly say that Twilight was garbage unless I'd actually seen it for myself.

To any Twilight fans who became upset reading those last two sentences, feel free to reach out to me for a more detailed critique.

You can learn a lot from reading things outside of your comfort zone, become introduced to conventions and techniques not regularly used in the books you enjoy the most. As an example, I want to change my writing style slightly for each of the characters in my SOD novel. Give the POV characters each their own voice. I think Tadakatsu would be suited to what I've heard called beige prose. Specifically, the late Robert B. Parker's style in the Spenser novels.

When I read, even if I'm reading just for fun, I analyze the book. I don't even do it consciously, it's just something I find myself doing. Picking out tropes and seeing how they use them. I ask myself questions like "Why did the author go with first person narration, rather than third person limited?" "Oh, he's using a dream sequence here. Is he doing it to create symbols, or is he just ramming narrative information down my throat?"

I never use dreams in my writing for that very reason. It seems like too many writers use it to spoon feed the plot to the reader. A similar problem occurs with info dumps. I tend to be a bit more forgiving with those, since in Science Fiction an info dump can be unavoidable. Still, I like them best when the writer comes up with a way to integrate the info dump into the narrative. I remember one book I read recently where the author explained the phlebotinum the protagonist just acquired by literally having him read an owner's manual. Reviews I've read have stated that this author is supposed to be good at info dumps. Which means that either I found a rare bad example, or I'm too picky.

I'm probably going to have to put an info dump or two in my own novel. I have the beginnings of a couple here and there, I can't decide if I should try to work the information into the novel, handing it out piecemeal, or give in and just explain everything in one fell swoop. I think I'll look for some essays on info dumps and find out what other people think are good or bad ways to do it, and make my decision then. While I'm at it, I'll look for some tips on naming my novel. I usually put off the title until the end, because I'm terrible with titles. I have a lot to think about, and a lot to read. Time to get to it.

-E. Maxfield Moen