WARNING: Once acquired, this skill can be difficult to get
rid of. You will notice writing techniques everywhere.
Active Reading means becoming more than the average consumer
of literature. It means abandoning the comfort of passive reading.
If you’re a driver, you might remember how your perspective
changed when started learning to drive. Before, you simply got in the car,
fastened your seat-belt and that was it. That was your active engagement with
the driving process. You allowed yourself to be transported, swaying with the
twists and turns, becoming alarmed at any sudden stops or unexpected movements.
But, once you started learning to drive, you became a more
active passenger. Hopefully you’re not an annoying backseat driver who can’t stop
commenting, but now, when someone else is driving, you are probably more aware of
what they are doing. You notice at least some of the hazards on the road ahead
and anticipate some of the bends and the sudden stops.
Active Reading does a similar thing. You have to train your
mind to notice things you wouldn’t usually notice as a reader.
How to Read Actively
Begin With a Book You Know
Choose a book you are familiar with and read it slowly. It is very easy, at first (and much harder
later) to slip back into passive reading. So choosing a book you know allows
you to focus on the actual writing and the story structure, rather than getting
distracted by simply enjoying the book.
Look at the Author’s Decisions
You want to start looking at the author’s decisions and the
effect those decisions are intended to have on the reader. These decisions are everywhere and you need to
learn to spot them. As writers, we make choices about the words we use, our sentence
structures, the shapes of our plots, our character’s actions and the length of
our chapters. So we know what kind of decisions the authors we are reading had
to make. Our job is to notice and analyse them.
Decide How Effective Those Decisions Are
It sounds a little big-headed, doesn’t it? Judging the
effectiveness of a successful author’s decisions… and perhaps it is. But a certain amount of big-headedness is beneficial to a writer And all writers are
different. We aren’t reading actively to look down on another writer’s work or
to say that they did something wrong. It’s their book. They made those
decisions. You are writing an entirely different book and you will probably
make very different decisions. And that’s the way it should be. But by
analysing the decisions another author has made, and looking at the ways you,
as a reader, are affected by those decisions, you can begin to expand your
awareness of writing techniques and their practical application.
Consider Applying Those Techniques to Your Own Writing
The techniques we notice through active reading are going to
affect our writing. Whether we agree with an author’s decisions or not, we will
take away something from the experience. It is unlikely that you’ll agree with
every decision an author makes, even if they are your favourite, but you can
always learn something from them. You might simply learn that you don’t like a certain
style of writing dialogue, or that you would have structured a scene
differently if it were your story.
An important thing to consider is that the book you are
actively reading was written with a specific audience in mind and that the
author made their decisions with the intention of affecting that audience. If you
are able to look at those decisions objectively and understand why they were
made, you can consider how relevant they are to your own writing and whether
those same techniques would affect your target audience in similar ways.
Learn to Turn It Off
Once you are able to read actively, you will find it hard to
become a passive reader again. But, just as we can fall asleep or play car
games or simply stare out of the window while someone else is driving, provided
they are someone we trust, we can become passive readers again. It just takes a
bit of work and, sometimes, a promise to yourself that you will analyse the
book later, possibly re-reading it actively after your initial passive read.
Learning to read passively again is important. So, even if
it seems difficult, work at it. You don’t want to lose touch with the simple
enjoyment of reading that led you to becoming a writer in the first place.
Notice the Invisible Writing
I believe that good writing, really good writing, is
invisible. So, once you’ve got the hang of Active Reading, particularly pay
attention to any books you find it hard with. Notice any books where you keep
slipping back into passive reading. The books where the writing techniques disappear
and the stories are so smooth that you forget you’re reading. These authors have
the most to teach us, but we have to work harder to learn from them.
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