I've returned from Middle-Earth just in time to run a contest!
Some of you know, most of you do not, that I've started studying for my Masters in Creative Writing with a focus on Fiction. One of my classes is learning about "story craft" and requires the analysis of a classic work and a contemporary work.
The classic work I chose was The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien and I've been traveling with Bilbo and company for the last two weeks. I was anxious and nervous when I started, just like Bilbo. Though I've taken many writing classes in my life, none have been like this. I wasn't analyzing the book for theme and meaning. Instead, I was analyzing it for how the story structure and character development supported the themes in the book. In short, I was reading it as a writer so I could learn how Tolkien wrote. What techniques did he use, what word choices did he make and how did they shift the narrative? All sorts of questions like that I never really thought of before, at least not in this way.
So when I started, I didn't exactly know what I was doing. I underlined everything it seemed, I put my sticky note arrows pointing to every other sentence. I think everything I noted was worth while, but I couldn't read the whole book that way. Not in two weeks and write up my analysis. So like Bilbo, I relaxed a little bit into the journey. I still marked a lot of stuff but I wasn't so crazy about it.
We're they right?
I'd always heard people complain that analyzing a book, especially if they like it, ruins it. Well, I'd never read The Hobbit, though obviously I know the story. Even before the major motion pictures I had watched several animated versions with my daughter. So I worried too that I wouldn't like it because I had to read it like a writer, and not just for enjoyment.
The opposite turned out to be true. Reading it this way helped me see the beauty in his writing. The turns of phrase he uses, way he introduces his characters, and changes the tempo and rhythm to create the effect he wants. It's masterful.
My contemporary work is Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson. I hope the experience is the same (it is so far) because his book is immense. I have read this work before, but it was quite some time ago. I'm excited about it, because I consider him a master of fantasy too. Anything I can learn from him will be amazing and hopefully something I can apply in my own work.
By the way if you're looking for a free course on writing fantasy and science fiction, check out Brandon Sanderson's series on YouTube:
The contest!
I know we have a huge number of writers on Steemit, and I'd love to know your experience reading as a writer. It doesn't have to be for a formal class or anything. If you've ever dived into a text to learn from the author tell me about it!
My favorite one will win 5 SBI units!
Rules:
- Comment below about your experience reading as a writer. Spill the details...did you hate it...did you learn something...will you ever do it again...the more you share (that's relevant) the more I'll probably like your answer. (hint hint).
The contest is open until post payout.
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Hi @ntowl: My plate is really full, but this one tempts me. There is so much I try on Steemit that is a stretch--this one would not be. I used to be an avid recreational reader. Then I became a student of "literature"--which means I signed up for courses that taught me the classics and how to read them analytically. Then I became a writer (no, not really, but I like to write). So there you go, my skill set is kind of tailored to this exercise. I want to participate but may run out of time. Right now I've got a major science post I'm trying to get my head around--that's a stretch :)
Outside the context of a contest, it would be nice to just write a post about literature that someone cares about. Please note that one of my earlier posts was resoundingly unappreciated: Comparative Literature: Reality and Dreams. Maybe that post was a bit self-indulgent :)
Good luck with the contest, and your studies.
- Preface -
It might surprise nobody, but I have always been reading as a writer as I would as an analyst of the text. One only has to look at literally any of my comments for NANA contests (or even @calluna’s as she is my official mouth piece :p) and @curie upvoted posts. But nobody is here for life story of anything beforehand, so let’s talk about my the things I read in the past. All but without the exception of a few works, Dr. Seuss’s works (especially The Foot Book) as a kid, the Hobbit (yah just talked about it :p) and might as no George RR Tolkien (even casual reading was insufferable even for an eighth grade and unlimited stamina me).
- 8th grade me -
Though I really could go on a limb, this is the first time I not only knew I was consciously analyzing the text but I can recall it. What do I mean?
This was in a period where how I read was going to not be how I saw it, but how was I supposed to see it as to get maximum score. To put more complexly, I couldn’t just enjoy and talked what I enjoyed in a work but be forced to find an example that might not be there but still dig for it. I would say this period would be “reading as both archaeologist and interpreter.” Let’s put it heavily that my teacher, Mrs Streit, was a person that enslaved the Devil - she was that bad.
Yet this is the first time that I could see, in the passing periods of frustration, the sheer unconscious activities of a writer and some pleasantries they snuck in for those nose-in-book readers. Yet, for now, it would be a mere experience of enjoying it in the rot work of forcing examples into the differing parts of speech.
The ones I care to remember was Anne Frank’s Diary, re-reading The Schwa Was Here (by Neal Shusterman) for fun, GoT Ice and Fire which caused too many headaches and reading Epictetus’s Enchiridion for the first time. Just the differing compositions, respectfully, of diary, prose/novella, what not to do and philosophy really gave me a run for my attention and care of how to imagine stories in my head. Equally so with the exception of GoT, that I started to love these works as I not only understood what was said and how they communicated it, but why it was structured as it was and the history behind each text.
Alas, I can only choose one work and I forsaken myself to my eighth grade years! Yet, lemme honour this memory for once and talk about Anne Frank’s diary.
- Anne Frank and Me -
How can I describe other than a diary? Now please take every assumption/conception you have of diaries and defenestrate them all. The only one I should agree upon and shall stay was the fact that this diary was meant to be kept private. Yet, because it was a required reading, I decided to make the most of it due to historicity of the text and wanting to know the pains of a victim of the Nazis (and if anybody gets anywhere offended to describe these excuses of dæmons, then you might just be in support of them).
And yes, this is an auto-documentary and there are some really heart wrenching moments. All throughout, you can see the dialectically progress from a happy life to a deeply claustrophobic and near PTSD-inducing life. You cannot escape her words, she might not have said everything to her family but her diary was her unconscious word of her actual thoughts. I imagined it being a hellish life, but I didn’t even knew what a hellish life was before reading this.
And yet, I was glad to have read it and see the beauty in her words and how she documented almost every single event of her claustrophobic life. Forgive me as it has been a long, long time - about four plus years ago - and I don’t have a copy on me. Yet...
- The Documentary inside a diary -
So I do have to say this, reading this work when I had, about her diary: it was practically an auto-documentary and I loved it for such (historical and narrative purposes).
I may have not been an annotations person, I despise annotations, but I do love mentally logging everything in my noggin. Just the flow of not only stating everything she experienced with her five senses, but making a little story out of everything (even to do things like this is as an internal explanation and reference to her life). And more-so, with her as the only (well not now I guess) audience, she only had to worry about writing for her future self and thus took the time to use only meaningful/important details that particularly was highlighting to her.
But every good documentary involves time, and this work is not only chronological but has a time and place (temporality) with it as well. Where the past may have an effect and other times matter so little to other towering concerns - yet may act as an agent to intensify those towering concerns. Mix that in with the content of her work and it makes for a compelling yet dialectically depressive work the entire way through. And throughout reading the work for the small details and paying attention to how and why she wrote the things she wrote, it had helped me develop the conscious tools of analyzing and dissecting a work - which ultimately lead to me loving her, learning more of her and understanding her struggle as she is not alive to tell us her sad story amongst the million other survivors. Complexly, to see the auto-documentary of her diary.
- Concrete -
And thus, moving past her work, my style of reading for the philosophy, history/politics, form and content of a work had stuck to me. Anne Frank’s Diary was, to me, a great contextualizing book of the 1940s for those under Nazi (fuck those dæmons) occupation but a story everyone should at least once read. More-so, it had helped me to appreciate works that I had unconsciously done what I for once consciously experienced!
And if I hadn’t said it enough, I greatly appreciated her Diary and I guess I can give gratitude to how I have been reading, more or less, nowadays. And of course I hadn’t read solely as a writer but it definitely is a part of how I read and how I continue to read even after I had changed my style slightly.
You never fail to leave it all in the comment! And you make me feel old. You said you read Anne Frank in 8th grade and that was a "long, long time" ago. Well, I read it in school too, but that was around 35 years ago!
I didn't even remember reading it until I read your submission to the contest, but my memory agrees with your analysis and sense of it.
Thank you for sharing!
Always a pleasure to write and mean a whole lot!~ Also damno mango, yer like fricking 31 years older than me. Well czesć Babcia!!!!~ <<<<3333!!!!~ 我爱你奶奶！~\ (≧▽≦) /~ (Okay, joke over.)
And yay, I gave a good ole reminder to a person of the NANA and did good with my entry (:з」∠)
Why pick Elantris out of all the Sanderson stuff? Is it just because it was his first novel?
Well, at first I was going to do The Way of Kings, but it's huge! Even though I've read it I was intimidated trying to read that one on the timeline I had. Then I thought maybe I'd read something I haven't read before so I bought Mistborn. Then in class the teacher said to pick something we've read before so we can spend more time analyzing rather than understanding the plot.
That took me back to Kings, but it was still so long. So I pulled Elantris off my shelf and it's only 600ish pages so I went with that. As a bonus it is his first novel that he polished and finished in a program like I'm in now so I'm connected to it in that way, though I do like Kings better.
Do you have a Sanderson favorite?
Well, I like almost all of the cosmere stuff. I will say that if you started the stormlight archive it would be a good idea to read Warbreaker before you get to words of radiance or oathbringer.
I've read words of radiance too, but not war breaker and I haven't found the time for oathbringer yet. I will though, once I get through some of these classes.
Definitely read warbreaker before Oathbringer
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A very intriguing contest! After many decades of reading for pleasure and saying "I can't write fiction", I recently tried my hand at writing a tiny story. This was for @jayna 100 word story contest. I thought "How hard can that be?" and astonished myself with a tiny story that I loved. "Hm" the reader in me thought "maybe I could try that again" and the next tiny story was even better! Two more after that and I felt like I had hit my stride, even dreaming the basis of one of the stories. I started writing for the five minute freewrites, weekend freewrites and an occasional essay about something in my life. I'd like to offer my entry to your contest as a beginning writer.
My attempts at writing fiction were the beginning of a shift in the way I read everything. I started to notice a bunch of stuff like never before.
So there you go. A beginning writer's new found appreciation of the writer's craft. Thank you for reading!
You have some amazing insights for a "beginning writer"! There is much truth in your assessments, but I would argue with the last point.
Great stories are made. They may start in a flurry of inspiration born of...whatever makes inspiration. But you'll find very few first drafts turned into successful stories. The seeds may be "born" but the final, great work, you're thinking of I guarantee was the result of great effort.
I understand where you get the idea though, reading the freewrites here. I'm in constant amazement of what some of the writers can do in that amount of time (though some of them do say they take more time or edit before posting). Freewrites are born for sure, that's what they're designed to do - free up the mind to create without getting in the way. It's a way to develop writing skills and creativity so those that have been doing it a long time are really good at it. And I bow down to them in their mastery.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts! And welcome to the world of writing!
Oh don't misunderstand me! I know how much work goes into a finished story. Even I spend much more time "proofreading" my five minute freewrites (OK maybe a edit them a little, sometimes a lot if my ramblings seem to be leading to a point) and can spend a good hour getting some of them published, the best of them. I appreciate the work that goes into a finished piece! But I've had stories I could not have imagined no matter how I tried just pop out under the conditions of a freewrite, and these astonish me.
Thanks for your reply!
I only really realised a lot of writers aren't avid readers through steemit, I was amazed by how well people could write without ever having read much. As a writer, i really enjoy it being someone else who tells me the story, akin to someone who works in a cafe having dinner cooked for them. I get to enjoy the end result without worrying about the steps that got it there, whilst also being able to appreciate the subtle flavours and art behind it.
For me, I love reading and learn so much from so many authors. In a way, reading feels like immersive study at the feet of the masters and I can see how various different series/books helped improve my writing. I don't really notice the techniques when reading, it more sinks into my subconscious and shapes my voice in future stories. In a way, its the same as when you spend time with a group of people with a regional accent, and how you speak shifts slightly. I tend to go through a phase of consuming a lot of books by one author, I enjoy each story on it's own, but I enjoy an authors style and approach to story telling. I sink into their style, until it becomes a familiar voice, from there it begins to shape how I write, shifting my tone slightly. I don't even realise I am doing it until I reflect back. I can see how my story telling has grown throughout my life, remoulded by the authors I had been reading. I suspect this is in some form true for most people who write and read, the tone of the things they read the most shapes the tone of their own writing, I do sometimes feel like I see it in others.
There are occasions when individual books have taught me a lot of techniques. They tend to be more short stories, whereas longer stories I get more caught up in and stop noticing the techniques behind the writing. I really enjoy reading very different styles, and can safely say I wouldn't be the writer I am now if it wasn't for them. I could list books and series, and what I gained from each of them, but that is probably overkill.
One thing I have unarguably gained from reading, is words. So so many words I didn't know before.
Movies, however, are a whole other story. Writing more regularly has drastically changed how I watch movies. I suppose things stand out more when you see then as opposed to picture them, and I can change things mentally when reading without even noticing, whereas watching something, that isn't possible. If a movie is well written, shot, and acted (which my word is a rare thing these days) I just watch it. If a movie is poorly written, I notice it instantly, plot holes, poor dialogue, all that, but I find I learn so much from that. Bad movies have helped me write some stories I have really enjoyed. Plot devices tend to piss me a off a little, characters who have a purpose as opposed to character depth. Might make some enemies now... so... i used to love all the aliens movies. But in recent rewatchings, the second one has gone down for me. Because it is well written, and well everything else, the usage of the little girl as plot propulsion, and the overly emotional set up with Ripley and the daughter she is trying to get back to feels lazy. If i watch an awesome movie, and they take an easy/lazy way out, it jars with me far more. It isn't that I could have done better, half the time it's that i couldn't. I remember rewatching Aliens and thinking, yeah, i would have wanted an emotional element here to get the audience to invest emotional in these characters, and in order to do that and not have to waste screen time on backstory, they use this girl, it's a cheap easy instant emotional connection, that appeals on a base human level. We have our character we are attached to trying to get back to her daughter, lets throw a little girl in, put her in plenty of mortal danger and wham bam thank you mam mums are crying in the cinema as Ripley tries to save this girl who is the symbolic representation of her own daughter. Can you see how annoying I might be to watch movies with now hahaha. (although i still learn a lot from movies, and generally find I enjoy bad movies a whole lot more for it, i suddenly transform from watcher to learner, trying to figure out whats wrong with the dialogue, why i don't care about this character, why does this plot point feel hollow etc etc)
So there we have it. Reading makes me a better writer, I get more from books, and notice more in stories, I can appreciate them for all they are, as the story, and as the work of art, but movies, that's where it gets me.
and you got an essay haha sorry about that! It was a fun thing to consider <3
I don't mind the essay!
I think those people who write well, but say they don't read, read more than they think (or say). Most of them anyway. There are some who just may have the gift and don't need to read to know how to write, but overall it's necessary. I agree with King, "If you don't read, you don't have the tools or the skills to write", well something like that. I'm too lazy to look it up.
But what you say about movies is absolutely right! I'm a huge Harry Potter fan and I've envied how Rowling was able to take something so innocuous in the first book (like the invisibility cloak) and have it transform into something meaningful by the end of the story. BUT she can't write a screenplay. The dynamics of how a story works on the screen isn't the same as a novel. The latest fantastic beasts movie is the proof. She should have written the story and handed it over to a director and writing team that could make it into a coherent movie.
I still liked the movie for the visuals and for what it could have been. But the techniques of telling a good story matter, and are different depending on the media you use to tell it. Then there is also bad writing, lots of it on the big and little screen. But I digress!
Thank you for sharing and entering the contest!