If you want to write, read. Read voraciously and widely. Read good books and ‘bad’ (eye of the beholder and all that) books. The techniques learned from reading are priceless. I think reading is like play for children, you’re having so much fun doing it you don’t realize you’re learning. Every genre and every author can teach you something. Below is a mix of my recent reads that all gave me an ah-ha moment.
Found by Erin Kinsley(crime thriller) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/found-erin-kinsley/1136013265?ean=9781472260765. This novel was written in two different POV types, omniscient and third person and it was very well done. I think what made it a great, seamless read was that the POV type changed with the chapter, not within the chapter. So for all of you who thought (like myself) you had to pick one type of POV and stick to it for the whole book, give this a read. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
A Bloom of Bones by Allen Morris Jones(literary) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-bloom-of-bones-allen-morris-jones/1123623517?ean=9781632460455. As authors and readers we are beat over the head with story structure: inciting incident, rising action, crisis, climax and resolution. We get it. However, sometimes structure is so stressed that a book feels forced to me. It’s almost like there’s a big red sign in the middle of the page that reads ‘inciting incident here’. The structure of this book flows like a watercolor painting. You don’t know when peach turns to blue turns to brown, it just happens. It left me feeling like I was carried through the story, not directed. Structure is needed, but it doesn’t have to be step by step instructions. I like the thought of that.
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero(horror) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/meddling-kids-edgar-cantero/1125052235?ean=9781101974445. In this book there is a lot of conversation with three or more people and the author handles it in a way I’ve never seen before. Instead of the normal he said/she said, or worse – writing out the conversation and hoping your reader can follow along, he sets it up like a script. The speakers name is followed by a colon and then the dialogue. The character’s name now becomes the tag and action tags are handled by using parentheses and italics. You can read pages of dialogue without being bogged down with tags and other extraneous guide posts. It’s a brilliant little trick I plan to use soon.
Happy Reading!