When I read lately, I've been looking at writing techniques that work and those techniques that don't. When I read for leisure, I savor the words and imagine the scenes vividly. Although I can devour a book in a night, I know that I'm a slower reader when it comes to reading for fun. Looking at technique as I read, is a relatively new thing for me to do. It's different than critically analyzing literature for an English class. The process is more about mechanics.
One book I read, didn't adequately describe its scenes. In one scene, a man gets splashed by a car that was driving by and went through a puddle. Later in the narrative, we find that the man was out for a jog when the car sprayed him. It changed the picture I had of a man casually walking in jeans and a t-shirt to a man running in short Tom Sellek shorts. Big difference! I found myself re-reading paragraphs in order to get a complete picture of the action.
One of my problems in writing is that I don't elaborate enough. The result is that I am careful about how I elaborate. When I read, if the writer is lamenting over the same thing, or spends a lot of time describing something; I check out. I don't want the reader to check out when he/she reads my novel. I want every word to count.
Another author that I recently read combated this problem by including a lot of action. The book must have had twenty different sub-plots. I felt like I needed to keep a flow chart of all the different characters and happenings. There were times when I would lose track of who's who and what's what.
This exercise has been helping me figure out how to address some of my own writing issues. It's helping me balance what to say and what not to say. It's helping me find tactics on how to deliver the message.
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