Esperando por mi gente

elumish

People talk a lot about how reading is necessary for writing, but when you really want to improve your writing, it’s important to go beyond just simple reading. Here are some things to do when reading:

Note how they begin and end the story. There are a ton of rather contradictory pieces of advice about starting stories, so see how they do it in the stories you enjoy. Don’t only look at the most popular stories, but look at your more obscure favorites.

See what strikes you. Is it fast or complicated scenes with a lot of emotions? Is it stark lines? Pithy dialogue? What do you remember the next day?

Pay attention to different styles. It’s not just whether they use past or present tense, first or third person. It’s whether the writing is more neutral or deeper inside character’s heads. Do they use italics? Parentheses? Other interesting stylistic choices? Take the ones you like and try them out in your own writing. See what works and what doesn’t.

Keep track of how they deal with other characters. Do we see a lot of secondary character each for very brief periods of time or are there a couple that show up a lot? How much information do we get about secondary characters? Do they have their own plots or do their plots revolve entirely around the main characters?

Count how many plots there are. Is there just one main plot or are there multiple subplots? Are the storylines mostly plot-based or character-based?

Pay attention to what you don’t like. If you don’t like what’s going on in a book or even just a scene, note what it is. Does the dialogue feel awkward? Are the characters inconsistent? Does the plot feel too convenient or cobbled together? Does the wording just feel off? See if you can spot those issues in your own writing, especially when reading a completed draft or beginning a later draft.

grittygambit

(Great advice! I wanted to tack on other things I look for when reading)

Pay attention to how they introduce characters. Very rarely will it be all at once, and I guarantee the author went over the intro of each major character again and again while editing, so I always like paying extra close attention! Did the intro endear you to the character? Make you dislike them? How did the author impart that emotion?

Note instances of worldbuilding/info dumps, especially parts that don’t seem like worldbuilding/info dumps. Maybe the character mentions something offhand about a location you’ll see five chapters later. Maybe the internal dialogue makes a comparison to the character’s childhood. Was the information effective or did it leave you wanting more? Make note of anything that made you go, “ooh, neat!”

After you finish the story, try to find foreshadowing that you missed the first time through! It can be as simple as skimming and looking for phrases you know are important after finishing the story. Most authors add foreshadowing in the editing stage, so I tend to ponder how the story would read before they added it. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the story seems more magical for it and it’s just nice to appreciate.

What plot structures could the story fit into? We all know about the three arc stories, hero’s journey, etc. Sometimes stories can fit into more than one category. During the read and after, keep it in the back of your mind. Can you predict where the climax of the story will hit? Is it man v man or man v nature? Does the predictability (or lack thereof) add to or take away from the story?

songs-of-the-east

Scenes from the 2016 World Nomad Games hosted in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan. The World Nomad Games brings athletes from various countries, primarily from the Central Asian region and Russia, to participate in sports native to the Eurasian Steppe. The Eurasian Steppe was home to various nomadic peoples particularly the Iranic-speaking Scythians and Sarmatians, who were a source of fear for the ancient Greeks due to their warriorlike nature and great horse-riding skills; including their mastery of horseback archery. Both groups are believed to have originated in the Eurasian Steppes, but their settlements ranged from China to Poland, and because of this they greatly impacted the genetic pool and cultures of a number of different groups in Eastern Europe and Central Asia such as the people of the Caucasus, Slavs, Turkic people, and other modern Iranic people. The Sarmatians in particular were famed by Greek historians for their female warriors and rulers that inspired the stories of the Amazons.

derinthemadscientist

You’re telling em we’ve been watching people swim back and forth across a pool in the olympics when these guys have foot archery and horseriding on fire?

katnissthedemigod

They’re doing fucking GYMNASTICS on a horse, holy shit…

normal-horoscopes

The horseback gymnastics doesn’t even make the top 5 in terms of hardcore shit that happens at the nomad games. Seriously check this shit out:

Salburun - A sport combining falconry, mounted archery, and taigan dog assisted hunting.

Oodyarsh - Horseback wrestling, both armed and unarmed

Er Enish - a high speed mounted sport similar to jousting, but unarmed and unarmored

Buzkashi - a mounted sport similar to polo where instead of a ball, the game uses a goat carcas stuffed with sawdust. In some variations the players also carry whips.

Mas Wrestling - A form of wrestling in which two competitors attempt to wrest a spear from the others hands.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Weird memories