Reading for Writers

Ari Meermans · May 17, 2017

I was a solitary child, living my life in my own head and between the covers of books. I was reading on my own—and adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing—before I started school at age five. (I always blessed my mom for this.) Reading, though, is my first love.

There's a new post up on the Absolute Write Blog "Reading for Writers," and I recommend reading it. It explains so much more eloquently than I ever could why reading widely and deeply is fundamental to honing your craft and to fulfilling your potential as a writer.

"Close reading, or for the French, explication de texte, means reading carefully, analytically and thoughtfully. It is the antithesis of speed reading.Speed reading is about consuming."

There is nothing wrong with reading purely for pleasure, for entertainment, but once you've developed the habit of reading closely, you'll almost effortlessly absorb new and exciting turns of phrases and more elegant ways of wielding your most essential tool: language.

Lakey · May 20, 2017

I liked this piece and I like this kind of reading - it comes naturally to me, and always has. Since I've started trying to learn about writing fiction my natural tendency toward analytic reading has come in handy. I have learned so, so much just by reading and thinking (and talking) about what I read.

I have a good friend who is bright person, more widely read than I am (along some axes, anyway), and a writer herself. She claims to be impressed by the analytical way I think about what I read. She claims she does not do it herself, that she reads superficially and can tell you that she likes something or not but cannot tell you why. I talk about metaphors and she claims to have not noticed them. I am skeptical that there isn't some analysis going on, in at least some level of her brain. I read a short story she wrote, about a woman whose husband is trapped in a mine shaft for several days after a mining accident. I told her I admired the way the story juxtaposed the real, physical confinement of the miner with the metaphorical confinement of the woman in her airless and unhappy marriage to him. She said, "oh, wow, I didn't even think of that." I mean, how is that possible? Could you even write that story if something in your brain wasn't working on that metaphor? What's the story about, if it's not about that?

Anna Iguana · May 20, 2017

Hi, Lakey, I enjoyed Lisa's blog post, too.

Lakey said:
I have a good friend who [...] claims to be impressed by the analytical way I think about what I read. She claims she does not do it herself, that she reads superficially and can tell you that she likes something or not but cannot tell you why. I talk about metaphors and she claims to have not noticed them. I am skeptical that there isn't some analysis going on, in at least some level of her brain. I read a short story she wrote, about a woman whose husband is trapped in a mine shaft for several days after a mining accident. I told her I admired the way the story juxtaposed the real, physical confinement of the miner with the metaphorical confinement of the woman in her airless and unhappy marriage to him. She said, "oh, wow, I didn't even think of that." I mean, how is that possible? Could you even write that story if something in your brain wasn't working on that metaphor? [...]

I have three thoughts. My first reaction is: if your friend doesn't experience herself as analyzing stories the same way you do, believe her. She is the expert in her own life, including her internal experiences, and presumably she's someone you trust. You can't see inside her mind, so accept her descriptions of her own thoughts. Why would you do anything else?

My second reaction is: yes, our brains process information at conscious and subconscious levels, in semantic and non-semantic processes. Maybe, as she wrote the story about the mine, her subconsciousness worked with metaphor, even if her conscious mind didn't. That seems perfectly possible.

My third reaction is: the story you described, in its literal text, might simply be about a woman surviving while her husband is trapped in a mine. Recently, in another thread, somebody argued that plot isn't story, because story is (or requires) subtext. I think that's wrong. If you read a young child a story (like your friend's mine story) they might not infer the subtext that most adult readers glean, because the subtext is, literally, not there.

Readers imbue subtext into texts. We generate the subtext from our own experiences, and the only reason we slip into thinking that subtext is real, and fixed in a text, is because we usually share so much experience.

Lakey · May 20, 2017

Anna Iguana said:
I have three thoughts. My first reaction is: if your friend doesn't experience herself as analyzing stories the same way you do, believe her. She is the expert in her own life, including her internal experiences, and presumably she's someone you trust. You can't see inside her mind, so accept her descriptions of her own thoughts. Why would you do anything else?

Well, obviously, she understands her own experiences better than I do. I suppose the way I phrased it here wasn't entirely clear. I don't think my friend's recounting of her experience is a lie. But I did (and do) react to that recounting with surprise, ad that surprise was what I was trying to express here. It's at odds with what I know of her from the things she says. She has more insight than she gives herself credit for. And the insight comes from somewhere, even if it does not come from a conscious process of analysis. As you say:

My second reaction is: yes, our brains process information at conscious and subconscious levels, in semantic and non-semantic processes. Maybe, as she wrote the story about the mine, her subconsciousness worked with metaphor, even if her conscious mind didn't. That seems perfectly possible.

Right. That's exactly what I mean with the question, "Could you even write that story if something in your brain wasn't working on that metaphor?"

My third reaction is: the story you described, in its literal text, might simply be about a woman surviving while her husband is trapped in a mine. Recently, in another thread, somebody argued that plot isn't story, because story is (or requires) subtext. I think that's wrong. If you read a young child a story (like your friend's mine story) they might not infer the subtext that most adult readers glean, because the subtext is, literally, not there.

With respect, you didn't read the story. It's not "just about a woman surviving" etc. It is about a woman who feels trapped in an airless, stifling marriage from which she cannot escape without massive outside intervention. All of those details about her marriage unfold bit by bit as the story of the trapped miners unfolds, leading bit by bit to their rescue by massive outside intervention. The woman's last thoughts in the story are those of a world closing in on her; she has just begun to allow herself to think about being rescued by her husband's death, when she learns that he is saved.

I think it's truly remarkable, even astonishing, that my friend could have written a story like this without realizing that's what she did. Don't you? Again, being surprised and astonished is not the same as saying my friend is a liar or disbelieving her experience. But she constructed a pretty powerful metaphor without realizing she did it. That's pretty cool.

Readers imbue subtext into texts. We generate the subtext from our own experiences, and the only reason we slip into thinking that subtext is real, and fixed in a text, is because we usually share so much experience.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. What do you mean by "real;" what do you mean by saying a subtext is real or not real? Do you mean intentional? What do you mean by fixed? What do you mean by "share so much experience" - who is the "we" here, writers and their readers, or different readers finding different meanings in the same text, or what?

I think you and I would agree that meaning is found in the interaction between a text and a reader. But I would add, and maybe you would not agree, that for a text complex enough to allow multiple readings, any reading that is supported by the text is as real and as valid as any other reading. If the reading is supported by the text, then the meaning is in the text - whether the author consciously intended to put it there, or not.

Anna Iguana · May 21, 2017

Lakey said:
But I would add, and maybe you would not agree, that for a text complex enough to allow multiple readings, any reading that is supported by the text is as real and as valid as any other reading. If the reading is supported by the text, then the meaning is in the text - whether the author consciously intended to put it there, or not.

I agree that texts can support meanings that their authors never consciously intended, but I probably disagree that those meanings arise mainly from the text. I think meaning comes from readers, more than texts, because some texts are plausibly subject to interpretations that contradict each other. For example, opinions split about whether Fight Club is a celebration or a critique of violent masculinity. For example, opinions split about whether Nietzsche's writings support or oppose fascism.

I also think meaning comes from readers, more than texts, because, as texts age, some texts come to be seen as supporting phenomena that didn't even exist when the texts were written. As a playful example, in the 1990s, I had a classmate who read The Handmaid's Tale and argued that the "Marthas" were usefully understood as Martha Stewart figures. The "Marthas" are more often read as Biblical allusions, but this reader had no familiarity with the Bible, and she made a decent case. (To me, familiarity with the Bible is an example of a crucial "shared experience" that readers bring to texts, to infer/imbue subtexts.)

As a more serious example, some US judges are "textual originalists" who believe that the Constitution addresses nothing that didn't exist when it was written, but other judges believe that legal texts are "living documents" that support readings their authors could not have foreseen. The Fourth Amendment establishes "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects." Does that foreclose random cell phone searches? I think that meaning is available, but I don't think it's mostly in the text. I think it comes mostly from how we read the words in our shared, modern context. Thank you for the thoughtful discussion.

M Louise · May 21, 2017

Lisa's post was just what I needed to read on a wintry damp Monday morning. One reason I reread so much is that the first time through I'm mostly reading to find out what happens. The important thing is what Susan Wittig Albert is quoted as saying: “There’s a trick, though. You do need to read to ‘see how they do it’—something like taking the watch apart to see how it ticks, rather than using it to tell time.”

Lakey · May 22, 2017

Anna Iguana said:
As a more serious example, some US judges are "textual originalists" who believe that the Constitution addresses nothing that didn't exist when it was written, but other judges believe that legal texts are "living documents" that support readings their authors could not have foreseen. The Fourth Amendment establishes "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects." Does that foreclose random cell phone searches? I think that meaning is available, but I don't think it's mostly in the text. I think it comes mostly from how we read the words in our shared, modern context. Thank you for the thoughtful discussion.

I've enjoyed it too, thanks. I don't know why I feel such an urge to dig in and defend my strongly stated view that any supported reading exists in the text; you have convinced me that it's overstated. I stand by the idea that any supported reading is as "real" or as valid as any other, but I've also acknowledged that meaning happens in the interaction between text and reader, with the associations the reader brings to it. Maybe to say that those meanings exist in the text is like what Michaelangelo said about sculptures existing in the stone he carved; he only had to liberate them by cutting away the parts that weren't sculpture.

As to the Constitution - I was taught in law school that the Constitution is a vessel into which content must be poured; it was deliberately written to be a living document, to have meaning added to it - or, in other words, that originalists are flat wrong and missing the entire point. That would make it the most extreme example on record of the phenomenon of meaning occurring in the interaction between text and reader.

I'm still not sure that rich texts happen by accident - but I don't think you've argued that, either.

This is me on my first cup of coffee - loopy and incoherent.

_lvbl · Jun 29, 2017

This is why when I am at my most creatively dry, picking up a book, even if I've read it a hundred times before, imbues me with new inspiration and excitement for the hard work of writing!

AnthonyDavid11 · Jul 7, 2017

Ari Meermans said:
I was a solitary child, living my life in my own head and between the covers of books. I was reading on my own—and adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing—before I started school at age five. (I always blessed my mom for this.) Reading, though, is my first love.

There's a new post up on the Absolute Write Blog "Reading for Writers," and I recommend reading it. It explains so much more eloquently than I ever could why reading widely and deeply is fundamental to honing your craft and to fulfilling your potential as a writer.

"Close reading, or for the French, explication de texte, means reading carefully, analytically and thoughtfully. It is the antithesis of speed reading.Speed reading is about consuming."

There is nothing wrong with reading purely for pleasure, for entertainment, but once you've developed the habit of reading closely, you'll almost effortlessly absorb new and exciting turns of phrases and more elegant ways of wielding your most essential tool: language.

This is great advice. I often like to analyze others' writing but I'm not always sure what I'm looking for. However, the whole reading journal thing sounds great. Going to give it a try...

Reading for Writers

Ari Meermans

MacAllister's Official Minion & Greeter

Lakey

professional dilettante

Anna Iguana

reading all the things

Lakey

professional dilettante

Anna Iguana

reading all the things

M Louise

Lakey

professional dilettante

_lvbl

AnthonyDavid11