"I'm something's broke, I wanna put a little fixin' on it..." - Pearl Jam, The Fixer
So we all know that reading good books is a great way to learn how to write, yeah? I've talked before about how reading George Martin's Game of Thrones gave me the last piece I needed to tell my story the way I wanted to (and when Soulwoven comes out, I bet it'll be fairly easy to see just what that was). Beyond that, it's common knowledge that the monkey-see monkey-do (or rather, monkey-approximate-in-a-way-that-works-for-you) approach to writing works extremely well.
But the monkey-see-monkey-stay-the-hell-away-from approach works very well too.
I've had the opportunity over the past week or so to read a book that, well, isn't as well-written as some others I've read. Part of the learning experience for me has been in figuring out why it was published and popular anyway (about 100 pages in I hit upon it--a marvelous back-to-back plot twist/complication gambit that tossed out the cliches and replaced them with deeper, darker, more likable character traits). The other part has been in recognizing places where the writing really just fails. Unnecessary sentences, explanations of what characters are thinking that aren't needed, etc. etc. And lo and behold, when I go back to my own writing I find the same thing sticking out like sore thumbs all over the place.
Believe it or not, this is a good thing. These are easy edits to make. And since I'm already bumping up perilously close to the 110-125,000 word limit (it's a soft limit, but a limit nonetheless) for debut fantasy, every sentence I can cut out feels like a gift these days.
So go read some bad books. I mean really, find the worst book you can find and read it with an editorial eye. Chances are, when you go back to your own writing you'll find things that need to go. And that's a good thing.
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