Change The World With Words

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.

-         Stephen King

As writers, we are constantly given the advice to read, read, read – and analyze what we read, but is there a trick to getting the most out of what we read? Is there a knack to reading as a writer? I don’t pretend to have all the answers (ever) but here are a few techniques that work for me.

Read it twice

It’s hard to analyze something and enjoy the story at the same time. When you read a book you love, consider reading it again (preferably straight away) to analyze the writing rather than enjoy the story. The first time I did this was with an Anne Tyler book. I read the last line and immediately turned back to the beginning. If I hadn’t done that I might never have noticed that the first line of the book was the exact same sentence as the last line: “I am a man you can trust.” I knew at that point that the second reading was going to be instructive to me as a writer.

Even if you don’t have time to re-read a book, try it with a short story, essay or article. You may be surprised.

Look for themes

In Reading Like A Writer, Francine Prose writes about how annoying it was when a high school teacher instructed her class to write a paper about the theme of blindness in King Lear and Oedipus Rex. They had to go through and mark every reference to anything connected with blindness (eyes, light, darkness, vision). As Prose puts it:

“Without this tedious time-consuming exercise, all of us know that blindness played a starring role in both dramas.”

It was only as they worked through the exercise that the students became aware that, long before blindness made its dramatic entrance as part of the plots, the authors were using carefully themed language. They were asking:

“… what it meant to be clear-sighted or obtuse, shortsighted or prescient, to heed the signs and warnings , to see or deny what was right in front of one’s eyes.”

In any piece of writing, it’s easy to miss the themes when you’re reading for story, but in any good piece of writing they are there, improving the story for the reader, somewhere deep in his subconscious.

Read close

Read every word. Every sentence. Every line of dialogue. In a good piece of writing, you will actually be able to speculate as to why a certain word was used. You can take a guess at the more common, clichéd word or sentence it might have started out as and why it maybe got changed in the re-write. (Yes , I’m a geek. Am I really the only one?)

This works with non-fiction, as well as fiction. Good journalists and essayists choose every word just as carefully as good novelists.

Get inside an author’s mind

Some make it very easy for you.

John Steinbeck’s Working Days is the journal that he wrote alongside The Grapes of Wrath.

He used it to set his daily writing goals and to talk himself about character development and plot movement. Reading the journal and the novel gives you a real idea of how the latter came together.

Terry Marshall is a modern day author helping readers (and potential writers) out in a similar way. His website has a Tips For Writers section, where he shares the process of writing a novel. Terry invites you to collaborate with him, and:

“use Soda Springs: Sex, Love, and Civil Rights as an on-line writer’s boot camp.”

He promises to

“… show you the warts and dirty little secrets that only a novel’s author knows .”

It’s a generous offer. I plan on taking him up on it.

Read with a note book

List interesting words and phrases. Note how the author uses a plot device or a character development technique. Not so you can copy him, but so you can start to understand how the writer’s mind works. So you can get a feel for writing techniques and beautiful language. So you notice that a passage that was easy to read was probably very hard to write.

Always read the blurb

A book’s blurb sums up the plot, minus any spoilers. It highlights why you should read this book, and what it’s really about. Writing a blurb for your own work in progress can be a fantastic way to focus on the important story elements and keep you on track with your writing. I’m not much of a plotter but I wrote a blurb for my latest work in progress before I started, and it’s functioning as its own little plot outline.

Do you have any reading tips for writers? Please share in the comments.

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There are some writing books I try to re-read on a regular basis, not because my poor overloaded brain forgets what’s in them (although it does), but because at each stage of my writing career, I get something subtly different out of them.

In short, as I get more writing experience, I rack up examples that help me relate to the advice of more experienced writers.

The first time I read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, I was a beginner writer who read chapter titles such as “Small assignments”, “Shitty first drafts”, and False starts” with a mixture of bewilderment and disconnection. I wanted to write a (critically acclaimed) book, not a “small assignment”. I saw my first drafts as finished products (they were in fact, spectacularly shitty). The idea of a “false start” didn’t make sense to me. I was still in that delusional/destructive “I’ve started so I’ll finish” mindset.

Now I’ve written countless articles, short stories and blog posts, I understand the value of building skills, confidence and funds through the “small assignment”.

Now I’ve learned detachment and editing skills I recognise my shitty first drafts as raw material to be shaped into a not-so-shitty second draft and ultimately a polished, professional and publishable fifth or sixth draft.

Now I’ve read Andre Kukla’s advice on the curse of persistence for the sake of persistence, in Mental Traps, I no long feel an obsessive need to finish everything I start. I recognise that a false start (or two) can be just what we need to write our way through to the true start that is actually going to be the perfect introduction to a particular piece of writing.

Probably the most valuable message in this book for me right now, is the one contained in the title. Ms Lamott refers to how her father, himself a successful writer, advised her young brother to tackle a school project on birds that he had delayed until he was fast approaching the deadline for submission (sound familiar?) When it comes down to it,  there’s only one way to write a school project on birds – bird by bird.

And there’s really only one way to write anything. Word by word. Sentence by sentence. Paragraph by paragraph.

The more writing projects I take on (and I’m juggling a few right now), the more important it becomes to just sit down and write, one word at a time, one project at a time, finishing one (shitty) first draft before moving on to the next.

For me, this was a good week to re-read Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Wherever you are in your writing career (and life) you might want to consider it too.

To order Bird by Bird, click here.

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If you have a favorite writing related book that you love to re-read, please feel free to mention it in the comments section.

I often review books about writing, but today I’m encouraging you to take a break from changing the world with your writing. Instead, get some fresh world-changing ideas from this list of books aimed at helping you get inspired, take action and make a difference.

Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher – My personal favorite book about writing, and one every writer who wants to change the world should read.

Stirring up Justice: Writing and Reading to Change the World by Jessica Singer – Fascinating for writers, readers and world changers. Useful for teachers, parents, mentors, and anyone who wants to engage young people in the world around them and create a desire to change it for the better.

The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them by the Freedom Writers – Studying Anne Frank and others who spoke out against injustice and racism inspired these at-risk high school students (from a range of unbelievably challenging backgrounds and situations) to write their own diaries and become best selling authors. The authors’ proceeds from this book are donated to The Tolerance Education Foundation, an organization set up to pay for the Freedom Writers’ college tuition.

Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary Things by Robert E Quinn – Discusses eight “seed thoughts” that can change the world, drawing on philosophies from a range of world changers as diverse as Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., and  Gandhi.

365 Ways To Change the World: How to Make a Difference – One Day at a Time by Michael Norton – an information-crammed, idea-a-day practical guide to keep you world-changing all year round, from the founder of the UK-based Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action.

Change the World for Ten Bucks: small actions x lots of people = big change by We Are What We Do – A collaborative effort by We Are What We Do: “a global social change movement that aims to inspire people to use simple everyday actions to make a difference to problems which affect us all – for example: climate change, poverty, social exclusion, crime, and inequality.”

Ten Ways to Change The World in Your Twenties by Libuse Binder – If you’re no longer in your twenties, or haven’t even got there yet, don’t let the title put you off. Most of these simple, innovative ‘greening the world’  ideas will work for any age group. If you are in your twenties, there will never be a better time to read it.

How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas by David Bornstein – If you are, or ever intend to be, an entrepreneur and philantropist, read this book now and harness the power of your ideas. Read about the ”four practices of innovative organizations” and “six qualities of successful social entrepreneurs.” Learn, enjoy, and put into practice.

Teaching To Change The World by Jeannie Oakes & Martin Lipton - Essential reading for teachers and teachers-to-be, highly recommended for anyone who works with, mentors and otherwise influences the next generation.

31 Ways to Change the World by We Are What We Do – by children, for children, this book is full of suggestions from world-changing  kids, and is aimed at the 8-12 age group, (but has been enjoyed by the odd 40 year old freelance writer/blogger – allegedly). Give the gift of change to the next child in your life you have to buy for.

Spread the word. Share this post. And if you have more recommendations, feel free to mention them in the comments section.

If you have your doubts about whether writing can really change the world, think about what has shaped your own life. Your ideas, your beliefs, your  values, your hopes and dreams, aspirations and ambitions, your fears and deepest prejudices. Chances are, some of what you have read (and watched – screenwriters are probably some of the most powerful writers out there) has affected how you feel and therefore how you act. If this is the case, then what you write has the power to affect how others feel and act.

For my own part, I’m drawn to literature (and movies) about certain events and themes: slavery (I’m currently reading The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill), the discrimination of pre civil rights America  (I’ve recently re-read To Kill a Mockingbird and  The Color Purple), and the Holocaust ( Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most frequently re-read books on my bookshelf).  I’m both fascinated and deeply distressed by these events. I get indescribably angry about them, and I am not easily angered – ask anyone. Even someone who has had to wait at customs with me for 3 hours or stay married to me for 17 years.

I am neither Black nor Jewish. I am a White, Anglo Saxon, recovering Catholic, and I know people have sometimes wondered why I feel so strongly about racial discrimination and prejudice, and they have a point.  I grew up in the whiter than white suburbs of a big city. I later spent a couple of years at college in that big city in a very racially mixed school, where my closest friend was Black, and I began to experience, if not first hand,  then at least close up, how ugly racial discrimination can be. But even that didn’t influence my sense of justice, as much as the literature I was exposed to.

I thank the British high school curriculum for including To Kill a Mockingbird as required reading, and my first sociology teacher who made his students read The Color Purple, and watch the movie. I thank (but unfortunately forget) whoever inspired me to read Anne Frank’s diary for the first time. I thank Steven Spielburg for making movies like Schindlers List and Amistad and The Color Purple, and of course the screenplay writers, Steven Zaillian, David Franzoni,  and Menno Meyjes and the writers of the original books, Thomas Keneally and Alice Walker.

Everything I have read is a part of me. It shapes how I think and how I feel. Yet more evidence (albeit anecdotal) that words than change the world. We can’t all write a Book of Negroes or a To Kill a Mockingbird,  but we can all write something that will influence people’s attitudes. What will you write today?