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Week Five: becoming a more critical reader

This week’s prompts are at the very end of this post. Today’s contributing editor is Flood G who tweets as @floodg and displays her collection of photos here on yeah write and on Flickr. If you have any questions or need any clarification on today’s topic or prompts, please feel free to begin a discussion in comments.

If you’re here just to hang out, the yeah write #68 hangout grid will open on Tuesday.

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“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.” – Angela Carter

We’re all critics when consuming media. We know what we like and dislike, even if we may not be able to articulate why.

When you hit the “post” button, you’re essentially sending your baby out into the world to fend for itself.

No matter how much blood, sweat and tears you pour into your writing, you’re at the mercy of your audience’s frame of reference and life experience. Sometimes, writers can keep too much of the process inside their heads when they should more seriously consider the reader’s perspective. The final product is for the reader, after all.

This week, we’ll discuss the three main types of readers. Here’s brief run-down of each:

The Leisure Reader

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good. – Samuel Johnson

Reading, even for pleasure, requires some time and effort. Readers want value for that investment and to come away with an engaging reflection of some aspect of the human condition.

Readers don’t want to notice that you spent an hour searching for another way to say the word “said.” Reading for enjoyment means the focus has to be on the story as a whole rather than its parts. Impressive vocabulary or pretentious phrasing shouldn’t overwhelm the plot or the audience. The writing should be inviting and the story should flow earnestly. Less sizzle, more steak. Give the people something to chew on long after they’ve closed the window.

Join Deborah from ManhattaMamma on Thursday for a discussion about reading  for pleasure.

The Writer

Writers read for downtime, sure, but also for inspiration. They look for most things readers look for, but might be more attuned to finer word craft and phrasing without being obvious, clever use of dialogue, and proper wrap-up of the plot. Advice for writers to read, often and anything, is so overused, it’s often ignored. Part of writer’s block comes from forgetting to read. When lost in the lonely wilderness of how and what to write, it can feel as though nothing has ever been written before. Being inspired by new ways to use language or resurrecting old ways can be enough to get fingers flying across the keyboard.

“If you are going to learn from other writers, don’t only read the great ones, because if you do that you’ll get so filled with despair and the fear that you’ll never be able to do anywhere near as well as they did that you’ll stop writing. I recommend that you read a lot of bad stuff, too. It’s very encouraging. “Hey, I can do so much better than this.” Read the greatest stuff but read the stuff that isn’t so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging.” (Edward Albee, quoted by Jon Winokur in Advice to Writers, 1999)

Tomorrow, Erica M. will dive deeper into how writers read.

The Reviewer

With the exception of blog challenges, you might not care about critics’ or reviewers’ opinion of your writing. However,  if you hope to see your work in an online magazine,  picked up by HuffPost, or published by print media , you want to write with critics in mind. More than that, you want  ‘net cred for being a solid writer because the web is full of amateur critics who think  the world is dying for their opinion.

Reviews begin by summarizing the main idea of a story, so you better have one! I had a short stint as Canadian Crime Fiction Critic and nothing sent me to drink faster than trying to write a review for a novel with no plot. Save a critic’s liver by being able to explain what your story is about in one or two sentences.  This rule stands, no matter if you’re writing a personal narrative or fictional story. Passages are quoted, and this is where your word gems get a spotlight. The review also examines the author’s motivation the writing and why people should or shouldn’t read it.

Who wouldn’t want to read you, though? You’re awesome.

Join Kristin W. on Wednesday for more about the function of critics and how they read your work.

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Voting on the grid is back

Those of you who’ve been faithfully participating in the summer writer’s series will be way ahead of those submitting blindly to the challenge grid once it opens during yeah write #71. Woo-hoo.

Each week, fewer and fewer submissions are getting published to the grid on the first attempt. Take your time writing, make clear the point of your story/personal essay/fiction/creative non-fiction—avoid hiding it behind cloudy innuendo, then ease into a relevant conclusion without just tacking one on. There’s no such thing as rushing to the grid anymore. You have time to perfect before submitting. Raise your hand in comments if you’ve read this.

We’re back on the challenge grid schedule of the grid opening on Tuesday, closing on Wednesday at 9 pm (or at 50 blogs, whichever happens first) and the voting starting immediately and ending at 9 pm US eastern time. The winners’ post will publish on Friday.

yeah write #68 badges

[image width=”225″ height=”225″ align=”left” lightbox=”true” caption=”You can grab this one. Click to embiggen. Then right-click and select save this image.” title=””]https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/yw_wwb_bww.png [/image]

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  • Click in the upper right corner of this page on the plus symbol and the hidden widget containing the button badge codes will drop
  • Copy the code of your favorite badge, then paste that code into the HTML view of the post you’re planning to submit to the grid
  • If you’re having problems accessing those, feel free to grab the one in this post. Your backlink will be yeahwrite.me/68-open-summer or yeahwrite.me/68-open-hangout

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all your story are belong to you

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  • Read the summer FAQ page for other details: the grid is being moderated and if you’re missing an element outlined in the summer FAQ, your post will not be published on the grid
  • Let the prompt lead you, but do not include the prompt in any way in your post, not at the beginning as an intro, not at the end as a footnote. If you reference the prompt in your post, your post will not be published on the grid
  • Remember: no more than 500 words. If your post exceeds 500 words, yup, you guessed it—no publish for you
  • If the prompt takes you from thunderstorms to watching TV at your grandma’s house to how much you love Pat Sajak to the oldest person you’ve ever kissed, we want that story the furthest away in your imagination from the original prompt. Let your imagination loose
  • Keep your writing style! Do you tell stories with humor? Prose? Verse? Photos? Illustrations? Keep doing that. We’ll read Shakespearean drama on our own time
  • Cut away at everything unnecessary to your story
  • Don’t forget to badge your post
  • The grid now opens on Tuesdays

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[divider_header_h3] This week’s prompts [courtesy of Tom Slatin] [/divider_header_h3]

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  • Well, who says you can’t judge a book by its cover?
  • Describe a time you felt alone.
  • List your bad habits and/or addictions and how you have tried to rid yourself of them.

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Yeah write #68 summer writer’s series grid opens Tuesday…

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