We all know reading is a big part of being a good writer. (If this is news to you, no big deal, just don’t tell anyone.)

But picking up any old book isn’t necessarily going to make you a BETTER writer.

And if you are like most aspiring writers, you probably have less time to devote to reading than you have to writing–which is hardly any at all. So when you do get the chance to pick up a book, make sure you are getting the most out of it.

Here are five tips to help you read in a way that will absolutely help improve your writing.

1. Read Books That Are Plentiful In the Areas You Lack

If you struggle to put a lot of description into your prose, then choose to read authors that paint magical, brain-bursting pictures with theirs. Try to find writers that are so damn descriptive that you might actually find the level of detail overwhelming.

Or maybe you struggle with flow or movement between scenes. Find an author that really excels at writing superbly smooth plots and see if you can identify the tricks they use to move the action along or cut from one part to the next.

Regardless of where you find your writing lacking, there is someone out there who is an expert in that department. Find them. READ them. The more you do, the less you will struggle with that particular hang up.

Areas you may need to work on and some authors who can teach you a thing or two:

• Description and detail – Willian Faulkner, Dan Brown, Claire Vaye Watkins, Jhumpa Lahiri
• Action and pacing – James Rollins, Matthew Reilley, Any McDermott, John Maxim
• Weaving complicated plots – Audrey Niffenegger, James Joyce, J.R.R. Tolkien, Geoffrey Chaucer
• Smooth and effortless prose – Emily St. John Mandel, Neil Gaiman, James Baldwin, Barbara Kingsolver
• Character development – Stephen King, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, Ruth Rendell

2. Write Down What Wows You

If you read a phrase, sentence, or whole scene that grabs you, don’t just highlight it or underline it–WRITE it down.

Give your hands some practice creating really amazing prose, even if it is not your own work.

When you write down sentences that flow really well or paint vivid pictures, you aren’t just more likely to remember them, you are more likely to emulate them.

Keep a notebook next to you while you read and jot down anything that grabs you. It may be just a word or quick description, or it may be an entire page. The more the better.

3. Focus on Punctuation and Formatting

This is especially valuable for those that want to self publish, but is a great practice for writers of all kinds.

So many new writers struggle immensely with proper punctuation. Semicolons, regular colons, dashes, and definitely anything to do with dialogue.

How to properly punctuate quotations is something you can pick up within the first few pages of most books. But if you aren’t present while you are reading–if you don’t pay attention to these minute details–you won’t learn how to use them properly.

Formatting is even easier to pick up on. If you don’t know how to indent the beginning of a chapter (trick question, you don’t!), then you haven’t been paying attention when you read.

These details seem minor when you are first drafting a story, but it is much easier to do them right the first time than to have to go back and correct them on top of all the other revisions you have to do.

4. Fill In the Blanks

One great exercise for learning how to emulate the style and craft of your favorite authors is to write the scenes they skip.

Just about all stories gloss over scenes or cut from one event to the next without describing everything that happened in between.

Next time you notice a time jump like this in one of the books you are reading, take a moment to try your hand at filling in the blanks.

Write your own scene to connect the two points of action. And try to do it in a way that flows well with the words that are already on the page.

Taking the style and tone of the book you are reading and applying it to a piece of fiction that you made up is great practice. But it is much easier to do this within the confines of two scenes that already exist.

5. Find Your Literary Palate Cleanser

Have you ever engaged in a conversation with someone who had a different accent only to start emulating their speech patterns yourself?

This strange tendency is officially known as “the chameleon effect” and is an ingrained behavior in many highly social species.

By mimicking the mood, tone, and vocal mannerisms of those around, creatures that live in social groups are less likely to be noticed and singled out.

But this tendency goes beyond verbal speech. We also mimic with our body language and with our thoughts.

You can use this strange phenomenon to improve your writing by being mindful of what you absorb right before sitting down to type (or scribble).

If you try to write immediately after finishing your work for economics class or after reading a dissertation, odds are, your writing is going to be very factual, straight-forward, and unimaginative. On the other hand, if you start writing after chewing through a chapter of Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins, your prose is probably going to be hyper-descriptive and punchy.

Find a book with a tone and feel you would like to emulate and read a few pages from it before you start writing. Do this EVERY TIME you write.

Not only will this help focus your creativity, but it can help you capture a consistent rhythm throughout your entire story.

Read, Read, Write

Bottom line?

Carving out time to read is just as important as making time to write if you are serious about becoming a professional writer some day.

But don’t just read for the sake of reading. Read with intent.

Read books that make you better. Pay attention to punctuation and lines that make you feel something. Play with your books by adding your own scenes. And find that one book that represents what you want your work in progress to sound like and use it to focus your mind each time you write.

What books or authors have made you a better writer? Let us know in the comments section below!