Reading Like a Writer | Research

Writers learn to write by reading. Not passively—by studying. By slowing down, noticing choices, and asking why. Before MFA programs existed, this was the only education: Hemingway reading Twain, Twain reading Cervantes, the chain stretching back to Homer.

Francine Prose calls it close reading. Steven Pinker calls it reverse-engineering. The practice is the same: disassemble excellent sentences to see how they work.

The Core Practice

Close reading means lingering. Where ordinary readers speed toward plot, writers pause at sentences. They reread. They notice.

Prose: “We all begin as close readers. Even before we learn to read, the process of being read aloud to, and of listening, is one in which we are taking in one word after another, one phrase at a time, in which we are paying attention to whatever each word or phrase is transmitting.”

The goal is not analysis for its own sake. The goal is to internalize technique so deeply that it becomes instinct. You read enough well-made sentences, and your own sentences begin to change.

What to Notice

Words

Every word is a choice. Prose: “All the elements of good writing depend on the writer’s skill in choosing one word instead of another.”

Not walked—shuffled. Not said angrily—snapped. The difference between approximate and precise. Between generic and alive.

When you encounter a striking word, stop. Ask: why this word? What does it do that synonyms wouldn’t? What connotations does it carry? What rhythm does it create?

Sentences

The sentence is the fundamental unit. Prose compares the well-wrought sentence to painting or composing music—the result of painstaking, thoughtful construction.

Study how masters vary their sentences. Short punches. Long flowing developments. Fragments for emphasis. The alternation creates rhythm, and rhythm creates feeling.

Watch for syntax doing work. Front-loaded sentences build anticipation. End-heavy sentences land with weight. Parallel structures create emphasis through repetition.

Paragraphs

Paragraphing is more than “new thought, new paragraph.” Prose: “It can change the rhythm, like a flash of lightning shows the same landscape from a different aspect. Paragraphs are a form of emphasis.”

A single-sentence paragraph stops readers cold. A long, dense paragraph creates immersion. The white space between paragraphs is silence—and silence, placed well, speaks.

Details

Flannery O’Connor for the telling detail. Not every detail—the right detail, the one that illuminates character or situation while remaining invisible as technique.

Bad writers describe everything. Good writers select. The single detail that lets readers construct the rest.

Dialogue

John le Carré for advancing plot through speech. Characters reveal themselves not by what they say directly but by how they evade, deflect, and misdirect.

Listen for subtext—what remains unsaid. For voices that sound distinct from each other. For the rhythm of exchange.

Gesture

Katherine Mansfield and James Joyce for gesture creating character. A woman adjusting her ring. A man looking away while speaking. The small physical action that betrays the inner state.

The Reverse-Engineering Method

Pinker: “Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose.”

The practice:

Collect sentences. When you encounter writing that moves you, copy it out. Build a file—digital or physical—of sentences worth studying.
Disassemble. For each sentence, ask:
- What effect does this create?
- What literary devices achieve that effect?
- How does word choice contribute?
- How does syntax contribute?
- What would be lost with different choices?
Imitate. Jack London copied out Kipling’s work by hand. Benjamin Franklin reconstructed essays from The Spectator from memory. Imitation isn’t plagiarism—it’s practice, the way musicians learn standards before composing.
Apply. When stuck in your own work, return to your collection. Find sentences that achieve something similar to what you’re attempting. Study their mechanics. Try their techniques.

Learning from Chekhov

Prose devotes an entire chapter to Chekhov—not for his sentences alone, but for his stance toward his material.

Chekhov wrote without judgment. He observed his characters as an unbiased witness, not a judge. He didn’t tell readers what to think. He showed, and trusted readers to feel.

This is a craft lesson disguised as a moral one. The writer who judges announces their presence, breaking the spell. The writer who observes disappears, leaving only the world they’ve made.

The No-Rules Rule

Close reading reveals an uncomfortable truth: great writers break rules constantly. Chekhov violated the “rules” of fiction. So did Woolf, Joyce, Faulkner.

Prose: “By deliberate and slow ‘close reading’ of works in literature written by the masters, we become better writers. We also discover that there are no rules.”

This doesn’t mean rules are useless. It means rules are training wheels. You learn them so thoroughly that you can forget them—so you can break them with purpose, not ignorance.

The masters teach what’s possible, not what’s permitted.

A Reading Practice for Writers

The shift is simple but difficult: read twice.

First reading: experience the work as a reader. Let yourself be transported. Don’t analyze—feel.

Second reading: study the work as a writer. Slow down. Mark passages. Ask how effects were achieved. Notice what you missed.

The two readings serve different masters. The first reminds you why you write—because reading can be transcendent. The second teaches you how.

Prose: “If close reading is a way to intensify the pleasure books can bring, then it can also help writers learn to write.”

The Apprentice’s Library

Prose draws on: Chekhov, Austen, Dickens, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Woolf, Joyce, Mansfield, O’Connor, le Carré, Babel, Roth.