Before I turned writer, I was a reader – a fairly voracious one. I loved reading books, and even now, do.
But my attitude has changed when I read.
Earlier, I used to read a wonderful book, and say, “What a wonderful book!”
Over time, I could identify what a great book is. I often told friends, “This is a great book” and they took it seriously.
Now my reaction has changed. It has gone a step further. Now I ask, “what did the writer do to create such a wonderful book?”
“How did they come up with the story? The plot? The structure? The characters?”
“How did he start the book? What did the first few pages do to hook me to read further?”
“What did the writer do to keep me interested in the main character and its story?”
“What happened that moved the story forward? What was the main conflict? How did it end?”
When a book is a great book, I now pay attention to how it became great. Earlier, I was not bothered about it. I was a reader.
Now I am a writer. So, I am interested.
“This book is great” is a reader’s reaction. “How did the writer create such a great book?” is a writer’s question.
I am no longer interested only in eating the dish. I want to reverse engineer the recipe.
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