Reading the Right Way to Improve Your Writing

What to look out for when reading what others have written

“Read more to write better.” is a piece of advice many new writers often hear from more established writers.

Be it writing for Medium, for your personal blog or even for entire novels, the most reliable writing advice to fall back on is to read more.

After all, it makes sense. If those pieces of work are already successful, reading them would (technically) help you become better at writing.

However, after following this advice religiously and forcing myself to continuously read all through my writing journey, I realised that it isn’t as simple as it seems.

Reading to improve is more than simply reading a large amount of text. How and what you read plays an essential role in shaping what you understand and take away.

Yet, many of those articles telling you about the benefits of reading more actually fail to impart the most important portion of the advice: what you should be looking out for when you are reading.

Without knowing what you should be keeping your eye out for, spending hours and hours reading wouldn’t effectively help improve your skills as a writer.

That’s why I began to study what I was reading to compile this list of things to look out for.

(Note: these are geared more towards blog posts and articles and might not be as helpful for book writers etc.)

1. What is the message of the article and how the writer is driving this message through the entirety of the article

For any piece of writing to gain traction, it has to bring value to the reader. Whether it is a new way of thinking, tips to help the writer or explaining a complex issue, successful writers aim to drive home a message when they write.

However, sustaining a convincing argument throughout a blog post or article isn’t as simple as repeating the message countless times. A balance between bringing out the pros and arguing against the cons has to be maintained by the writer.

At the same time, bombarding the reader with call to actions or harping on pointless messages will drive away readers. Reducing the time readers spend on your post and ruining the chances of them interacting with your other posts.

By looking out for the ideas shared by writers and the way they work it into their posts, you can learn and emulate various methods to keep your content value-driven without writing in a pushy manner that drives away readership.

2. How the writer answers the questions you have when you read

As you write with a takeaway for readers in mind, it is not enough to be able to drive the message throughout the article.

When someone reads something, they are reading to understand the viewpoint of the author. Unless you can answer their questions, the readers are going to leave feeling unsatisfied.

For the readers to truly feel inspired, you have to answer the questions that they might have when reading your article.

While reading articles in the future, ask yourself some questions:

What is the author telling me?

Why am I skeptical about the message? Or why do I believe and value what the writer is sharing?

Is the writer answering and arguing against all the questions and qualms I have about this issue?

By questioning yourself whenever you read articles and blog posts, you are conditioning yourself to think like a critical reader.

As you manage to transform yourself into a critical reader that poses legitimate and genuine questions, you will begin to find yourself criticizing your writing and forcing yourself to avoid vague sweeping statements that discredit your writing.

Furthermore, you will be able to have a deeper understanding about that particular topic that you are reading about. With this deeper understanding, you will be able to delve further into this subject, allowing you to put even more value in your writing.

3. The tone and diction the writer chooses to use

Of course, the biggest benefit of reading widely is the increased vocabulary that you can build.

When you read, instead of simply focusing on content, spend some time noting the tone and structure that the writer adopts. Is the writer using a humorous style? Or is the writer utilizing a more formal way of writing?

When you are able to understand why different writers employ different forms and approaches to the various topics, you will be able to better choose a tone and structure that fits the theme you are writing about.

Going further, study the way the writers use words and sentence structures to write in different scenarios. Grammar is something that cannot be changed. However the word choice, sentence forms and language intensity chosen by the writer plays a huge role in allowing the work to appeal to readers.

In blog posts and through sites like Medium for example, readers prefer shorter paragraphs with a slightly conversational tone.

On the other hand, when writing informative pieces for certain publications or in research based formats, one is expected to write formally with longer paragraphs that include numerous examples and sources to support the arguments.

As such, by learning how to choose a suitable tone and combining it with an apt choice of words, writers can write in a way that attracts more readers.

4. What they are all writing about

Lastly, instead of only reading articles and posts that you are interested in, it is important to branch out and see what is currently trending on the internet (and on the platforms you are publishing on).

These trending articles will provide an insight into what readers are currently looking for in an article. By learning the factors that attract readers, you can also emulate the factors in your writing.

Even if the trend isn’t related to your niche, there is also a chance that you will be able to include certain aspects of the trend into your writing.

Furthermore, understanding and reading posts outside your normal comfort zones can expose you to more ideas that can refresh your standpoints and help provide more material for your writing in the future.

Many successful writers often draw parallels to current trends to bring in new angles and point of views into their writing. At the same time, riding on the ‘hype train’ of the trend also helps expose their work to new readers.

Instead of following the age old advice of “read more to write better” blindly, it is time to understand that to reach out to your readers meaningfully, you have to be part of the audience.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with reading more. After all, reading does beget better writing.

However, by knowing what to look out for, you can achieve the same effects with a drastically reduced amount of reading time (15 mins a day of targeted reading would likely yield better effects than 1 hour of daily mindless reading).

At the same time, forcing yourself to constantly pick at all these factors while reading transforms you into a better reader as well. You will be able to provide more constructive criticisms and have a deeper appreciation for the work you are reading.

And by becoming a better reader this way, you will be able to be stricter on your writing, bringing it to a next level that you can be proud of.

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