How to learn to analyze texts
And why should you do it
The thing that separates an editor from a random person with opinions is that an editor can accurately explain how they arrived to their opinion. The difference between “this is boring” and “there have been four scenes back to back that are structurally very similar. No change in the pace or stakes or emotional temperature happens in any of these, even if all of them happen in different places and have different characters.”
Creation and analysis are also almost completely separate skills and activities: an author focuses on the skill of writing a good story, and editor on the skill of identifying the good and bad of a story. Everyone has both of these skills and I think that the creation skill is capped by the analysis skill. How could you reliably write something good, if you don’t know what is good? Focusing only on creation skill would be like practicing orienteering and only focusing on sprinting as hard as you can. You’d get very far, but not necessarily in the right direction. At some point you’d need to start learning to read the map too.
Some people might feel that analyzing texts is dangerous or distasteful. What if you break your ability to experiencing art and end up evaluating products? What if your story starts to feel like you’re just following the Hero’s Journey recipe instead of laying your soul bare?
Valid fears.
Learning more about analyzing texts makes it harder to enjoy mediocre writing. That’s a real cost. On the other hand, it also allows one to appreciate beautifully crafted writing even more. Sublime will stay sublime.
Fear about breaking your own writing is less justified, I feel. The anger about pandering to conventional forms or prose fashion might be the pain of a person realizing weaknesses in their own writing. It will pass. The more one knows about the “rules” the more it’s possible to break them reliably. You might land a hit or two swinging around with your eyes closed, but you shouldn’t build your boxing career on that tactic.
So, how to start practicing? Some suggestions:
Just do it, lol
Read a book and write about the experience for yourself. I guarantee you that when you start doing this, you’ll find out you have a lot more opinions about any book that you read than you thought. You don’t need to write a review to impress anyone or try to sound clever. Write what comes to mind. Eventually you will find out you have a taste and opinions. The added benefit of this way is that you’ll have to read.
Online Writing Groups
There are places on the internet where people give feedback to each other. Basically online writing groups. I personally like Scribophile. You don’t need to be “anyone” or an “editor” to join these. You read texts of other people and try to give them useful feedback. The secret ingredient is as you’ll also see other people give feedback on the same text. You can read through those to and go “Hmm, ok, I missed that” or “Ooh, hard disagree. What is this person thinking?” which is very educational.
Read books or consume content on analyzing writing
One place to start is my editing toolsets video! 😉 Podcasts, courses, books, etc are always fun, but beware of the trap of getting stuck consuming stuff. Hearing about the thing is different from learning and practicing a thing. Once you find something that resonates and feels like it has potential, stop watching anything new and go apply it. Only once you start using a tool to actually do something, does the theory start to turn into skill.
Take your own manuscript or your favorite book and see if you can make it fit the Seven-Point Story Structure or how well Stephen King actually does show vs. tell or controls his POV.
My favorite podcast on writing is Writing Excuses. Short and to the point, always very actionable tools (not rules).
Practical examples
I’ll give just a couple of simple examples you can try to get rolling. You should be able to just pick either of these and go try them on a book.
Analyzing a scene (loosely based on Story Grid)
Take a scene: one moment in a story that starts and ends.
Look at how the scene starts: slow/fast, safe/unsafe, relaxed/tense, emotionally hot/cold. Write it down.
Look at what happens in the scene: plot relevant stuff, exposition about world or characters, characters or relationships changing. Write it down.
Look at how the scene ends: slow/fast, safe/unsafe, relaxed/tense, emotionally hot/cold. Write it down.
Do this for a couple of scenes. Compare the list and see if something stands out. Is there too much exposition? Are all the scenes tense/relaxed? Does the reader need a breather or a jolt?
Working with dialogue
Take a scene of dialogue and really look at what the people are saying. Ask yourself:
If I wouldn’t have dialogue tags, could I figure out who’s speaking?
Would a real person in this situation say this thing like this?
Is it too polished? Is it too smudgy?
How much of this dialogue is exposition?
Ok, phew, I tried it. Any closing words?
Yes! You might have noticed that doing an analysis like that is a lot of work. Imagine going through a whole 160,000 word book and looking at every scene in order. Madness.
The goal with learning about analyzing texts is that these skill turn automatic. Giving feedback to other people is easy, as you’re not invested in the text as much and it’s easier to see all the glaring mistakes they do constantly. Once you’ve done enough of that and start writing your own story again, you can go “A-ha!” and stop yourself from writing that stilted dialogue in the first place.