We can all agree that reading extensively makes us better writers. We subconsciously learn craft and absorb common conventions of the books we love. When we carefully analyze masterworks and comparative titles in our chosen genre, we better understand our readers, learn how to write books that our readers will love, and understand how our genre works in the traditional marketplace.
By becoming familiar with books similar to ours, and studying the masterworks, we learn how to write a story our readers will love. Masterworks are stories widely accepted by the market, and therefore beloved by readers, which makes them fantastic opportunities to study. We learn what works and what doesn’t work, and we can apply those learnings to our own characters, plot, and story structure. The absolute best way to learn to write a book you’ll love is to study why similar books are successful.
Comp titles compare our own stories to what is on the market. Understanding what other books compare to yours is important if your goal is publishing on some level. Being able to communicate comp titles, which speak to the marketability of our WIP, is the easiest way to garner interest in our story with a short amount of information and pitch our story to agents and/or editors.
Reading is no doubt important to becoming a better writer. But reading within our genre and applying what we learned to our stories is the key to writing books we love that fit within our market and stand out to our readers.
June #WritersRead Book Club Chat:
Thursday, July 30th @ 7pm EST
Join us on Twitter!
Reading Prompts for Book Club!
- How closely does your pick tie to your own book?
- What have you learned about your genre, characters, plot, or story structure from reading this pick?
- What was the point or message of the book you read?
- What was your favorite part of the book you read?
- What will you take away from this month’s read and apply to your own WIP?
RACHEL’s PICK:
EMILY’s PICK:
Leave A Comment