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I'll probably be around less... I need to pour more energy into myself off the grid. It's time for me to be more of a participant in my life, to make it what I want it to be.

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Put it in a Tommy story, someone! 😂

An Electric Toaster circa 1920

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p r e t t y b o i

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The moments of Ice King that he gave in this movie... 👑

Cillian Murphy as Timekeeper Raymond Leon in In Time (2011) dir. Andrew Niccol

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Happy '25, my people. 😁❤️

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Introducing the Writer Kinks:

1. The comma (,)

2. The semicolon (;)

3. The em dash (—)

4. The Overused italics

5. The Fragments (Because. Drama.)

6. THE ALL CAPS

7. The Ellipses (...)

Honorable Mentions: Long metaphors, parentheses (bonus thoughts) and repititions.

Because why write a concise sentence when you can string together 37 thoughts into one grammatical monstrosity.

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this might be weird to ask, but how do I critically look at another person's writing and implement what I like in their writing in my own writing? I've been having trouble improving in my writing, and frankly Im not sure how to go about doing that, even. It's easy to see what I like about another person's writing, but hard to pinpoint exactly why...

THIS IS NOT WEIRD TO ASK. It is, in fact, the most important question EVER.

How to Read Like a Writer

Re-read. If you get halfway into a chapter and think, Wow this chapter is super creepy–I wonder how they did that. Or get to the end of a book and think, I feel the poignancy of the fragility of human life in an inherently volatile economic system–I wonder how the writer made me feel that way… Go back and re-read that shit.

Read slowly. When you read like a reader, you read pretty fast. When you go in for your second, or third, or fourth re-read of a passage, chapter, or book that you want to know more about, read it slowly. Really. Slowly.

Read for technique, not content. Readers read for content (”In this paragraph, Damien gave Harold a classified envelope.”). Writers read for technique. (”In this paragraph, the writer made me feel curious about the contents of the envelope by giving sensory details about its appearance and weight.”)

Ask the right questions. They usually start with HOW: How did the writer make me feel? How did they accomplish that?

Read small. Did a chapter make you feel sad? Find out WHERE EXACTLY. What paragraph, sentence, or WORD did it for you? Was it a physical detail? A line of dialogue? A well-placed piece of punctuation? Stories are made of words and sentences. Narrow it down.

Practice. Reading like a writer is a skill that takes time to develop. Over time, you’ll get better at it!

How about y’all? Anything to add to this list? I made it off the top of my head so I’m sure I’m forgetting something. What have been your experiences with learning to read like a writer?

Hope this helps!

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The Literary Architect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler. For more writing help, check out my Free Resource Library or get The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. xoxo

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Happy holidays, y'all! I'm going off the grid until the new year. ❤️

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🤓☝️ actchually

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@m-faithfull he's a gin man... 👀 And also as nerdy and feisty as I've dreamed. 😌

Right, now I demand someone sends a "very.... I'd had a few G&Ts" Cillian in my direction immediately.

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cillian? 😭

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Ooh, will listen!

Ballyturk’s original soundtrack by Teho Teardo can be streamed on spotify now, and it has bits of dialogue from the play like this excerpt — Cillian’s opening monologue. Haunting. Incredible.

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Cillian Murphy working up a sweat in Ballyturk! (X)

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i don’t want to curse this in anyway but the fact that cillian murphy’s one scandal is pissing in public while drunk … that’s my man

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