“To become a better writer, you must become a better reader.” That’s some writing advice I’ve heard, meaning that part of being a good writer is being able to break down and analyze what works in a story and what doesn’t. The specific context I read them in was figuring out what you like in a fight scene, but I don’t see why it can’t apply to other parts of a story as well.
As an example of what the first context means, I’m going to go into Brandon Sanderson’s fight scenes. What strikes me about them is how visual they are. The focus is not on the tactics and specific movements of the combatants, although these do play a part, but on the people flying around, getting thrown into walls, and avoiding the rocks being thrown from the ground by the two massive storms their flying over. I don’t quite know what I don’t like about the fights, because I seem to have forgotten it. But honestly, the worst thing a fight scene can be is forgettable.
For my own work, I must strive to make every fight memorable in it’s own way. The first might simply be a showcase of a character’s powers, another might simply be the point where somebody reaches a significant point in their development, and yet another could be take place in such unusual circumstances, like falling down a waterfall, that the setting is what the audience remembers. But all of these would be remembered, and that’s what matters.
For the things I don’t like, I should probably concentrate on traps that I am particularly prone to falling into. The most obvious thing, to me, that could cause problems is that I’m publishing my stories as I write them. One of the problems I could run into with this is that I can easily be buried underneath my own retcons. Analyzing how that could go wrong is probably an essay unto itself.
If nothing else, the advice I started with is an excuse for me to talk about things I’ve read.
The House Apart 