'Reading Like A Writer' by Francine Prose

'Can creative writing be taught?' Francine Prose is a teacher of creative writing but she deals seriously with this big question...in fact it's her opening sentence. It's a question that most writers ask, but one that 'How to Write' manuals usually take for granted. That's what drew me to read this book, and I speak as someone who tends to eschew expert guide-books on matters (such as parenting and writing fiction) where it feels right - most of the time - to trust to intuition.


The first chapter is entitled Close Reading. We all began our reading lives as close readers - slowly deciphering books word by word. Perhaps - although achieving fluency is obviously a joy - something was lost when we became older, brisker, more careless readers? Writing, after all, can't be done well in a half-hearted rush - it requires the writer to put "every word on trial for its life." Francine Prose argues that the writer needs to be just as exacting in all her dealings with words.

Not that Reading like a Writer deals with literature at the microscopic level only. That's just how it starts. As the chapters progress the magnifying glass draws back ever further (so chapter two is called Words, chapter three is Sentences, chapter four is Paragraphs...) If you think that sounds like a dry approach you'll be pleasantly surprised. Francine Prose always illustrates her arguments and never waffles on in the abstract. Every chapter is awash with excerpts from great writers, showing how the raw materials (i.e. words, sentences, paragraphs, narration, dialogue, gesture...) have been used to brilliant - and wildly varying - effect.

One consequence of all these examples from great writers is that you become aware of the sheer tensile strength of language. It's like a sappy twig that you can bend any which way - not only will it not break; it won't even show the strain. It serves both Raymond Chandler and Jane Austen and it serves them well. Once you appreciate this it becomes difficult to take writing rules - all those lists of contradictory Top Ten Tips that the experts lay down like they're the Ten Commandments - terribly seriously. Cut down on adjectives! But Dickens used adjectives pretty freely. Show don't tell! But where does that leave Dulse, by Alice Munro, which opens with a deft resume of the main character's life so far? Stick to one character's point of view! Make it clear whose story your telling! Make sure your character has a good reason to do what he does! But Chekhov breaks all those rules and more.... (In fact the penultimate chapter of Reading like a Writer is a hymn to Chekhov and a plea for would-be writers - not to mention creative writing teachers - to read his short stories.)

So what's the best (the only) way to learn to write? Not by memorising a list of rules, not by taking a book apart in a methodical way to "see how it's done". You don't learn French by committing the dictionary to memory, but by living in France. In the same way you learn to write by living in a world of books. Read, argues Francine Prose, and you will learn by osmosis. Read, read, read - critically, slowly, reflectively. Find out what chimes and what jars, try out your own voice in the context of other people's voices. It's so simple, and so obvious, that it has to be true. Nobody can tell you how to write, and yet there's one hell of a lot to be learnt.