An emotional and deeply insightful read.” What authors inspire you in specific, writerly ways? Do you read like this, looking for tricks of the trade and skills you can utilize in your own work? Do you have any advice to share that we can all put into practice? Let’s get a discussion going in the comments.“The story of Wren’s overwhelming grief and fragile new love is truthful, poetic and unflinchingly raw. I promise, you’ll be so happy when you’re dealing with an issue in your own writing and you realize exactly which of your favorite authors to turn to for advice. Then, file that information away until you need it. When you’ve finished enjoying the book, put on your critical thinking cap and start asking why whatever it was that you loved worked so well. So here are my challenges to you: The next time you’re reading something-anything-and you think to yourself, Wow, I wish I could do X like this author, or I really admire how this author does Y, jot it down. If a book makes you laugh or cry, if you cheer for the heroine or swoon over the hero or want to cut off the villain’s head yourself-in short, if you had an honest emotional response to what was happening on the page-you can learn from it. The cool thing about this way of reading is that you don’t have to seek out “literature” to pick up writerly skills. And when I went back to my revision, I tried to apply what I’d learned. I saw how McNamara was often able to show more by withholding speech and action than if she’d filled the page with Wren’s anguish. So I read it again, looking at how the emotions built to the climactic scenes. The plot of Lovely, Dark and Deep is nothing like the plot of my current manuscript, but it has those deep emotional moments I felt like my project was missing. I felt a deep ache in my chest for the main character, Wren, and her emotional struggles. This book killed me-in a good way-when I first read it. So I decided to reread Lovely, Dark and Deep by Amy McNamara. In layman’s terms, there weren’t enough feels. The highs haven’t felt high enough and the lows haven’t felt low enough. With my current manuscript, I’ve been struggling with my protagonist’s emotional stakes. How does that play out in my writing life? Here’s an example.