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The Art of X-Ray Reading
The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing | Roy Peter Clark
7 posts | 3 read | 37 to read
Roy Peter Clark, one of America's most influential writing teachers, draws writing lessons from 25 great texts. Where do writers learn their best moves? They use a technique that Roy Peter Clark calls X-ray reading, a form of reading that lets you penetrate beyond the surface of a text to see how meaning is actually being made. In THE ART OF X-RAY READING, Clark invites you to don your X-ray reading glasses and join him on a guided tour through some of the most exquisite and masterful literary works of all time, from The Great Gatsby to Lolita to The Bluest Eye, and many more. Along the way, he shows you how to mine these masterpieces for invaluable writing strategies that you can add to your aresenal and apply in your own writing. Once you've experienced X-ray reading, your writing will never be the same again.
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mhillis
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Writing tip from Seabiscuit:

Think I‘m cinematic terms when you need to figure out if you want to create full motion or if you would prefer slow motion. In general, the faster you want a sentence to go, the less punctuation you will use. Every mark of punctuation slows a passage down to some degree.

And today I came across this interesting article
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/75602/what-famous-novels-look-stripped-every...

review
mhillis
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Pickpick

You have to read the subtitle to know that this book focuses on using reading to inform your writing!

In each chapter, the author uses excerpts from famous books to give writing tips. My favorite chapter included an analysis of Seabiscuit by Lauren Hillenbrand. In fact, the author of The Boys in the Boat learned a lot from closely reading it!

However, this book would be better if it had more diversity in text selection and influential texts.

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BookHermit
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This inspiration for this writing lesson is the sentence that opens The Bell Jar: “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn‘t know what I was doing in New York.”

Quite enjoying this book. I‘m not much of a re-reader but it‘s time I revisited the classics I devoured in my youth. After all, much like the proverbial river, we‘re never the same reader twice, are we?

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MrBook
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#TBRtemptation post! Clark has put together a writing manual for all aspiring writers. Instead of going through rote rules in a vacuum, like most such books do, he bases his lessons off 25 actual great texts, including "The Great Gatsby", "Lolita", and "The Bluest Eye". And he teaches you methods for finding great techniques within books when you're on your own. It's a different strategy, & 1 that'll hold my attention. #blameLitsy #blameMrBook ?

Hooked_on_books Huh, I thought it was a radiology guide. 7y
LitsyGoesPostal 😊👍🏻 7y
94 likes18 stack adds2 comments
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BookishMarginalia
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Today's #bookhaul redux: this part is to feed my writing teacher soul! All three by #RoyPeterClark to complete my collection of his work. #Septimus doesn't seem too impressed! #catsofLitsy

rachelm These look awesome. 7y
See All 6 Comments
JackieSmith I love how he illustrates that to be a great writer you must be a great reader. 7y
LectricSheep Good suggestions! I'm always looking for more fun books on grammar to keep my students from drawing little nooses off the ends of their sentence diagrams. 7y
kspenmoll Thx for introducing me to this author's work! 7y
111 likes3 stack adds6 comments
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LastSplash
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Discerning meaning from Fitzgerald's use of specific and intentional punctuation...so interesting! 🔎

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LastSplash
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I'm anxious to start recreationally writing more often, both for the joy of developing a writing practice and also in an effort to become a better reader! This book was a staff pick at Changing Hands and was recommended because it helped the bookseller improve in both areas. Have you found a book that's helped to strengthen your writing and/or reading practices? I particularly loved Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" #writestuffreadstuff

Redwritinghood I've tried to read this one but it was a little dry for my tastes. I have recently tried some of K.M. Weiland's books and they are very good at explaining story structure. 8y
LastSplash @Redwritinghood K.M. Weiland- excellent, thank you! Jotting it down. Is there a particular one you recommend to start with? 8y
Redwritinghood @LastSplash I started with 5 Secrets of Story Structure which was a free Kindle book. 8y
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