Check out this AWESOME Comic Con panel with me & Jim Butcher & Brian McClelland & Larry Corriea etc. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bZt4i6aSrazHqGQ.html

Reading to study the art, rather than reading for entertainment (or preferably doing both at once). I figured this out on my own a few years ago... I've done very similar analysis of some of the great books (and some not so great) I've read over the past few years, in multiple genres. NOTHING has helped me develop my own writing style, and improve the quality of my own writing, more so than this tactic. Not only are you paying attention to flow, pacing, word usage, methodology, descriptions, etc.... but you're also building your vocabulary, learning subtle humor, and teaching your brain to narrate.

I think mining the works of your favorite authors is great advice.

Hi, Brian! I'm really glad you're back on KZfaq. I subscribed to you a few years back when I was in the midst of writing my epic novel. I wrote a 300,000 worded manuscript in a month, but chopped it down to about 95,000 words. I went through the same thing you did when you first wrote: dozens and dozens of rejection letters from agents, all of which said to me that they were just too confused and couldn't understand what it was that I was writing. Only one said that it had some potential to be a true epic, but it really needed some serious work. So I shelved my book and figured it would never be published. Never fell out of love with it, but thought that perhaps I would be the only one who absolutely adored the story I had created. As time rolled on, it kept bugging me that this book was only read by me and never got the fair chance of being written the right way. I decided that I would one day revisit the manuscript with some fresh ideas and apply the new education I'd absorbed over time to it. That day has come. Coincidentally, I saw in my subscription box on here that you uploaded some new videos! I saved this particular one. In these short 19 minutes, your advice hit me like a freight train! I added all those books you mentioned to my Amazon Wishlist and am going to purchase them one at a time and read them five times over again. But instead of beginning with Shogun, I've added your book, The Forgetting Moon, to the top of my list and am going to begin with that! Regardless if reading them helps or not, the advice you gave here lit the fire under me to begin writing again and brought that dream of being published back to the forefront of my life. Cheers!! - Rob

It's so wonderful to hear someone else say this! I, too, come from the art world, where copying great art was a fully accepted form of learning. “Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal”, said Pablo Picasso :-D (Apparently also Igor Stravinsky and T.S.Eliot said something similar as well :-D)

Having fun is the key. Having so much fun, your hands begin to ache doing 60 to 100 words per minute, and your mind gets fuzzy after 4 to 6 hours of flow. It’s so much fun, and then you get to edit, which is even more fun. I just wrote a book in 6 months, with a full time job, and it’s 170,000 words long. Now I’m writing a query, which is taking me weeks, and isn’t so much fun.

Awesome! Again, thanks, Brian! You offer VERY useful advice, and it's fun to absorb it from a positive guy like you!

Solid, man. Just superb advice. Bravo.

Boy, what a great teaser. I would love to hear more about your actual results of your study and some of the stats you uncovered.

Thank You for these videos you are truly an inspiration.🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

This is Awesome!

thank you for your advice; very practical

Great information.

Thanks!

Like the Germany shirt

Thanks for the advice, Brian. Can I ask- did you have a writing group?

Hey Brian, excellent advice! Currently doing the same. I was wondering if there was any way you can also provide a link to the notes you took? I think that would help me immensely.

Now that I think about it, since you have done all the studying and "statifying" and incorporated it into your book(s), why shouldn't I just study your book(s) (since you should be doing everything within the parameters you have discovered)? I need to get writing soon; I do not have decades left to study [at this point in my life]. Reading seven 1,000 page books 5 times each would be 35,000 pages; and if I am studying each page and taking notes, then I am reading about a page every 5 minutes [is this even enough time per page?]. 35,000 pages x 5 minutes is 175,000 minutes, or 2,117 hours. If I spend 5 hours a day studying, and do so five days a week, that would mean it would take about 85 weeks to finish my studying these seven books, or over a year and a half before I can even begin writing. Does that estimate fit in with your experience? It seems that if you think Game of Thrones and/or the Dragonbone Chair are representative of good averages for epic fantasy, perhaps studying one or both of these books and then begin writing, while studying the other five books for additional insight along the way (i.e. at the same time you are writing) might be a good compromise plan. Your thoughts?

Do you think you will ever go back and rewrite and publish your Horror novel?

I can't help thinking of the end of Man of Steel when you're talking about battle scenes.

Writing a standsize novel as a first book might be overdoing it.

Have you ever watched justified

Since you already did the job for us... Better just study your book which is the study of 7 big books.

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