For Writers

Become a Book Detective by Reading Like a Writer

By on September 21, 2026   /   For Writers, Writing   /   Leave a comment

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.” This famous quote by Stephen King encapsulates an important truth for writers: We should always be reading, and the parenthetical in that quote tells us why. Reading gives us tools, and the only way we gain those tools is not just passively taking in stories but looking at them analytically and critically, like book detectives. Reading like a writer is one of the best ways to strengthen your writing skills because it teaches you written storytelling, and it’s also 100 percent free. Today, we’ll talk about three ways you can start reading like a writer: character investigation, technique collecting, and impact evaluation.

Why Reading?Magnifying glass resting on a book

Like many authors, you might already have a question on your mind: What if I’m too influenced by what I read? This question can also be asked as What if I accidentally plagiarize another book? These anxieties can make it tempting to avoid reading entirely while you’re drafting, just to be on the safe side, but you might be surprised at how easy it is to tell when an author has stopped picking up books. This is because shows up in the writing itself.

You may not realize it, but every day, we take in tremendous amounts of storytelling through movies, music, games, ads, and even memes. Research shows that with the help of the screens that come with us almost everywhere, we absorb far more of this kind of storytelling than actual books. Everything you take in is teaching you different ways of sharing information, building interest, keeping attention, and, simply put, telling a story. These other kinds of storytelling can add unique flavor to your writing, but they are fundamentally different from written storytelling, using different techniques for different audiences for different purposes. There’s no replacement for the wealth of knowledge that comes from studying authors who are using the same medium you are, and there’s no reason to miss out on such a great education while discovering fabulous new stories!

Character Investigation

Every book you read contains characters, which makes this the most obvious place to start as you sit down to read like a writer. The simplest way to begin is to ask a simple question: Which characters stand out to you? It doesn’t matter if you like that character or dislike them. Once you’ve identified one or two characters that jump out at you, you can ask more questions. How is the author building this person on the page or making them distinct? Do they use description? Is it their dialogue or how they act? Do these characters change from beginning to end, and how would you describe that change? Asking questions about what other authors have done to make compelling characters can help you do the same in your own book.

Technique Collecting

If you’re new to reading like a writer, this approach might feel a little more advanced, but you can learn new techniques from reading with many of the same skills you use to investigate characters. If there is a part of the book you’re reading that changes how you’re reading, stop to reflect on why this has happened. For example, if you find that you’ve started reading more quickly and reached the end of the chapter faster than you expected, look at what the author was doing there. Did they use shorter sentences, punchier wording, or more dialogue? Did the author raise tension, up the stakes, or use foreshadowing? Any time you notice your reading has changed—whether you’re slowing down, rereading, or even highlighting—this is a great opportunity to take a closer look at how the author is changing how you as the reader is experiencing the story. If you can put words around what they’re doing, you can collect the technique and begin using it yourself.

Impact Evaluation

The third approach to reading like a writer is considering how the book as a whole strikes you. When you finish reading, what would you say the author set out to do, and do you think they achieved it? Thinking about the author’s purpose can help you consider the effectiveness of all the parts together. Did they use their characters and techniques well, or can you see opportunities they didn’t take advantage of? Were there chapters you felt like didn’t need to be there, or was the story a page-turner from start to finish? If this feels like too much to start with, begin by asking yourself if you liked the story. If you did, why did you like it? If not, what led you to feel that way?

Fall in Love with Reading

Reading closely is a fantastic way to discover tools and techniques and see how they’re being used. If starting with a fresh book is intimidating, pick up a book you’re already familiar with or one you love. This way, you can focus on analyzing what’s there without slipping into the way you normally read. Once you’re comfortable putting on your writer hat while you read, then you can ask these questions of books you’re reading for the first time.

If you need inspiration for good books, here at the Mixed-Up Files of Middle Grade Authors, we have lots of recommendations!
You can check out our book lists here: https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/mixed-up-files-book-lists/

For more specific lists, jump right in with these specific categories:
New releases: https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/category/new-releases/
Diversity: https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/category/diversity/

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‘Moneyball’ author Michael Lewis’s MasterClass hits home run with Middle Grade craft

By on September 16, 2026   /   Articles, books, For Writers, From the Classroom, Writing   /   Leave a comment

By Faran Fagen

I recently showed a MasterClass to my students from Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball and The Blind Side (both made into popular movies).

As the video rolled, I was reminded of how profound his writing advice is and realized a lot of his advice could apply to middle grade novels.

Here are some of the highlights of his master class and how they apply to our craft:

Lewis focuses on finding your voice, developing an idea, creating characters, structuring a narrative, hooking the audience, simplifying complexity, and crafting strong beginnings and endings. Sounds familiar?

Lewis’s central question is essentially: What is the story here?

He’s especially good at taking subjects that sound complicated or dull—finance, statistics, economics—and finding the surprising human story inside them. His MasterClass specifically teaches how to “make anything interesting.”

One of my favorite Middle Grade writers is Donna Gephart, and she’s an expert on making ordinary things interesting, such as toilet paper or a trivia contest. The same can be said of Nicole Melleby or Jason Reynolds, who bases one book on a thrilling elevator ride in Long Way Down.

Lewis emphasizes character and uses real people in his own books as the engines of his narratives. MasterClass’s description of the course specifically includes developing characters and building a story around them.

Some of the questions Lewis poses: Who wants something badly? Why can’t they have it? What are they afraid will happen? What terrible choice might they make? What will they learn about themselves?

Lewis teaches the importance of hooking an audience and controlling the story from beginning to end. A middle-grade reader doesn’t need constant explosions. They need questions people care about.

One of Lewis’s strengths is relating to the reader. That’s particularly useful for MG writers. You can have sophisticated ideas in a middle-grade novel—grief, inequality, family divorce, identity, friendship, injustice—but the storytelling needs to remain accessible.

Extending Lewis’s message, you want your middle grade reader to understand what the character wants, what stands in the way, and why it matters.

He also said don’t be afraid of the messy first draft. Draft first. Diagnose later. Don’t stop Chapter 7 because Chapter 3 isn’t perfect.

For MG (or any genre really), every chapter should create some version of: pacing, character motivation, missing scenes, exposition, chapter endings, voice during revision.

The Michael Lewis formula I’d give an MG writer:

My Child:
Who is the protagonist?

They want:
What does the protagonist desperately want?

But:
What’s stopping them?

Because:
Why does this matter so much?

Then:
What unexpected thing happens?

So:
What does the protagonist do about it?

Which makes:
How does that decision make things worse?

Until:
What’s the biggest crisis?

Finally:
What choice does the protagonist make?

And afterward:
How has the protagonist changed?

That gets very close to the practical heart of Lewis’s approach: find the compelling human story, build it around memorable characters, create momentum, simplify the complicated parts, and make the reader care what happens next. Happy writing!

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Sound Like a Kid: Digging into Dialogue

By on July 17, 2026   /   Writing  

A question I hear often from kid readers is “How can you write for us when you’re an adult?” There’s a lot of reasons why this question pops up, but one of the biggest is the fact that adults simply aren’t kids. In their minds, we don’t look like them, we aren’t interested in the same things, and—perhaps most importantly of all—we don’t sound like them. If we’re not careful, the dialogue we write for kid characters will only confirm we’re not the best people to be putting stories together for them. To avoid dialogue that’s stiff, unrealistic, or just plain boring, let’s look at two main concepts to keep in mind when you sit down and try to get into the sneakers of your kid protagonist.

Use Code SwitchingA speech bubble made up of yellow notes

A subtle but powerful marker of kid dialogue is code switching. This term refers to the way people change how they talk in different groups. Put simply, if you’re an eleven-year-old, you don’t sound the same talking with your parents as you do with your friends. Adults code switch, too, though it’s often less noticeable. Kids who fit into the MG age range are stepping beyond their families for the first time, and they have the chance to make connections with people of all ages. These relationships are great opportunities to show different dimensions of your character, especially if the dialogue can show us different sides of their personality.

If your dialogue is feeling stiff, ask yourself these questions:

  • How does my character’s dialogue change when they’re talking with someone their age? Someone older? Younger? Someone in their family? A stranger? Consider how much they might interrupt, not finish a sentence, enunciate, mumble, take charge, or ask more questions.
  • If their dialogue doesn’t change, what does that show readers about their personality?

Avoid Writing Tiny Grownups

One of the worst things that can happen in dialogue is giving your kid character a vocabulary and way of speaking that makes them sound like an adult when it isn’t intended to be a character trait. As adults, we’re steeped in specialized language and terms like “juxtaposition” and “voluminous.” We’re more adept at using language to communicate, comfortable with the differences between “angst,” “depression,” and “discouragement.” Kids, on the other hand, simply don’t have a lot of experience wrapping things in language, much less knowing there’s a word for what they’re trying to describe or convey. This includes kids who are passionate about very niche topics as well. While they might know everything about arthropods or camshafts, they likely won’t be as fluent in talking about how their best friend moving away feels.

If you’re not sure if you’re writing a tiny grownup, here are some questions for you:

  • How does my character talk about complicated topics like emotions? If what they say sounds like it could be said by a therapist, it’s likely not a good fit for your kid character.
  • Does my character use technical terms, jargon, big words, or specialized language? If so, where would they have learned it? Why do they use words like this?
  • If you’re still not sure, give a scene of dialogue to friend who’s not familiar with the story and ask them how old they think the characters are. If they guess incorrectly, ask them which words or phrases made them think the way they did.

Do Field Research If Needed

If you need real-world inspiration, take time to hang out in places where kids gather. Even better is to find places where there’s a mix of ages, such as libraries, schools, malls, and theaters. Listen closely and take notes on what you observe, especially when it comes to how people talk to each other, what words and tone they use, who talks more, and so on.  Reading is another great way to see how other authors have approximated the often messy, not grammatically correct way we have conversations.

It’s important to get dialogue right in middle grade. Play with the way your character talks and see what happens!

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