The Benefits of Tracking What I Read, Part 2

Two female detective series with very different first-person narration.

If you’re keeping a list of books you’ve read, how is it useful to your writing? I’ve discovered a few ways it’s useful for me.

As I mentioned in Part 1, I started keeping a list of books that I want to read so I wouldn’t forget about them. This includes books for kids, teens, and adults. Mostly fiction but also a little bit of non-fiction.

But then I thought, why not keep track of all the books that I do read? I’m trying it for a year to see what bubbles up.

Detective series: New to me and a long-time favorite

I read a LOT of mysteries, especially detective series. It’s easy for me to forget the plot details from one novel to the next. So I decided to include on my list a sentence or two about each book to help my recall.

For example, I recently stumbled onto the humorous, historical Veronica Speedwell mysteries by Deanna Raybourn. One of my notes about Veronica: Fun voice, liberated woman in 1880s Britain.

The character of Veronica, especially her funny, first-person voice, reminds me a lot of Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody character. Both characters are confident, rather bossy women defying gender norms of the time period (late 1800s) and who have interesting areas of expertise. For Veronica, it’s butterflies and for Amelia, it’s Egyptology.

Raybourn’s mysteries also include a dose of romance that’s closely tied to Veronica’s character arc through the series—not whether she’ll marry Stoker but rather, how vulnerable will she allow herself to be? Their developing relationship is what I noted down in my reading list more often than a detail about the plot.

Since I want to write a detective series myself one of these days, noticing that kind of character growth is helpful—and a totally unplanned benefit of tracking my reading.

First-person narrators

One thing I consistently pay attention to when I read, and often make note of on my book list, is the choice of narration. First person, limited third, omniscient. I LOVE funny, voicey, first-person narrators.

After reading a string of fun, light, Veronica Speedwell mysteries, I read Dead Land (2020) by Sara Paretsky. Paretsky writes about a tough female private investigator named V.I. “Vic” Warshawski who’s based in Chicago.

I’ve read Paretsky’s Warshawski series since I stumbled across it at the public library when I was in college. Indemnity Only was published in 1982.

Paretsky’s work is serious and dark and addresses social justice themes. She tells her stories in first person from Vic’s point of view. Vic is a feminist, a former lawyer, and a woman who cares about people. And her narrative voice conveys that.

As much as I appreciated Dead Land, reading it helped me realize that these days, I prefer my first-person narrators to lean toward humorous. Vic is not especially funny. Mostly in Dead Land she struck me as cranky. With good reason.

Keeping a list of books helped me notice how many funny narrators I’ve been reading versus serious ones. Which leads me to think I need to create a humorous narrator for my own mystery series.

What does your own reading tell you about your writing interests?