Active Reading

When reading, you can either enjoy the story in a passive way, or be active. In order to be active, you could make notes, Make-Marginalia or generally thinking critically about what the language or structure is doing. (5-things-to-steal is a useful exercise for this.)

Not everything needs to be read in an active way, some things can just be enjoyed. But in order to grow as a writer, it’s important to evaluate other people’s writing. You need to Copy-to-Understand-the-Rules