I finished reading L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy, and boy, was I unprepared to encounter the writing style that’s so different from anything I’ve read, I was stunned. 

And I read 100+ books a year. Wow. 

Here is an excerpt from how James Ellroy writes (the story is, his editor asked him to cut 100 pages from his manuscript, and instead of editing it down, he cut out every unnecessary word and came up with telegrammatic prose style):

Crazy, right? And yes it allowed me to read his 500-page book in two nights. 

So read new authors, especially the ones whose prose makes you uncomfortable, then take away new things you’ve learned and apply them to your writing.

Illustration by Ji Hyun Yu