Reading as a Writer

Yesterday I mentioned that Suzanne Collins' series, The Hunger Games, began with a Shirley Jackson-type lottery.
That got me to thinking about how kernels of stories get implanted in one's brain to grow into a story.
I've been listening to Patterson's London Bridges and had a brainstorm for a long short story. I immediately wrote the thought down, not wanting it to escape into the dark reaches of the inner space of my brain.

It is a rare book that is written so well that I don't act as an editor...at least at times.
I even find myself editing Stieg Larsson at times. But I must admit that if the story moves and moves me, I ignore some things that could throw me.

One of the differences I've noted between most male and female writers is head-hopping: going through at least two different points of view without a transition. Nora Roberts can do it, but she does it seamlessly and you're not left wondering who's talking/thinking. Some male writers, not so smoothly. I'm not sure why that happens, unless many female writers have been taught certain "rules" of writing as professed by the educators in Romance Writers of America - make sure your reader can tell the POV.

I want to finish The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and the first book of The Hunger Games this weekend - two very unusual and disturbing books - but two books about strong women.

And I want to start on that short story.