When engaging with competitive materials or materials I want to learn from (such as classics), I find my way through three levels of reading.

On level one, I focus on what the author is saying. While this happens unconsciously by reading the work naturally, helpful questions include:

• Who are the characters?
• What's happening in the story?
• When and where does the story take place?

The two levels that follow involve "close reading," meant to help you improve as a writer by studying other people's works.

On the second level, I focus on why the author is saying what they are saying. I try to interpret what is being said by asking questions like:

• Why does the author tell this story?
• What is the deeper meaning?
• Is the author trying to convince us of something? If so, what is it?

On the third level, I take note of parts of the material that jumps to me and focus on studying how the author executed it. I may have to reread a few pages that led to the part that triggered my response to figure out how to author accomplished it. I ask:

• How did the author make you feel that way?
• What specific words or phrases spark those particular emotions?
• What is the author's purpose?
• How did the author shape and craft their words to accomplish certain goals and elicit certain responses?

The purpose of the third level of writing is to imitate the technique in my own writing.

Most of my reading will happen in the first level. I only go deeper when I need to study a technique worth-imitating. When reading, I also extract phrases I liked and add them to my collection of quotes or magic phrases.

References

Pereira, G. (2016). DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build Your Community. Writer’s Digest Books.