What Is Close Reading?
A short introduction to close reading — how slowing a scene down and noticing movement, blocking, silence, timing, and objects can reveal what changes beneath the words.
Close reading is slowing a scene down and paying attention to what changes — movement, blocking, objects, silence, timing, and what the body does from one beat to the next.
Those details become evidence. From that evidence, we can begin to understand what a character may be feeling without the words having to say it.
Sometimes the mask slips. Sometimes the scene reaches a hinge — the moment where control shifts and everything that follows is different.
This is what I saw. What did you see?