Select one book from the Genre, at random, or by choice.
Read the book, objectively, and critcally.
Think if there are any things that are positive in that genre.
Try and think of other things that make these type of book interesting.
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Something that I've realized in pretty much anything that I pick up and read, I always try to learn something from.
Like, how to set up a scene where something very dramatic or interesting happens.
Or that Praying Mantis have a wide assortment of methods to avoid larger attackers, like Bats. The Mantids do stuff like crash into the ground, b/c they'll survive the impact, but a bat would be much more injured; because of it's higher mass, it strikes with more force. Injuring itself in the process.
Or, whatever.
I think that the above method is the subconsious process that I use when I'm reading. I get wrapped up in the content, but at the same time, I'm trying to think of how to write a similar scene, or learn a new fact, and if it can apply to anything else that I know, or if it can have broader applications.
In the case of a the bat vs mantis fact; it means that I know that Mantids are insects with a pretty large memory, since they probably have to learn that sort of behaviour.
Instinct still requires brain mass. Humans can learn hundreds of instinctual responses. "Touch-typing" on a keyboard requires at the very least 26 instinct-learned motions, and that's just one example of learning "muscle memory" for something. Some people can get dresses with the lights off, or can walk around their home in the dark, because they know how many steps it is to different rooms in thei home. Those are both muscle memory. The Mantis' response to jump down whenever the see a large flying mass is to go to ground.
