So I don't know how helpful I can be because a "source code" approach is pretty alien to me. I'm a methodical person in pretty much everything I do but writing is, in my opinion, not something you can do paint-by-number.

Writing is communication above all. It's a connection from one soul to another. For me, that means I need to figure out how to get what's in my soul into yours - and I can only guess at the path I need to take. Reading someone else's writing shows me the approaches they take, but it doesn't inform me as to why, it doesn't inform me as to what they thought would work and what wouldn't, what they put up as their primary attack and what was a hail-mary play. If it reaches me, it's above and beyond the words and if it doesn't, I only see the clumsiness.

Even then, we're talking about my reaction to the writing, and I am just one person. My take isn't what matters. Here's the first paragraph of George R Stewart's Earth Abides, one of my favorite books:

Just as he pulled himself up to the rock ledge, he heard a sudden rattle, and felt a prick of fangs. Automatically he jerked back his right hand; turning his head, he saw the snake, coiled and menacing. It was not a large one, he noted, even at the moment when he raised his hand to his lips and sucked hard at the base of the index finger, where a little drop of blood was oozing out. "*Don't waste time by killing the snake!*" he remembered.

Not brilliant, not exceptional, but involving. It puts you there. Considering it's a book about the 70 years of civilization following a global pandemic that eliminates 99.999% of the human population, starting with a rattlesnake bite puts you in the seat, as it were. Now compare to the first paragraph of Dan Brown's Angels & Demons -

Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own. he stared up in terror at the dark figure looming over him. 'What do you want!"

"*La chiave*", the raspy voice replied. "The password."

"But… I don't-"

The intruder pressed down again, grinding the white hot object deeper into Vetra's chest. There was the hiss of broiling flesh.

I mean, that's right up there with "twas a dark and stormy night." Who's sold more books, though? So... who has connected better?

In the end, I just let myself be moved by things that are moving, and I draw inspiration from what others are communicating to me, without ever having me in mind, without ever knowing I exist, but taking it on faith that someone out there wants to hear what they have to say.

And that's really about as deep as I go.