The novels of Sarah Waters (Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith) have a typical milieu (Victorian, sensual, layered) that require a high degree of research. Her characters are always lively and well-drawn but the worlds they move through have to be very carefully constructed.

But according to Waters, learning to write as she does is about more than research. It’s about reading not just for material but for tactics:

While you’re writing, read like mad – but read analytically. You will never be able to put a book together without an understanding of how other books work. I suspect that this is more a matter of instinct than anything else – but you can nurture that instinct by looking at other texts and thinking, ‘What’s successful here? What’s failing? And why?’

If something worked for one writer (a plot twist, a manner of description, a way of getting readers to side with an unlikeable protagonist), there is no reason to think it won’t work for you.