Writing Wrongs

March 01, 2007

Booking Through Thursday


  1. How many books would you say you read in an average month?

  2. In a year?

  3. Over the last five years?

  4. The last 10?

Oh, how embarrassing. I was feeling quite proud of myself that I�m averaging five books per month. Then I read Marianne�s answer. I never used to read this slowly. And part of that number is audio books on CD that I play in the car during my commute. Without those, I�d be insane, seriously.

I could blame time and children and general chaos of daily living and being tired, but one of the biggest reasons I read slowly now is because of writing. I wouldn�t say I analyze everything I read, but I pay close attention to it, what techniques the author uses, what I like, what I don�t.

I know some writers say that writing has �ruined� reading for them. My answer to that is maybe they need to read better books. Okay, I�ll still put a book down (somewhere between pages 50 � 100) if it isn�t working for me. But a lot needs to not work. If I like the time period, the characters, the world building, or whatever, I�ll stick with it even if the writing isn�t all it could be.

I like to read for structure, to see how the author introduced this or that element that then fed into a this plot development, which then made me cry when I reached page 246. It doesn�t diminish the magic for me or pull me out of the story. In fact, I marvel even more that someone was that ingenious as to invent such a thing.

This is one of the reasons I really like audio books. I can�t race through them (not that I�m racing through anything these days), but I can�t skip, can�t peek at the end. Because the story unfolds slowly, I can mull plot points and characterization. I can try to anticipate what turn the story will take, and then be amazed when it does, or doesn�t go that way. (I�m pretty much amazed either way.)

And speaking of audio books, we�re in the middle of more big snow today. I anticipate some serious quality time with Life As We Knew It on the way home. Andrew�s hoping for a snow day tomorrow. He might just get it.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 10:55 a.m.

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