The Craft of Reading

I’ve been reading and re-reading a lot of books since January. More than usual. I hit a mental wall and had to remember what I enjoyed about story telling. I spent time examining my reactions to the books I was reading and what were the causes.

The things I loved and took my time reading over them, allowing the writer to pull me in were

§  Dialogue, especially witty banter

§  Sexual tension, but it didn’t need to be the actually act of sex

§  Inner conflict, where the hero/heroine was working something out in their head.

I never used to examine my books while I read them but they are my only teaching resource available to me that I actually understand. When I found myself engrossed I flipped back to see how did the author DO THAT?  Lol

Like wise, I found things that popped me out of the story, roll my eyes, or skim ahead.

§  When the sound something makes is used instead of described, like Crash. The vase fell. I’m not sure why but it was as if I’d been slapped in the face.

§  Too much fighting. There’s an art to writing these scenes. Fights where the character is thinking and devising plans inside their head keep my interest but when it is just described with little internal monologue. *Yawn*

§  Pain, discomfort, torture. Oddly this disturbed me. I’m a PNR author, you’d think I was all about the blood lust, but apparently it’s all about moderation. LOL  A chapter about it, I’m fine. Go beyond that and I’m flipping pages.  

I’ve been taking notes and grasping new ideas of how to craft the word magic to lure my victims readers in. 

Are there some things that have come to your attention while reading a book?