Has My Writing Affected My Reading?

Young girl reading (Pixabay - Ben_Kerckx)

Reading is the one pastime I have always enjoyed. For as long as I can remember, my favourite kind of shop has always been bookshops. When my sister and I were little and my mum would take us on shopping trips, her way of ensuring our good behaviour would be to promise us a visit to our favourite bookshop. But that would always be the last shop we’d visit. If we misbehaved, no bookshop. Sneaky, but it worked.

All through my growing up years, wherever I went, I had to have a book with me. Going on holiday, I spent more time choosing books than clothes. Going shopping, I’d gravitate to bookshops, not clothes shops. Any spare money went towards books.

One of my many book shelves

After the boys came along, I made sure they were dressed well, had good shoes and all that jazz. Myself, not so much. I’d go out with the intention to buy clothes/shoes for myself but would inevitably come home with books.

When I started writing, I still made time for reading and enjoyed it as much as ever.

I still love browsing bookshops, I still love buying books.

Lately, though, I can’t help but wonder… has writing affected my 100% unconditional immersion in a story I’m reading?

I used to enthusiastically enjoy close to all the books I’d read, from fantasy and sci-fi to crime and thrillers, with some contemporary fiction thrown in. I don’t read as many books as I used to, and I’m finding the ones I really enjoy are few and far between. And that makes me sad. Because there are so many books out there waiting to be discovered, waiting to be read.

Another of my book shelves

I think the last book I truly enjoyed was ‘Address Unknown’; I read that in early September.

Since then, I’ve read, or attempted to read, four books.

I finished two – enjoyed one, though found the last few chapters too wordy, which seemed to drag down the action; didn’t enjoy the other, but I’m pretty certain that’s down to personal taste as I wasn’t taken with the way the story was told. Technically though, it was well written.

The other two I found a real slog.

The first was a box set of three of a 9-volume series. The story started strong and held my interest and I genuinely wanted to keep reading even after a few things surfaced that started to bug me. It wasn’t until I got into the last third (of a long book) that I finally admitted finding the book annoying. The 30-something ex-Army, policemen buddies behaved more like a couple of teenage boys, but what really annoyed me was the author’s misogyny. I don’t know if he is, but the way he wrote his female characters grated. Willing to give the story the benefit of the doubt, I started the second book but didn’t get very far. It was more of the same.

The fourth book, which I only started a few days ago, I had high hopes for. Again, it started strong before turning, in my opinion, flaccid. Because I ended up speed-reading and flicking through the pages, I won’t say I read and finished it.

So, I can’t help but wonder if I’d have enjoyed the stories, especially the last one, if I wasn’t a writer. When I pick up a book to read, my intention is to lose myself in the world of that story. Yet I find myself noticing things like strange word uses; unclear points of view; wordy, flabby writing… And I end up getting annoyed. And I mind that because I really want to enjoy the story!

I’ll use a couple of examples from the last book I read, only because it’s still clear in my mind. I know it’s a good thing to move away from cliché and come up with a different turn of phrase, but there was something about “white as salt” that pulled me up short. Especially as the scene had nothing to do with salt, nor was there any salt anywhere to be seen.

Would that have bothered me if I wasn’t a writer? I don’t know.

The other example that seems to have etched itself on my brain – “Something brushed Hannah’s hair, and she looked up with a startle.” At first, I thought maybe it was a typo, maybe the author meant “looked up with a start”, but as I got further into the book, I realised it probably wasn’t. There were too many instances of ‘words used differently’. I struggled to get into the story because the word choice and sentence construction felt as if the author was too aware of his writing and trying too hard to be different.

Again, would any of that have bothered me if I wasn’t a writer? Again, I honestly do not know.

I’m not saying I’m a superb, fantabulous writer. I’m still working at it, and I’ll probably never stop working at it.

My point is, having gone through the process of learning the bones of writing, it’s made me too aware of ‘the writing’, which means finding a book I’ll totally enjoy is becoming a rare occurrence indeed.

What about you? Do you find it easy to lose yourself in a book? Or are there certain things that irritate and pull you out of the story?