Speed Readers

[Mistook]

Does anybody share my nightmare that after slaving over a manuscript for years, and grieving over every last word, you publish your novel, only to have a speed reader breeze through it in half an hour?

[scribbler1382]

Whether they read it in half an hour or half a year, you make the some royalties off the purchase. And since you'll be busy working on your next book, you won't have time to worry about it. :)

[reph]

It can take an hour to cook a meal and 20 minutes to eat it, but we're not going to stop cooking – or eating – for that reason.

[maestrowork]

If a reader can finish your book in half an hour and understand and get your story -- congratulations! You should be SO proud.

What I dread is for someone to spend 5 years reading my book, and eventually give up. That would be totally depressing.

[Mistook]

Whether they read it in half an hour or half a year, you make the some royalties off the purchase. And since you'll be busy working on your next book, you won't have time to worry about it. :)


Yeah, the money would be nice of course. But we don't just write for money.

[sunandshadow]

I try to read books at one sitting (which means a day, not half an hour) because I think my reading does the book more justice that way - the careful buildup of suspense isn't broken by me thinking about something else for hours. I would be horrified if somebody read my writing one paragraph a day, they would never get the full effect or remember the beginning by the time they got to the end.

But think positive - think about the handful of readers who will like your books so much they'll read it more than once! :)

[aruna]

Does anybody share my nightmare that after slaving over a manuscript for years, and grieving over every last word, you publish your novel, only to have a speed reader breeze through it in half an hour?

I couldn't giev a damn how quickly or slowly people read my books!

Speed readers actually take in a lot more than you'd think. My son is a speed reader. When he was about ten I was amazed at how quickly he read books , and thought he was just skimming. But he really understood - and enjoyed - the books and could answer quedtons on the content. He's now 19 and doesn't read much, but recently he was in hopsital for a day and took a couple of novels. In one day he had finished two and knew exactly what was in them.

[ted_curtis]

I'm unpublished, and my personal nightmare is that I'll slave over every word for more than 4 years and the vast majority of readers will hate my book. Oh, and they'll let me know...emails, letters, stopping me in the grocery store.

But I know what you mean. We obsess over details that most people don't notice. I think it's the same with musicians, illustrators, architects -- doctors and lawyers, too. But I think sweating the details makes a difference. Even if the reader can't tell you why, they know a good book from a bad one.

[Birol]

Does anybody share my nightmare that after slaving over a manuscript for years, and grieving over every last word, you publish your novel, only to have a speed reader breeze through it in half an hour?

No. I have to say, this is one paranoia I haven't experienced. 'course, as a reader, I know that the more I enjoy a book, the faster I read it, to the exclusion of everything else. The same is true of my reading but non-writing friends.

[Kallahan]

I read my books on the john, it tends to add yet another careful buildup of suspense. I also read in my bed, which I might add is a horrible idea, I never get any sleep. Sometimes I read on a couch.

The issue at hand, however, has neer been a concern of mine. Rather I wonder wether or not they enjoy reading my book.

edit: I used "tends to" twice in the same sentece, time for sleep.

[katiemac]

No. I have to say, this is one paranoia I haven't experienced. 'course, as a reader, I know that the more I enjoy a book, the faster I read it, to the exclusion of everything else. The same is true of my reading but non-writing friends.

I'm with Lori here. The faster I read, the more I like the book. I've always been a fast reader, anyway, and will gladly down a novel a day if I have the time. It's great feeling. Plus, all the details are fresh in my mind so I can run off and tell people about it when I'm still excited.

[maestrowork]

My concern is not whether my readers would read it fast... it's whether they would read it again!

The sound of rapid page turning could be a very pleasant one...

[LloydBrown]

Does anybody share my nightmare that after slaving over a manuscript for years, and grieving over every last word, you publish your novel, only to have a speed reader breeze through it in half an hour?

Michael Stackpole (author of I, Jedi and Once a Hero and dozens of others) said in a seminar at GenCon something close to "If you write a novel that is what they call a page-turner--that is, a book that people stay up all night reading because they can't put it down--they'll say it's a great book even if it isn't."

So that's my goal. I don't care if it's a great book, as long as the reader feels compelled to read it through in one sitting.

[PattiTheWicked]

Does anybody share my nightmare that after slaving over a manuscript for years, and grieving over every last word, you publish your novel, only to have a speed reader breeze through it in half an hour?

No. My nightmare is that they'll read through the first half really fast and decide it sucks, and never finish it.

Seriously - I read very quickly, and can finish most books in a day or two if uninterrupted. It doesn't take away from how much I enjoy the book. I'm usually reading three or four books at a time, and some books I read simply BECAUSE I know I can finish them in a day or two.

Bottom line is, if they like it enough to finish it, I'm happy with that.

[karenranney]

that she read my book in one sitting. Or something like, "I kept reading a straight six hours until I finished it!"

Okay, on the one hand, it's a great compliment. On the other, I do wish they'd take longer.

[KimJo]

One of my beta readers told me he read the second novel in my YA series in 45 minutes. (It's about 40,000 words.) Obviously a shorter YA is going to be a faster read than, say, a 700-page novel, but still. He also said that he couldn't put it down till he finished it, which I took as a good thing.

[mistri]

I read fairly quickly, and yes, there are times when I wonder if I read *too* quickly (I sometimes have to go back and read a section if it didn't sink in the first time, but then again, maybe that's because it was written awkwardly). At the same time, I think reading so quickly enables me to see the book as a whole more easily (when I used to read books on a short commute to read it'd take me an age to read one) and thus I get more involved with the characters, the story, the emotions and so on.

[AdamMac]

Mistook. Maybe you could try writing a novel aimed at speed readers. A multi-layered epic fantasy of a goodly 8,000 words. Delete every third word and avoid anything but nouns and verbs.

Nah. On second ..., ... doesn't ... appealling ... me.

``Speed reading'' sounds to me like an oxymoron, as do ``sailboat racing'' and ``working holiday.'' I just can't understand how somebody can enjoy racing through a novel and be entertained. Surely speed readers must miss something. Do they also watch movies on fast forward?

Still, I would rather have a speed reader skim my writing and enjoy it than a reader digest it only to decide it's not very good.

[sunandshadow]

Surely speed readers must miss something.

What is the definition of speed reading, anyway? I read about 50 pages an hour, so if I have nothing else to do that day I can read a 600 or 700 page novel in a day, and a shorter novel in an afternoon/evening. Is that speed reading? I can assure you that I don't miss anything, my scores on reading comprehension tests have always been very high. That's just my natural reading speed, the speed at which I can take in well-written prose and convert it into meaning in my brain. I once met a girl whose reading speed was amost twice mine, and she also had a very high comprehension level of what she read.

It's not like we're forcing ourselves to read faster than we should. Some people are just faster than others. If I were to speculate I would say that fast readers are probably those who started reading at a very young age and always read a lot, which attunes your brain to reading, the same way playing music as a child attunes your brain to music. Also, fast readers typically are better at blocking out distractions in their reading environment, so they lose less time from breaks in their concentration.

[maestrowork]

I look at it like cooking... or specifically, my dad's gourmet cooking.

During an important event (like New Year), my dad'd slave for two days in the kitchen preparing dish after dish of exquisite food for the family banquet. Sometimes even as we gather at the table, he'd still be working in the kitchen (because some dishes, such as fish, needs to be cooked just right, down to the seconds). The work he'd put into making these dishes is incredible. The details. The processes. The ingredients. The time and effort.

Then there's the eating. All it'd take is an hour for us to devour everything. The better the food, the faster it goes. And my dad gets the utmost enjoyment seeing how we enjoy the food and how quickly we chow down everything. The sounds of our slurping, munching, or our bowls and plates clanking are like music ot his ears.

I'd like to be my dad some day. My writing is my food. And you, my guests!

[LloydBrown]

What is the definition of speed reading, anyway? I read about 50 pages an hour, so if I have nothing else to do that day I can read a 600 or 700 page novel in a day, and a shorter novel in an afternoon/evening. Is that speed reading?

Average reading rate is 200-250 wpm. I read casually at about 650 and can manage up to 1500 wpm without any substantial loss of comprehension under certain circumstances.

My father, an editor/journalist with nearly 50 years at a newspaper, can apparently read a page of type like I can sight-read the total of a pair of dice. It's mind-boggling.

[Mistook]

When I think of speed-reading, I think of special courses a person can take to learn how to read at break-neck speed. A speed-reader of this kind usually holds their fingers under the current sentence and scans the page with both hand and eye.

Supposedly if you master this method, you can whiz through a 400 page novel in about twenty minutes.

I don't have any problem with naturally fast readers, though I have to admit I don 't understand them. My mind is always wandering, and I find it quite difficult to focus on reading a book. I ponder as I read, which slows things down quite a bit. When I find myself really enjoying a chapter, I usually go back and read it again before moving on. I guess you could say I'm savoring it.

I do the same thing with music. The more I like a song, the more I'll hit rewind to hear it again from the start - each time focusing on a different facet of the music and pondering how it all works together.

[AdamMac]

Sunandshadow and Lloyd Brown,

I, like mistook, think of speed reading as a special technique used to skim, digesting only key words. I read a book on it once with an eye to use it to study in university. It would probably be very useful for that but I can't imagine it would be very enjoyable. In other words, speed reading, to me, is forcing yourself to read faster than you should.

I envy the ability to read naturally at three times the average speed and still retain a high level of comprehension. That said, I also enjoy pondering. A particularly powerful image or poignant line will leave me staring off into space as often as it has me flipping the page. And then there's the notes. I can't get through a chapter of any book without picking up pen and notepad at least once to jot down collateral ideas.

[Niapri]

Does anybody share my nightmare that after slaving over a manuscript for years, and grieving over every last word, you publish your novel, only to have a speed reader breeze through it in half an hour?

Honestly, I have to admit to being one of those referred-to speed readers. http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif I, personally, don't "breeze" through any book...it's just that I sort of get caught up in the story and the only thing in my mind is "What's about to happen?!" When I finish, I don't move onto some random other book...I just sort of sit there and think, sometimes talk about the book to my friends.

Speed readers can appreciate your novel, even if they spend less time reading it. The majority of us speed-readers just don't think about the time it takes to read, just the story and the characters. (Not to mention the fact that most of the ones I know - including myself - re-read the books multiple times.)

Show the speed-demons some love! http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[KTC]

As Dr. Seus once said, "You have to be a speedy reader, because there's oh so much to read!"

My only hope is that they read my book. Whether they read it fast or slow is beyond my worrying about.

[aruna]

Mistook. Maybe you could try writing a novel aimed at speed readers. A multi-layered epic fantasy of a goodly 8,000 words. Delete every third word and avoid anything but nouns and verbs.

Nah. On second ..., ... doesn't ... appealling ... me.

``Speed reading'' sounds to me like an oxymoron, as do ``sailboat racing'' and ``working holiday.'' I just can't understand how somebody can enjoy racing through a novel and be entertained. Surely speed readers must miss something. Do they also watch movies on fast forward?

Still, I would rather have a speed reader skim my writing and enjoy it than a reader digest it only to decide it's not very good.

The problem is here is that non-speed readers think that speed readers read the same as they do - it's not true. Natural speed readers don;t NEED to read every word; they are intuitive readers who can somehow absorb the sense of a word or a text in a non-cognitive way that seems very mysterious to others.

There are some children who teachers believe can't read. That's because they stumble over every word and can't seem to get it out. But get those same children to read silently, and they reach the end of the text before the "good" readers are halfway through. The trouble is that in schools, reading aloud, where you HAVE to speak each word, is taken as the measurement of good reading - it's not.

I never grasped this until, in desperation because my daughter "could not read", I came across the book RIGHT-BRAINED CHILDREN IN A LEFT-BRAINED WORLD: UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF YOUR ADD CHILD (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684847930/qid=1119539633/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-8136198-0205550?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Laurie Parsons, Jeffrey Freed And a light went on for me.

I quote:

"Right-brained learners are not limited to reading every word and repeating it in their head, as left brained people must do to attain good reading comprehension. Their minds move quickly and visually."

In reality, my daughter could read very well , and very quickly - it's just that she was not able to slow down in order to read aloud as required in class. She grasped texts intuitively. I myself have an inborn aversion to reading aloud, or to hearing anything read aloud. I have to admit that the one recommended exercize for writers I NEVER do is the reading-aloud test. I need to "hear" and feel the words in my mind.

[Mistook]

The problem is here is that non-speed readers think that speed readers read the same as they do - it's not true. Natural speed readers don;t NEED to read every word; they are intuitive readers who can somehow absorb the sense of a word or a text in a non-cognitive way that seems very mysterious to others.

There are some children who teachers believe can't read. That's because they stumble over every word and can't seem to get it out. But get those same children to read silently, and they reach the end of the text before the "good" readers are halfway through. The trouble is that in schools, reading aloud, where you HAVE to speak each word, is taken as the measurement of good reading - it's not.

I never grasped this until, in desperation because my daughter "could not read", I came across the book RIGHT-BRAINED CHILDREN IN A LEFT-BRAINED WORLD: UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF YOUR ADD CHILD (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684847930/qid=1119539633/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-8136198-0205550?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Laurie Parsons, Jeffrey Freed And a light went on for me.

I quote:

"Right-brained learners are not limited to reading every word and repeating it in their head, as left brained people must do to attain good reading comprehension. Their minds move quickly and visually."

In reality, my daughter could read very well , and very quickly - it's just that she was not able to slow down in order to read aloud as required in class. She grasped texts intuitively. I myself have an inborn aversion to reading aloud, or to hearing anything read aloud. I have to admit that the one recommended exercize for writers I NEVER do is the reading-aloud test. I need to "hear" and feel the words in my mind.


This is fascinating. Maybe I AM writing for speed readers, because one of my goals for the style I'm developing is to have the words become "invisible". In other words, I want the writing to flow so easily, that it isn't even thought about, and the reader's internal movie projector takes over.

Part of this is an obsession with laying out the visuals (and other senses) of a scene in an intuitive order. Kind of like the "inverted pyramid" of the journalist, where the biggest thing comes first, then the smaller details are worked in. I've read too many books where it feels like the peices are given out of order, requiring me to pause and put the picture together like a puzzle, before moving on.

[PattiTheWicked]

The problem is here is that non-speed readers think that speed readers read the same as they do - it's not true. Natural speed readers don;t NEED to read every word; they are intuitive readers who can somehow absorb the sense of a word or a text in a non-cognitive way that seems very mysterious to others.



I've tried over and over again to explain to my husband -- who is not only a non-speed reader, he's barely a reader -- how I can look at a clump of text as a whole and not break it down into separate words and sentences.

It's like when I'm playing along with Jeopardy, and I always shout out the answer before Alex Trebek has finished reading the question. It's because I see the whole sentence and zap in on key words, which just make sense to me in the structure they're in.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who deals with this.

[AdamMac]

The problem is here is that non-speed readers think that speed readers read the same as they do - it's not true. Natural speed readers don;t NEED to read every word; they are intuitive readers who can somehow absorb the sense of a word or a text in a non-cognitive way that seems very mysterious to others.


I hope I quoted correctly.

That is fascinating. It may be beyond my comprehension but I'd like to try to understand. It could be useful for a writer.

Last week, Uncle Jim posted "In the Neolithic Age" as a writing assignment on the Learn Writing thread. I don't know how to link to that thread but it directed us here: http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/volumeXI/neolithicage.html

It ain't a breeze to read but rewards careful perusal. How would this be digested by a very fast reader? Would they simply have to slow down?

This is actually a bit off topic because I think we were originally discussing speed reading as a forced technique to skim text, which seems better for non-fiction than fiction. At least I was. Somebody who is forcing himself to read fast, because of a deadline or somesuch, is going to miss things and probably not run to a dictionary. I'm more curious now about naturally very fast readers. Can they also whip through more difficult texts with greater ease than most? I'm not referring to vocabulary. Everybody needs a dictionary now and then. I'm referring to denser, or antiquated, or maybe poorly-written text.

Thanks, Adam

[aruna]

This is actually a bit off topic because I think we were originally discussing speed reading as a forced technique to skim text, which seems better for non-fiction than fiction. At least I was. Somebody who is forcing himself to read fast, because of a deadline or somesuch, is going to miss things and probably not run to a dictionary. I'm more curious now about naturally very fast readers. Can they also whip through more difficult texts with greater ease than most? I'm not referring to vocabulary. Everybody needs a dictionary now and then. I'm referring to denser, or antiquated, or maybe poorly-written text.

Thanks, Adam

Let me quote from the book in question:

....I discovered this quite by accident when I was studying for my master's degree in education. One night while cramming for a final the next day, I was quite surprised to find that reading quickly actually improved my comprehension. Just one reading would give me general concepts; when I needed a more detailed retention of the material, I would scan the text three or four times.

I was amazed to find that I could read a four-hundred-page book in just one hour and scan it three or four times in a two-to-three-hour session. By the third reading the book was mine; I could quote it chapter and verse. While I at the time assumed I was some sort of "freak" for having this ability, my work with right-brained children has shown me just how many other "freaks" are out there and how universally this reading technique can be applied. (Jeffrey Freed)

[aruna]

[QUOTE=Mistook]one of my goals for the style I'm developing is to have the words become "invisible". In other words, I want the writing to flow so easily, that it isn't even thought about, and the reader's internal movie projector takes over.

QUOTE]

I am exactly the same. When I read "brillinatly written" books by literary aithors who have a gift for words, I often think that even though the writing itself is admirable (and I do envy it) it actually gets between me and the story. I used to feel very inadequate as I could never deliver such verbal pyrotechnics (example: The God of Small Things); but recently I came to the conclusion that for me, good style is writing where the words are so perfectly chosen they disappear; they are like portals, drawing the reader into the story. I used to agonize becuase words could never ever convey the exact scene or the exact feelings I have in mind while writing; and it's that vision, that feeling, I want to impart to my readers.

An example: in my last novel, I have a long-time happily married couple, who when they first met danced to Louis Arnstrong's A Kiss to Build a Dream On. That becomes "their song"'; they love to dance to it in the evening; it sums up their relationship. While writing, I played that song over and over again in order to conjure up that feeling; I know there are readers who have never heard it, but I just felt that the words I used to describe the dance and the song are "loaded": they contain the essence of that scene. Through some sort of "magic", the reader should feel the same. The words themselves are only the means for the reader to picture them dancing, and to conjure up the feeling that goes with it. If it works properly, the words themselves are unimportant; they are only portals, or keyholes.

Which means they have to be chosen all the more carefully.... The more invisible they are, the more I have to work to make them sound easy!

[AdamMac]

Wow! That's very enviable.

I haven't read the book but I understand it's about people born with different abilities. I'm not sure that would include all fast readers though.

As for we slower readers, I now wonder if forcing ourselves to read faster might actually improve comprehension as well. Perhaps it would actually force me to concentrate more, kind of like the idea that a driver will pay greater attention when he's racing at 200 kph than when he's meandering down a country road. I'll give it a try tonight.

Adam

[Mistook]

nevermind, I have to go to bed now.

[Niapri]

I hope I quoted correctly.
Last week, Uncle Jim posted "In the Neolithic Age" as a writing assignment on the Learn Writing thread. I don't know how to link to that thread but it directed us here: http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/volumeXI/neolithicage.html

It ain't a breeze to read but rewards careful perusal. How would this be digested by a very fast reader? Would they simply have to slow down?


For just a little experiment, as I've never timed myself reading before, I went to this link and did so; I started my stopwatch and kept a running tally.

1 min, 56 seconds to actually read the words and get the gist of the poem. This is what I would do when scrambling to read something for...say, a test. I have to admit, I honestly didn't get much out of it at first except the rhyme and rhythm.

2 min, 55 seconds to actually look at the poem again and understand the words I'm looking at, rather than just listening to the pretty words in my head.

Then I looked up the really...strange words, and that was all she wrote.

I'm honestly not very good with most poems; I only like to read them out loud, because it makes me slow down. Poems are difficult for me to read and understand, and I usually have to read them several times to understand the theme and such. The first time I read it is mainly for the general feeling it gives. Fiction I always get the first time through, then stop at the end to think.

(Just a quick question: Has anyone here had to do a "dialectical journal" before? Or is it a recently derived torture for speedy readers?)

[fallenangelwriter]

I am a speed-reader. I never specifically tried, it's just how I learned to read.I don't read every word, and i don't find any need. i pick out the main parts of a sentence or paragraph and understand what's going on. I do miss things occasionally, i've recently realized. not key thigns, but i don't absorb as much of the description as i might. lately , i force myself to slow down a bit to make sure i'm absorbing things. i also enjoy re-reading books mroe than most people i know presumeably because i notice detaisls (both description and minor characters/events which didn't merit their own praragrapha nd might have been glossed over), but i read quickly so i can afford to re-read.

yes, some writing forces me to slow down. poetry, for instance, i can't read any faster than anyone else. even in prose, especially poetic writing take slonger ot read, because the more metaphors and similes involved, the more words i have to read to understand it.

I wouldn't say i'm a detriment to authors, and in fact, speed-readers are probably the foundation fo the publishing business, since they woulld presumeably buy more books.

[maestrowork]

I speed read. When I try to crit someone's work, though, try to slow down and read every word and it's not easy to do. Sometimes I spend days just to read through one chapter because I have to read every word. In real life, I don't. I skimp (one of the reasons why I post so much here -- I read fast, and I type fast).

My question is, what does it mean to the writers? What if you're a right-brained child writing a novel? Frex, I tend to skip details when I write really fast. But when I have to slow down, I agonize over every word... it's kind of a weird thing...

[aruna]

My question is, what does it mean to the writers? What if you're a right-brained child writing a novel? Frex, I tend to skip details when I write really fast. But when I have to slow down, I agonize over every word... it's kind of a weird thing...

I'm a speed writer. The first draft comes so quickly (if it;s coming at all) that I can hgardly stop. Typing is frustrating because the whole scene is present at once in my mind and my fingers jus can't keep pace with my mind - that's also the reason I make so many typos. I wish there was some device that linked your brain to the keyboard and all your thoughts just materialised as words!

I never learned to type properly and that's the only thing slowing me down in this phase; I get down 1000+ words an hour, but I only work two hours a day. Even so, my current novel was finished in exactly two months, as a first draft.

In all subsequent drafts I slow down completely. At the moment - almost seven months after the first draft was completed,. I am doing a line edit; every word is scrutinised and agonised over. I find that I love this kind of work. All the tension of creating the novel, or rearranging things, getting the content right, is over (at least for the time being!) and I get to relax and play around with words. In English class when I was about 14-15 we did something called precis, which I loved - you were given a clumsily written text and had to polish it till it shone. It seems to me that kids don't do this any more, but I remember being very good at it, and loving it. And now it's actually serving a purpose, unlike so much in my education.

[Mistook]

I speed read. When I try to crit someone's work, though, try to slow down and read every word and it's not easy to do. Sometimes I spend days just to read through one chapter because I have to read every word. In real life, I don't. I skimp (one of the reasons why I post so much here -- I read fast, and I type fast).

My question is, what does it mean to the writers? What if you're a right-brained child writing a novel? Frex, I tend to skip details when I write really fast. But when I have to slow down, I agonize over every word... it's kind of a weird thing...


Because I'm a slow reader, I tend to write with sympathy for slow or distracted readers like myself. I try to streamline everything to be as lucid as possible. With everything being revealed here about the way speeders read, I'm starting to think my novel might be dangerous to you people.

You may end up having a seizure or a nose bleed or something :)

I mean, from what I'm learning here, speed readers tend to see the keywords and infer the rest, but the way I'm trying to write, is to more or less boil it down to only the keywords and leave the rest out. So to a speed reader it's either going to look like a blank page, or it's going to induce halluscinations. :)