This site has ruined reading for me!!

I thought so too once. It hasn't. It has ruined mediocre and poor books for you. Soon, you will enjoy and appreciate brilliant writing and an amazing craft more than you ever could before.

I have that problem big time. in the bookstore, i'll reject a book on the first paragraph. So hard to turn off the editor.but yeah, i agree with storygirl. it's just given you the skills to separate the chaff from the wheat. something like that.

Congrats on becoming a Discriminating Reader. It's no sin to hate bad food or stupid movies either.

Totally agree with all of this but I have less time to read now - I barely have time to write since I joined AW!

BarbaraKE said:

I've read a lot of books in my life. Major plot inconsistencies, gramatical errors, or implausable character behavior would usually catch my eye but I'd pass right over so-so writing. I simply did not notice it.

Now I've learned all sorts of things from this site that I never really knew before. Things like different POVs, Tom Swifties, info dumping, passive sentence structure, tenses, etc., etc. More importantly, I now know enough to look at the writing. And it's ruined recreational reading for me!!

I pick up a book for some relaxation and find myself critiquing it. Agghhh!!

Anyone else find themselves doing this all the time? And is there any way to stop it?

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ALL. THE. TIME.

I have no idea how to stop this, so if anyone here has any good answers, I'll also be waiting eagerly for them.

I got like this for a while.

Now I can kinda switch off and immerse myself in the story, but it is far more difficult for me to just enjoy a book these days.

Sean D. Schaffer said:

ALL. THE. TIME.

I have no idea how to stop this, so if anyone here has any good answers, I'll also be waiting eagerly for them.

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Read better books?

Nicole

I'm having this problem right now with Magician by Raymond E. Feist. Apparently it's a highly acclaimed novel. I think it's horrible, full of cardboard characters and cliche and telling. I've just got past a bit where they go through some old, abandoned, spooooky dwarven mines. I was half expecting the wizard to get dragged down by a big ol' demon or something.

JimmyB27 said:

I'm having this problem right now with Magician by Raymond E. Feist. Apparently it's a highly acclaimed novel. I think it's horrible, full of cardboard characters and cliche and telling. I've just got past a bit where they go through some old, abandoned, spooooky dwarven mines. I was half expecting the wizard to get dragged down by a big ol' demon or something.

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see, this is why i ain't so keen about getting my stuff published any more.

i mean, who wants to have not-quite-a-great-book out there, huh?

OH YEAH! lol Since there's a shortage of Eng. books in the library here I read to pass the time and to satisfy my eye craving English letters. I find myself pleasantly surprised when I find a passage that zings or a certain way of speach or twist that feels good.

Angelinity said:

see, this is why i ain't so keen about getting my stuff published any more.

i mean, who wants to have not-quite-a-great-book out there, huh?

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Well, I have a solution to that. I'm going to write a great book.

As a writer, yes, I have learned to read with a discriminating eye and find that I've become far more particular about reading material.

The moment that really drove home to me how much I critiqued any and everything I read was when I was serving as lector (reads the Scripture during Mass) at church one day and I found myself wanting to rearrange the wording to make it read cleaner and more concise!

JimmyB27 said:

Well, I have a solution to that. I'm going to write a great book.

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heh so you say now, but just you wait til your writing peers get to reading it

Can you people not separate your inner-reader from your inner-writer? I get joy from reading and I get joy from writing, but never the two shall meet. I don't analyze or criticize while reading.

I've always noticed failings in published books, as well, of course, as obvious mistakes. I've been a critical reader since I can remember. But since I started writing, I've found it's enhanced my reading experience. Now I can appreciate when an author does something truly amazing, especially when the writer makes it looks effortless.

CaroGirl said:

I've always noticed failings in published books, as well, of course, as obvious mistakes. I've been a critical reader since I can remember. But since I started writing, I've found it's enhanced my reading experience. Now I can appreciate when an author does something truly amazing, especially when the writer makes it looks effortless.

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Same here. I've always been a critical reader, and not just in terms of bad story. I quit reading a book that had a wonderful premise but the horrifying number of grammatical and punctuation errors within the first 100 pages or so, roughly one per page, actually, made me quit. I later found out it may have been self-pubbed, but that was no excuse.

I've found that I've been reading less fiction, more stuff for my own writing and re-reading the books I do like. But I was doing that before I found AW. Still, since I've been here, it's harder for me to pick up fiction without critiquing.

I had trouble reading before I came here. I used to be able to read amateur writers' atrocious errors and take them in stride, but over time, the Internet just ruined that for me. And to an extent it's still true. The reason I just don't critique people's stuff much is because of all the simple grammar and spelling errors. I realize not everyone can be perfect (and I'm certainly not--look at all my adverbs and commas and repetition), but so many of these are things I learned about in junior high, I can't understand why so many people get so much so wrong! Hence, I refuse to critique a story if the writer hasn't done the basics first. I simply can't focus on the plot and characters, etc., with all those errors glaring at me. Usage of the Net also made it very difficult for me to read regular (published) fiction, but this was more of an attention span/OCD thing (I'd read the same sentence over and over and over, my brain insisting that I hadn't absorbed it the first time even if I had).

That being said, this latter problem seems to be improving a bit, at last. I'm not sure why; maybe I'm trying to convince my brain that I have in fact understood what I'm reading, so move along, please. I also noticed that as I'm reading along in a fictional book, I'm noticing that this otherwise respected and well-loved author is switching his POV all over the place in a way I never would (I used to but learned to stop as I loathed how I did it), and this third book in the trilogy seems much weaker, plotwise, than the first two, and I wonder if he knew what he was doing or just felt a need to finish the story so just tossed this together, and he barely describes any of his characters so the reader can visualize them, and oh look, I think I just caught a little plot inconsistency...

Never really noticed all this kind of stuff before.

I can always tell in the first page or two if I want to read a book. I'm more or less subconsciously looking for something I've heard called "authority" -- a something composed of:

Basic competency in grammar and technique
Character and/or setting and/or action that pops, whether loudly or quietly
Smoothness (or skillful quirkiness) of style
An assured and compelling authorial voice, that most subtle of elements

Hey, I can read with enjoyment ALL kinds of books, from pulpy YAs about vampire-plagued cheerleaders to the most critically exalted classics. But in every last case, the writer has struck me in the first paragraphs as perfectly capable of telling his or her story as it should be told. That authority (hey, it even has "author" in it!) is the common denominator.

Don't worry, the hypercritical reading won't last forever. I've been a critical reader for ages (English major) and over time I've learned to tolerate a certain amount of crap and read just for the story again. I can still "fall into" and get lost in a good book. Badly written books are still torture though (DaVinci Code anyone?).

When I met my husband, a filmmaker, he ruined movies for me. He'd point out boom shadows, cameraman reflections, bad composition and editing choices. Prior to meeting my husband, I had strong "willing suspension of disbelief" and would "fall into" movies as I had fallen into books as a child. I hated him for it for a while but now I appreciate being able to watch movies and appreciate the work that goes into them. Over time, my suspension of disbelief returned, and as with books, I enjoy good movies more, and bad movies less.

It's uncomfortable for a while, but it's worth it to be a discerning reader.

BarbaraKE said:

I pick up a book for some relaxation and find myself critiquing it. Agghhh!!

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That is fncking hilarious!!!!!! I love it!

being an editor can do that to you too.

storygirl said:

I thought so too once. It hasn't. It has ruined mediocre and poor books for you. Soon, you will enjoy and appreciate brilliant writing and an amazing craft more than you ever could before.

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This is so true. Sure, you may be more aware of poor writing. But you're also going to appreciate so much more a good book. Not just for the story or the way the author strings together the words, but also for the effort, the time, and the common struggles that all writers face.

You should try working on a Master's degree in English Lit. The analysis does not stop. Not to mention what (finally) concentrating on the thesis does for your reading focus.

However, like KTC indicated, it is possible to turn off the inner editor-critiquer-student. It just takes a good book and a little practice. You learned to read like a writer. You can learn to turn off that inner-critique, too.