The Odin Protocol OR The Writer, Goofing Off
Sunday, February 26th, 2012 01:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniSo, last night, I gave myself a scare. I picked up Cygnus, and pressed the On button, meaning to reading another paragraph or two of Stealing the Elf King’s Roses. But what came up was not the Galaxy 7.0 Plus home screen, but an Android standing over the words,
DOWNLOAD IN PROCESS
Do not turn off target!
…while in teensy tiny print up in the left-hand corner, it said, ODIN PROTOCOL…and some other things I can’t remember right now.
OhmyghodIbrokemytablet, is what I said. Steve thought matters were less dire, which is how we work — in any given situation, I believe The Worst and Steve believes the Best. Rarely are either of us right.
So, anyway, back to the computer to look up ODIN PROTOCOL, which seemed to fall somewhere between dire and awful. I logged into the Samsung page, tried to email support, but the drop-downs were broken, pinged live chat and got Henry, whose solution to the problem was a hard reboot. Which, I figured, if I was going to do that, I might as well…just…lean…really…hard…and…long on the Off button, and hold my breath.
…which I did and! The tablet rebooted and all is well.
Cabana boy! A glass of wine over here for the grey-haired lady with the cool tech!
Phew.
So, anyway. This morning, I spent a couple, three hours formatting Legacy Systems (an eChapbook containing “Intelligent Design” and “The Space at Tinsori Light”) for Smashthing. It is now up and live, right here Thanks very much to Smashconsumers, for your patience.
“Tinsori Light” has, yes, been taken down from Splinter Universe. And, no; there’s no paper edition of this volume. Still haven’t figured it out.
While I was formatting “Tinsori Light,” I bethought me of something a reader told me at Boskone last week. As I was reading it aloud, she told me, she noticed that there were things going on in “Tinsori Light” that she had missed when she had read it to herself, because she had been so eager to “get the story.”
This intrigues me. I am not, myself, a fast reader, and, as a writer, I sort of hold the opinion that writers put all those words down in a specific order for a reason. Certainly, if there were a way not to have to write 100,000 words to hit Novel, and speaking as someone who is well-known to be lazy, I’d be perfectly pleased to do that.
So, you fast readers — how do you read “for the story” and how do you know which words are important? This is a serious question.
Note: I’m not dissing the woman I talked to; we had a nice chat about reading protocols and the difference between reading to one’s self and reading aloud to an audience, and she helped me forget that my cellphone was dying, so it was all good; but the conversation did get me wondering…which, yanno, may be less good.
Or not.
So –?
Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 06:26 pm (UTC)Interestingly, a couple of the folks I addicted to your work did their first book by reading aloud while on a trip -- so you get a passing grade for nuance.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 06:52 pm (UTC)When I read a story for the first time, if I haven't consciously chosen to read slowly so as to savor the words, I will frequently devour the thing like a kid left unattended in a cupcake shop (OM NOM NOM). But that movie doesn't start inside my head; instead, my eyes pass over the words and my brain goes instantly to the significance behind the words. It's kind of like downloading pure meaning, if that's not too unintelligible. I absorb content words more than function words—I guess that's how I decide what's important.
The inside of my head is kind of weird, I guess.
Like Kathy, if a story grabs me, I will reread it, and I'll usually find new things every time, even the fifth or eighth or twentieth time. Which your books totally support, which is one reason I love them.
Speed Reading
Date: 2012-02-26 06:32 pm (UTC)I don't know what speed readers do. I have heard about "skimmers". I am with you, I read. every. single. word. I often have to read a page or paragraph several times to really get the whole picture.
Reading is very time consuming for me, but I prefer it for most of the fictional story-telling I consume. I will sometimes yield to watching the movie instead of reading the book but only because my "to be read" stack is SOOOO high.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 06:34 pm (UTC)BTW, I have lost track of the number of times I have read your books.
reading, how to get it all
Date: 2012-02-26 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 06:40 pm (UTC)That said? The order you put words down on the page, the resonance of the words, and for you, the "just so" way Laidens see the universe, are all precious to me. I will read an author with a good story once or twice. I will read an author with a good story and prose that sings many, many times.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 06:46 pm (UTC)For me, the story is made up of all the words, like all the little bits of glass in a mosaic make a big picture. Lose all the blue ones (for instance), and you lose a big chunk of the picture.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 06:54 pm (UTC)My first read on one of Diane Duane's Wizard books (High Wizardry, I think), there was a long, action-filled scene that I whizzed through, then turned back a few pages to check whether that minor character had really been Who I thought it was. (Yes, it was.) But first I wanted to know *what happened*. That was an extreme case; usually I'm not even conscious of doing it.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 06:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 06:47 pm (UTC)For me, the story is made up of all the words, like all the little bits of glass in a mosaic make a big picture. Lose all the blue ones (for instance), and you lose a big chunk of the picture.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 11:34 pm (UTC)Then I revel in picking up the nuances that got past me the first time through.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 06:49 pm (UTC)So, apparently, I Brake for Stylists.
(ex: Kari Sperring and Graham Joyce take me longer to read than Lynn Flewelling or Mark Chadborn, although both Mark and Lynn are equally wonderful writers. It's a different kind of engagement for the same reading satisfaction, neither one more nor less. And there are some writers whose work I read quickly, and with absolute enjoyment, but never pause to linger over the perfect formation of a sentence or passage, and some writers who occasionally make me pause, and then speed up again to find out What Happens.)
In other words, I'm probably no help at all. Sorry. :-)
Non-fiction has an entirely different vibe going on, fast vs slow. And when reading-for-edit, it all changes again.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 07:10 pm (UTC)The brain running at 900 words a minute is getting those bits in a long string, and the string makes a picture, and sounds, and color. It's like those drawings of cels, and flipping the pages fast enough makes them look like they are moving.
I re-read, and sometimes find new things. I shoul probably try an audiobook and test whether it is a radically different experience. I suspect it would be. I read much better than I listen.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 07:22 pm (UTC)You must listen to every single word the storyteller tells you -- you can't fastfoward, or skip the icky girl cootie stuff, or jump over paragraphs that look like they have too many words in them. You might zone out, but you're gonna miss stuff. Which is sort of my point.
People who are reading "for the story" are obviously skipping stuff -- but what? I'm interested, truly, in which pieces of mosaic tell enough of the story that the reader doesn't mind not having the whole.
-------
*I know it's popular to teach people how to write stories by using movies as examples, but it's never seemed to me to be either fair or accurate. This is because I don't see a "movie in my head" when I'm reading, or when I'm writing.
I experience a movie as event -- i.e. "It's happening now!"
Reading -- and writing even moreso -- is closer to putting together a puzzle in terms of cognitive effort.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 07:29 pm (UTC)Storytellers tend NOT to do that, and it works better for me.
OK, if there is a paragraph that describes twitches "First he felt a twitch in his right eye, as if his eyelid were trying to shrug off a piece of lint. Then his back below the right shoulder took up the same rhythm. [ccntinue for other body parts.]" -- likely skimming would 1) break me out of the movie and 2) push me into skim -- looking at words and decideng whether they were important and whether they actually conveyed information.
Perhaps "convey information" is the nut of the matter. Seeing no sense makes the words a lot less important.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 05:38 am (UTC)I think a lot of it depends on whether or not one is a re-reader. For example, my father did not re-read books or re-watch movies - he said why, I know what happens. I frequently re-read books and re-watch movies. For your books, reading the interplay between characters is as enjoyable the 15th time as it was the 1st.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 04:45 pm (UTC)It causes problems sometimes when I try to read aloud because my eye still wants to skip ahead but my mouth can't keep up.
re: Odin
Date: 2012-02-26 07:53 pm (UTC)If you don't have it connected to a PC that's sending a firmware update to it, there should not be any problems with turning it off while it's in download mode - it's just in a state of "I'm waiting to receive important files."
And WOW does LiveJournal overreach in its requirements for identifying with other services for posting. For a Google account it wants access to manage my contacts? Um, no. For Twitter, it wants access to post updates as me? Um, no.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 08:08 pm (UTC)To extend the analogy a little more, different territory requires different kinds of travel. There are authors whose writing style means I need a machete to get through. Umberto Eco comes to mind...
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 08:11 pm (UTC)I have four reading modes: analysis, exhausted, normal and scan.
Analysis I read every word and calculate choice, effect and ramifications. Reading in this mode is slow because I may stop six times a sentence to consider how what this word was held to mean in three different cases. This is far slower than the average reader.
Exhausted I think is closest to what regular reading is like - I read the word and consciously comprehend it before moving onto the next word.
My eyes move linearly along the sentence.
Normal reading mode is about 300-350 pages per hour (average paperback.) When I read like this I don't see words - I see sentences, even paragraphs - and yes, changing the placing of one word can change the meaning that arrives in my brain, it's not that I'm solely reading for action words or whatever. So, um certainly for this speed reader, every one of those 100,000 words are required.
Skim reading is faster still, and there I do read for specific words, phrases or events and not necessarily take in too much of the rest.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 08:45 pm (UTC)As a tutor, once in a while, I get the priviledge to see as a students mind undergoes the transformation from reading each word separately and processing the meaning of each word, to a smooth continuous process where the words together unfold meaning in their mind.
Very anecdotaly, I think the earlier your mind has that process happen and the more you read at that age, the quicker you likely read.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 09:12 pm (UTC)I then let it cook on the back brain for a couple of days and in the case of some authors (Lee & Miller for example) I will re-read -this is when I pick up on the more subtle aspects.
I had a high school English teacher who was doing a paper on speed reading and she pulled 10 of us out to analyze what we did.
According to her we automatically keyed on main words and skipped things like conjunctions.
Dialogue and non-verbal communications
Date: 2012-02-26 10:42 pm (UTC)Hm, how do I read? I, too, will read certain novels very, very quickly, yours being at the top of that list. I will then immediately turn around and reread it (as in, not even putting the book down before I begin again).
I do not do this with any book making an argument; I cannot read it as quickly. I have to consciously skim-read those (read introduction and conclusion, first and last page of a chapter, first and last paragraphs of a section, first sentence of paragraphs and sometimes first and last sentences on a page in between) if I need to get through them quickly.
I do not read most novels as quickly as I read yours and a select few others. Here's why I read them quickly: I care about the characters. I want to know they're going to be (in at least some sense of the term) okay.
Here's what I read: dialogue and some of the non-dialogue sentences setting up and/or connecting dialogue. Anything in italics (eye is drawn to them, and they sometimes show what the character is thinking). I'll begin to read non-dialogue sentences, and if they're too much description, I end up skipping them. If they're action, I'll normally read that, although sometimes I find myself having to stop and go back and reread a bit more slowly to capture not necessarily the actions that happened, but the sense/meaning/importance of what happened.
Unlike the readers above who liken devouring a novel to creating a movie in their head, I skip the description simply because I *can't* see most characters, settings, whatever in my head. It's enough for me to know whether it's a safe or unsafe, dark or light, posh or barren landscape. I can't remember what people look like (in real life or in novels), I know how they appear to my intuition. In real life, I depend more on non-verbal communication than most people, I think. The Liaden characters blaze to life in my intuitive eye, read through their dialogue, their actions, their responses, and a vague sense of their surroundings and persons. Because of this, your descriptions of the links between life-mates just make sense to me.
I try really hard to like most fantasy and science fiction that others suggest to me, but many of the books are so description-laden and the characters non-intuitive that it takes me months to read them (because it goes.so.slow. thereby making me not so eager to read it) versus mere hours to read yours and Bujold's and Michelle Sagara's and Georgette Heyer's books. I love Tolkien, but I might as well resign myself to lugging large books around for a year if I'm going to reread him. Also, my mind wanders off when too many descriptions abound, making it even slower, since then I have to go back and reread it again.
Because of this intuitive reading, I also have a hard time with certain books that I may, in the end, love. The first time I read C.S. Lewis's _That Hideous Strength_, I had to put myself in the bathtub and not let myself get out until I was done because the sense of evil is so pervasive. Although I love Madeleine L'Engle's _A Wrinkle in Time_, I have a similar problem with it. I had to read the last Harry Potter book straight through before going to bed because I knew that if I stopped in the middle and tried to sleep, all I'd get was a bunch of nightmares because the characters were in too much danger.
That's probably as clear as mud to someone who doesn't read that way, but hey, I tried. :)
Stephanie
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 10:43 pm (UTC)Err you know seeing this sentence.
The quick brown dog jumped over the lazy fox.
I grab it and process it as one thing instead of stopping to process each word individually. And I do this with a very high comprehension and retention percentage.
That said this kind of reading is vulnerable to interesting misreading. Since your brain is doing pattern matching and it can pick a wrong word to pattern match. Which will bring the whole thing to a screeching halt while I stop to actually look at the specific word in question.
So in answer to the question I'm not skimming and skipping things but getting the whole thing. Still rereading at a slower pace later can be fun because you know the story you can stop to savor the scenery along the way. Err. That is what it feels like on rereading something. I've been there and seen that but this time I stop and smell the flowers and dance at the music festival etc... If that makes any sense.
READING FOR STORY
Date: 2012-02-26 11:13 pm (UTC)I don't think of it as missing all the blue pieces in a mosaic, rather it is more viewing a sketch and then the finished portrait.
I am now skipping things less frequently after taking Lois McMaster Bujold's advice that one can only read something for the first time, once. Thus I carefully refrained from peeking at the end or skipping anything when I read "Cryoburn". I will do you the same honor with Dragon Ship (order placed today)(as I did with Ghost Ship). Lesser authors take their chances.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 11:20 pm (UTC)So I usually read quickly on first read, absorbing that overview. I'll slow down occationally to enjoy the perfect phrase or witty remark, but generally not. Then on reread I slow down. Sometimes I slow down to enjoy the prose - the telling detail, the sensory cues, as muirecan says, stopping to dance at the music festival. Often I slow down to spend time with the characters. I just enjoy it more when I know where I'm going. For one thing, if I get to the end and say, "yuck" (not, I assure you, any of your books), then not only have I not invested as much time, I haven't absorbed the content as deeply.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 12:09 am (UTC)The layering on of detail and nuance is definitely one of the things that makes re-reading a rewarding experience.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 04:10 pm (UTC)Er... talking about Cygnus
Date: 2012-02-27 03:11 am (UTC)Re: Er... talking about Cygnus
Date: 2012-02-27 04:16 am (UTC)The Leewit -- my netbook -- has only the current project on the SD card and the current project is backed up to the
laptopdesktop and to dropbox, so...no worries.More or less.
Re: Er... talking about Cygnus
Date: 2012-02-27 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 05:22 am (UTC)It depends on the book, and on my situation. Generallly I'm like Lewis in AN EXPERIMENT IN CRITICISM. On frst reading, in many books suspense gets in teh way of appreciating the texture and details. After I've been through the story a few times and know what to expect, I can adjust my reading to the pace the author seems to intend.
Even when the book and my situation are just right, I do use different speeds on different passages -- I've been assuming the author probably intended some variation in pace.
I do skip and skim a lot. Partly by (as Steven King said in ON WRITING) the shape of the paragraphs as 'map of intent'. In an action sort of situation, short paragraphs suggest a Bickham-style 'back and forth' between protagonist and antagonist, where everything is likely to be important, and a surprise may happen in any sentence; so I read those rather carefully. (Unless it's obviously blow by blow of some fight or something.) If the short paragraphs are a conversation, then I may read carefully for subtext or skim for casual flow, according to how seriously the characters are talking.
I love L.M. Montgomery’s descriptions, but I do skim them; just as I’d skim that sort of landscape in real life, enjoying the total smell rather than going carefully from one detail to the next.
In exposition, generally the longer the paragraph, the faster I skim, expecting the important point to be in the ‘topic sentence’ and ‘conclusion’, and the middle to be details, probably redundant. Unless the details are especially interesting, of course.
Otoh, if a whole page or more is just short action paragraphs , or just short snappy conversation, I may soon get bored with lack of structure.
Reading quickly
Date: 2012-02-27 11:20 am (UTC)Speed in my case comes from the size of the group of words I see at a given moment. My chunk size is about 5-8 words per view, which can slow down on material that has a lot of unfamiliar words. I admit that there are some authors that will push me into a skimming mode for some material. When someone is expounding on the fictional capabilities of a hypothetical new class of warship I may start doing the actual speed reading trick of first and last sentence of each paragraph and about a 2-4 inch stripe down the middle. This will happen when it's one of those political lectures, specifications on a Multi Drive Missile, or other silly exposition. I don't think I'm missing anything in these cases. It doesn't happen with Liaden novels by the way.
I can listen to audio books, but they are pretty darn slow. The amount of enjoyment I get is very reader dependant. Good reader, good book in those cases. I also can slow down intentionally if I think that I'm not getting the book. That is somewhat rare, but happens with things like Brunner's "Jagged Orbit" or some of Usula K LeGuin's work. I doubt I ever go below 600-800 wpm though.
Technical material (and I do software for a living) I go through at a very high speed. I like to claim that I don't necessarily know anything, but I can find it quickly because I know where it is.
Anyway, one more datum for the question.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 01:41 pm (UTC)I do read for "story" first -- again, piggybacking on another commenter (sorry for coming so late to the party) because I care about the characters and I want to see what happened to specific people.
I reread for subtlety. I just happened to reread the splinter on Daav's encounter with Yuli, and his subsequent introduction to Natessa, and again appreciated with jaw-dropping wonder how you managed to convey (without info dumping) that: Natessa is a force to be reckoned with, that Daav recognized her as such, that he was only moderately reassured by her reassurance, and that by the end of their encounter they were well on their way to being friends in addition to the bond of kin-of-my-kin. Understand, I read all the same words the first (couple of times) through, but the appreciation for your ability to turn a phrase is what keeps me rereading and rereading.
Having something read aloud, especially by the author, allows me to hear the nuances as you meant them when you wrote them. I've gotten better at imagining your reading them to me since hearing a couple of interviews and being able to hear your voice, and also since hearing the cadence of your speech in the address you gave at Colby on "moonlighting."
Please know that every word you write is important. If it weren't, you could just submit an outline, get paid, and we'd all be happy.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 07:29 pm (UTC)For some books, mostly those with lots of action, the first-time reading experience is spoiled a little if I've pre-read part of the book on the web. For others with lots of depth and characters I care about and wonderful language pre-reading enhances the first read experience.
Specific actions and descriptions, specific phrases and images come back to me at odd times, and I'll pick up the book again.
I think writing must be very similar to painting - every word, every brush stroke is essential to create the final image, but the effort the artist/author puts into the work is absorbed differently by readers. Some readers walk by quickly, saying "oh, how pretty" or "not for me". Others stand and stare for a long time, working to see every brush stroke. Others look and then come back, caught by how the colors move and transform the image or comparing it to the next work they saw. We all enjoy it - does it matter how it works?
Barbara
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 11:35 pm (UTC)When I am absorbed in the story, I am unaware of the individual words, unless something throws me out - typos, apostrophes in the wrong spot, 'lose' where it should be 'loose'.
I will notice the prose details on rereading. That is when I will savor my favorite bits and skim over parts I didn't find as interesting (like the actual battles in mil-sf.)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 04:13 am (UTC)1. The English language can be put together in numerous ways and still retain comprehensible information content. However, sentence structure, word choice, and phrasing, by and large, tend to fall into patterns that repeat, across the language as a whole, within an author's works, or even within a genre or writing style. So unless the author is intentionally choosing unusual phrasing or convoluted structures, with enough experience pattern recognition gives you the 'shape' of what to expect in a phrase, sentence, or paragraph.
I sometimes feel that many popular authors in particular tend to have a broad appeal because people 'get' their writing easily; the rhythm and structure conform to accepted conventions and expectations.
2. I agree with some other comments above; not every word in a given conversational phrase is required to understand the intent of the phrase, although arguably reading every single word with deliberation allows a more perfect understanding of the precise nuances. (I use the word conversational to differentiate it from technical or legal writing, in which word choice and precision of phrasing has a more marked impact on comprehension.) Therefore, words like 'the' and 'and' and pronouns, connecting words, and the like tend to get 'blurred' or 'skipped' - sometimes only a single letter glimpsed at speed is enough to interpolate the most likely choice from context within the key and descriptive words. There's a popular example of this effect floating around on the internet - an intentionally scrambled paragraph of text that's still understandable, because the brain 'fills in the gaps' or inserts the correct word in place of an incorrect spelling.
3. Pre-reading / Key word / key phrase comprehension plays a major role. Can you glance at a page and pick out the key words / phrases in a second or two? How about a paragraph ahead, with your peripheral vision? So when your eye's focus hits that part of the page, you already have a clue as to what the most important information is, and are looking for relevant details, recognizing patterns, discarding or filling in 'filler' bits, and moving on. Occasionally you miss something, and have to dart back to infill a word or two, because I find that comprehension lags slightly behind 'input'. In a similar fashion, I can scan through a contract, or a page of legalese, and tell you what sections are boilerplate terms, what terms need review for specificity to this particular situation, but because legal phrasing is much more precise just recognizing those is not usually enough for comprehension. Heavily technical or word-precise documents slow me down significantly.
I have a near-photographic memory for sound and sight, so often if I miss something I don't actually have to look back at it, it's still in my short-term 'mind's eye' - I won't claim to remember everything I've ever seen, but my reading retention is much higher than most people's, based on some studies that I've read. This is not to say that I won't re-read a book; quite the contrary, at last count I had more than 2,000 old friends on shelves at my house.
What I enjoy MOST about re-reading is an author who, upon a re-read provides new insights, new understandings, a clever phrase I hadn't remembered, or a re-visit with characters I enjoyed. Sometimes the insight was there and left to be found.. sometimes it's only within the context of my continuing experiences that it has new meaning. I don't typically find very much left out of my original comprehension on a re-read.. but sometimes some of the subtler nuances take a second look to appreciate.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 01:09 pm (UTC)Fast Readers
Date: 2012-02-28 04:17 am (UTC)Fast readers?
Date: 2012-02-28 04:21 am (UTC)I would hate to be a "speed reader". That wouldn't be any fun at all.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 05:09 am (UTC)However, now that you have me thinking about it, I think that, especially on the first read, I let many details fade into the background very quickly.
For example, if I read that a character is wearing a ruffled purple shirt, it registers but I don't spend a lot of processing on it unless there is another reference to the shirt or I discover as I go on that it is specifically significant for some reason.
Otherwise, I register what that shirt implies. In the case of an elaborate ruffled purple shirt on a man, I'd think "okay, this character is into fashion, possibly a bit of a dandy, and maybe even vain and/or self-involved. And I'll continue to build my impression of that character depending on what further things I see about them--are they fussy about a spill? Did they wear at their spouse's request? Do they just plain like fancy clothes?
So rather than thinking about the specific shirt, I'm paying attention to what it tells me about the character who is wearing it.
Now, if it were Val Con wearing the shirt, I would certainly pay even closer attention because I already know that it's not Val Con's style, and I'd want to know why he's wearing it. Since I've been given a very important detail, I'm not going to place as much importance on the fact that the table is set with fine crystal and there are candles on it (unless of course the ruffles catch fire).
I don't think this is any different than what we do in every day life. If you are looking for your keys on the desk, for example, while you look at each object, you quickly move on to the next object until you see the keys. If you see an object that they might be hidden under, you pause very briefly to pick it up, and then move on.
Another example: If you go to a party and are meeting new people, for example, you briefly register what they are wearing and process what it says about them, then you move your attention to your interaction with this person. The minutiae generally isn't critical aside from the overall impression it gives you.
The only exception to this would be if I were reading a mystery and wanted to figure out whodunit--although I confess that I am generally content to let the author tell the story and enjoy the unmasking of the murderer. ;)
When I re-read it, that's when I pay more attention to specific details, much as you might, having found your keys on your desk, admire the sock that is artfully draped over the desk lamp and wonder what the heck it is doing there. Or, on meeting that person at the party for the second time, I might observe the mother-of-pearl buttons and that the mother-of-pearl has a chip in it on the second-to-the-bottom button.
Re-reading is when I savor a nicely turned phrase or visualize the entire dinner scene, from crystal to candles to ruffled purple shirt. That's why I enjoy re-reading well-done stories--the first time, I extract the meaning, and on subsequent visits, I enjoy the details and textures.
This was amazingly difficult to explain, I hope it makes sense.
reading fast
Date: 2012-02-28 10:56 pm (UTC)However, i am aware of the words and the nuance and the order of the words on some level, because an awkward phrase, or poor research brings me to a screeching halt and i reread the sentence and wince, and shake my head. There's a dystopic alternate history series that i've been following off and on, and the author waxes lyrical about various things blooming, but obviously has never bothered to research what grows where or when it blooms. GAH. Bad speed bump! That NEVER happens with a Liaden book.
There is another series i read, mentioning no names, that pontificates about politics, or how many gazillion bazillion weapons pods were fired at which warships and in what order, blergh. I enjoy the storyline, and some of the characters, but it's not a series that i often reread because i can't savor the writing. the writing is mostly wince-worthy. I've learned that if a chapter starts with a character picking up a phone, or looking at a computer and then starting to reminisce, i can safely skip the next four pages before the real story line starts. Feels like being on a poorly working bumper car ride. Speed, slam, crash, wince, speed, slam, crash, wince.
Liaden books, on the other hand, are lovingly crafted. Each word MATTERS. And when i reread, i savor the story slowly, and treat myself to a chapter a night. The words always please, their order, their cadence.