Have you ever been reading a book and found that you’re skimming over sentences, paragraphs, or even pages? I often find myself doing that very thing. Which brought me to wonder, why? Why am I skimming? Why doesn’t this part of the book hold me as tightly as the rest of the book?
For me, it could be one of three problems
It could be a backstory blank-out, pages and pages of backstory that is probably essential, but very boring in long doses. The realisation that I’m skimming often causes a frantic shuffle back through the pages to check whether I’ve missed anything important.
It could be a character white-wall, where the characters have been sitting around a little too long. When that happens, I disconnect from the words and let myself skim until something interesting happens. Unlike backstory dumps, this doesn’t make me flip back.
Then there’s the song syndrome. The moment I see something in verse that’s more than four lines long, I switch off. It’s unfortunate but true. All the best prophesies come in four-liners, so anything longer than that doesn’t seem worth taking the time over.
Though the backstory blankout and the character white wall are both annoying while reading, to me, the song syndrome is the worse. This happens when the book is filled with songs that, while amusing, serve no real purpose to the plot.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a well written song or poem as long as they serve a purpose. But most seem to be added purely for the amusement of the characters, and are rather boring to read.
However annoying these three skim-causing problems are, they do serve a practical purpose for me as a writer. By knowing what causes me to switch off during a story, I know what to avoid. Certainly I won’t be adding poems and songs to my novels any time soon.
So next time you catch yourself skimming, it might be just as well to work out why you’re doing it. You might just catch a problem that could help with you writing.
What causes you to skim in a book? Do you read songs and poems? Or do you skim them like me?
It would surprise me if any book that is supposed to have a compelling deep history behind it escapes from those elements. Often, two of them happen at the same time. Like how there are at least 12 consectutive pages at the beginning of LOTR that are just Gandalf reciting backstory. And later you run into an elvish poem that's 3 pages long. Those parts remain interesting, but you can't help admitting they're really slow.
ReplyDeleteThe Lord of the Rings backstory is ok. I don't mind reading that. But I do find sometimes that the elvish songs go on a little too long. Do you read all the elvish songs and poems?
DeleteI find my self doing the first two a lot. But with the songs and poems i just skip them, i don't even skim.
ReplyDeleteLegolas
I do that a lot with songs I know aren't important. I generally only skim them if there's a chance they might hold important information. I hate flipping back to find stuff I've missed.
DeleteYes. I read every page every time I read it, like most people do, I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteIt must just be me that skips things then. The first time I read a book I generally read everything. Then, if I read it again, I will probably skip things, mainly because when I read it again, I'm reading it for the story, not for an unimportant (to the plot that is) song.
DeleteI also skim quite a lot.. for example, when I see a song or a poem. For example, when I was reading 'The Hobbit' recently, every time I saw a song I just automatically skipped it. Half the time I realized what I did so I went back to read it properly, but even then I was skimming.
ReplyDeleteI also skim when I have a pretty boring book that I have to read.
More people skim and skip songs than I thought. I know they're supposed to add to the world, and give a sense of culture, but I think they often slow the story down too much, which is the main reason I skip songs.
Delete