On reading while being a writer...

[agilebrit]

So, I picked up a book called "Dog Days," by John Levitt, at the library yesterday. Because if you have a dog in there (even if it's not quite a dog), I'll read it.

And it's all right, I guess. It's different enough from Dresden that it doesn't feel too much like a rip-off, although the coattails are fairly obvious to anyone who's paying attention. And there's nothing wrong with that.

My problem is that Levitt has built a world here that requires a good bit of explanation. And it's not that his explanations are bad, or boring, or clunky. His narrator is entertaining enough, after all.

It's just that I'm noticing the exposition.

And I'm at the point where I don't know if I'm noticing it because I'm a writer who hates writing exposition, or a reader who's seen all this before. And it's interfering with my enjoyment of the book.

I used to be able to read for reading's sake. I'm...not sure I can do that anymore. And that makes me kind of sad.

Comments

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

I remember when I began to see actors on the screen instead of characters, could see the special effects happening, and started noticing clunky segue ways. It did take some of the magic out of the movies, but it just means that the good ones are really appreciated now.

I used to be able to read almost anything, but now I'm thrown right out of a story if I see too many seams in the garment.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I understand why I'm seeing the seams. I don't have to like it.

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

You may remember Mark Twain's famous observation that when he became a riverboat pilot, in the process all the beauty of the river was lost to him. He no longer saw a pretty sunset over a rippling expanse of clear water - what he saw now was a landscape of currents and snags and soundings and clearances. It's something like the way Neo perceived the world as Matrix code instead of its normal appearance: Twain had learned to see the mechanism, the clockwork instead of the clock face.

You've lost your innocence, is what it is: You're a writer yourself, now.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Yep. And it kinda sucks.

Ah well. I guess that means it's that much sweeter when I read a book and don't realize that an author is doing all that stuff.