Over the last few years, I’ve probably seen dozens of videos and blog posts that discuss methods and tips on how to read more. But my big breakthrough in reading came when I shifted from reading more to reading more slowly. Reading really slowly fits in nicely with my commitment to mindfulness and presence, but it also made me a better writer and reader. I think we can learn a lot, not by reading more, but by reading with more focus and effort.
Before I started writing fiction I used to be really bad at reading descriptive writing. I read it, but didn’t really read it. Back then, I would often have a general sense of the scene or setting that was being described, but most of the details went over my head.
That changed when I started writing fiction.
To describe a scene (or character, or world) well, first requires you to study how other people are doing it. That means you really have to focus on the details. You have to read slowly with focus and a commitment to understand each sentence fully. So, my quest to write better descriptions, helped me become a better reader.
But you don’t have to be a writer to read better. You can just start to read slowly with meticulous focus.
Reading like that eventually changed how I evaluated books and stories. I realised that I actually appreciated good descriptive writing, sometimes more so than good dialogue or tension. Tension and dialogue are important but if it’s swallowed up by bad prose and bad descriptive writing then forget about it. Also, I tend to admire the older sci-fi writers for their ideas but not so much their prose. (Here’s a related post.)
Learning to read with good comprehension has the added bonus of elevating your reading experience. When you can read a passage and envision the scene that the author describes to a fairly accurate degree, your sense of being in the world increases. The book becomes something that you live in, not just words on a page. That’s what reading is really about.
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