Reading Short Stories
How do you approach a book of short stories? Save it for a visit to the doctor or the long wait at the airport? Leave it handy on the bedside table? Or do you find each story so compelling you can’t stop reading, and finish the book in a day?
As an author of a collection of eclectic (and weird, some humorous) short stories, I’m fascinated by my readers’ opinions and comments. It’s fun to see which stories achieve “favorite” status, and there has been no consensus there. Some readers have replied back to me quickly, others take longer, so I know the pace of reading an anthology varies.
I found some tips on reading short stories at WritingforCollege.org from the University of Minnesota:
1) Read aloud as often recommended for poetry. Reading aloud often enables you to ‘hear’ words and phrases in a different part of the brain and may place you closer to how the author wrote the story and intends you to understand it. Images, patterns, metaphors may stand out more distinctly.
2) Speed reading. Most people, it appears, read in time with that ‘little voice in the head’, which is a throwback to when you were read to as a child. Speed reading is a strictly visual way of reading and goes much faster. Some say you get more out of a story and remember details better by reading it quickly. You may achieve a better idea of the whole by reading faster.
3) Preview. Whether speed reading or at your normal pace, it may help to preview a story by skimming and looking over the key elements of the story. This may add to your comprehension and appreciation as you dive into enjoying the narrative. But you might want to wait for the ending until you savor the whole story!
The WritingforCollege website also contains tips on previewing and skimming longer texts.
I am here recommending a few short story collections I recently enjoyed very much: “Between You and Me” by Scott Nadelson and “Something is Out There” by Richard Bausch. BTW, my short story collection, “Night in Alcatraz: and Other Uncanny Tales” is still available online.
As an author of a collection of eclectic (and weird, some humorous) short stories, I’m fascinated by my readers’ opinions and comments. It’s fun to see which stories achieve “favorite” status, and there has been no consensus there. Some readers have replied back to me quickly, others take longer, so I know the pace of reading an anthology varies.
I found some tips on reading short stories at WritingforCollege.org from the University of Minnesota:
1) Read aloud as often recommended for poetry. Reading aloud often enables you to ‘hear’ words and phrases in a different part of the brain and may place you closer to how the author wrote the story and intends you to understand it. Images, patterns, metaphors may stand out more distinctly.
2) Speed reading. Most people, it appears, read in time with that ‘little voice in the head’, which is a throwback to when you were read to as a child. Speed reading is a strictly visual way of reading and goes much faster. Some say you get more out of a story and remember details better by reading it quickly. You may achieve a better idea of the whole by reading faster.
3) Preview. Whether speed reading or at your normal pace, it may help to preview a story by skimming and looking over the key elements of the story. This may add to your comprehension and appreciation as you dive into enjoying the narrative. But you might want to wait for the ending until you savor the whole story!
The WritingforCollege website also contains tips on previewing and skimming longer texts.
I am here recommending a few short story collections I recently enjoyed very much: “Between You and Me” by Scott Nadelson and “Something is Out There” by Richard Bausch. BTW, my short story collection, “Night in Alcatraz: and Other Uncanny Tales” is still available online.
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Sheila
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Mar 14, 2017 09:04PM
Interesting. I don't speed read short stories so much as novels, so short story collections usually take me longer to read. I don't read aloud either, though I do hear the voice in my head as I read. I wonder why the voice in my head doesn't sound wrong like it would if I were playing a tape on high speed. Maybe my brain has that clever software so the pitch stays the same even when the story plays at high speed.
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Interesting comment! So you still hear the voice even while speed reading, although it's at normal pitch! Maybe if you silenced the voice you could read even faster!
Jean wrote: "Interesting comment! So you still hear the voice even while speed reading, although it's at normal pitch! Maybe if you silenced the voice you could read even faster!"Ah, but who wants silence!
