What Kind of Reader Are You?

Are you an observer? Or are you a participant.
Do you view a story? Or do you live it?

It came as a shock to me when a friend, who teaches college English and literature, said that she is acutely cognizant of style when reading.

"What?" I said. "How do you lose yourself in the story when you do that?"

Her answer was that she doesn't lose herself in the story.

It more than boggled my mind; it offended my sense of what successful story-telling is. I always identify with a character, and live a story rather than just follow it. As far as style is concerned, I think that if a reader notices the style while reading, the author has failed. The author, it seems to me (and I've always assumed), must be like the Wizard of Oz: absolutely invisible behind that curtain.



Anything—and I mean anything that takes the reader out of the story, whether it is a typo, an odd word, a hole in the plot, or even attention-grabbing style, destroys the illusion. It breaks the spell. And if the reader isn't spellbound, the writer has failed to deliver on what he has promised.























As Emily Dickinson wrote:

"There is no frigate like a book."

One must sign on and stay the course in order to savor the world tour for which he has paid passage.

What sort of reader are you?