How does writing style influence your reading choices?
A couple of MR discussions have made me wonder just why I like the books I like.
Content and genre aside, there are some authors that I enjoy so much I will read practically anything they write, and others whom I really like the first book I encounter and struggle with the next.
I am a bit ignorant on the subject of writing styles in general and would like to know more. I understand narrative, expository, descriptive and persuasive, but until yesterday I had no idea what second person present tense meant.
Overall I prefer first person present tense, with the narrator being the main character or sidekick.(examples Robert B. Parker, Rex Stout) I also like many books with switching POV’s and books that can go from one timeframe to another, although some of them leave me scratching my head wondering who or when. (Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler was confusing as to timeline in spots but I enjoyed the book)
Descriptive is all well and good, but too much description has me going blah, blah, blah in my head. As does too many rabbits pulled out of a hat.
I like to be able to picture the characters and settings in my mind but I don’t need a whole page or two devoted to the sound of the wind in the trees, although my mother loves things like that. And I am inclined to actively resent pages and pages and chapters and chapters devoted to magic 101 or the complete dynamics behind an alternative reality. (example: Nancy Holzner’s Deadtown series, liked the first, but the second just goes on and on with the demon fighting lessons)
An example of rabbits out of the hat books are The Dresden Files, which I like for the most part, but too many last minute saves by something that seems to have been belatedly poked into the first chapter because the author has dug himself a big hole does nothing for my suspension of disbelief.
I do enjoy my reading and don’t really have to know why I like certain books, but I would kind of like to.
Helen
[attribution: image by Susan Corpuz]
PS
It was pointed out to me by HarryT that I might really prefer past tense and he is absolutely right.