Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Just goes to illustrate differences. *shrug*
I care about a lot of things when I read: good plotting, good dialog, good action, good word-craft. [...]
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Differences indeed. A book can be all those things to me, but if it doesn't engage me emotionally the best it can hope for is usually a 3/5. I can recognise* the book is well done but I usually just sigh and say that it didn't really work for me (which is my version of saying "connect", I suppose). I've had plenty of those. If that was the best I could hope for I'd probably find a new hobby.
I know a lot of people that mostly read non-fiction, and I had been assuming that that's what happened when people were unable to find emotional involvement in fiction. Turns out I'm wrong ... again.
* Recognising what the author is doing as I'm reading** is something that I've always thought of as a problem. In most horror books I see and recognise the author trying to scare me and it's like watching a "The making of" documentary - it's not scary. Similarly, when I see a fantasy author doing "world building" then I think of it as a failure - I shouldn't be able see it, it should just exist and grow around me.
** I separate my reactions. There is what happens while I'm reading the story as a story, and there is what happens when I think back over what I've read and recognised it as fiction ... and sometimes recognise it as absolute rubbish that I enjoyed immensely.
