Confession: The Parts of Books I Always Skip
Confession: The Parts of Books I Always Skip
Hi friends! I hope we’re all well?
Today’s post is a bit of a discussion/guilty admission. I HOPE YOU WON’T HATE ME ONCE I’VE ADMITTED THIS. So, I’ve always been a bit of a skim reader. I can’t help it, I just NEED TO KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING. So there are parts of books that I rarely read, if at all, and parts that I often find myself skimming without meaning to. It doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book, I’ve been doing it my entire life, and often find myself going back to reread when I’ve skipped over an important bit by accident. If I catch myself doing it though I try to stop… so there’s that.
With no more preamble, let’s get into it!
I skip Long Descriptions
They’re BORING.
That’s the tea, sis. I just can’t. When I’m really into a story, I want fast paced BAM BAM BAM give me the story! I find myself skipping to dialogue when a description gets more than a few lines long. I just don’t care enough about what a place looks like… or even what people look like a lot of the time. I’m so forgetful, I’d have forgotten soon anyway.
Since I’ve been blogging though, I’ve made a concerted effort to actually read most descriptions (I am reviewing the books after all) but it pains me when they’re super long, and let’s admit it, boring.
Artsy poems at the beginning of books/chapters (epigraph)
I get it. The author has spent a lot of time picking this poem (or writing it) and I think they generally have some bearing on the story? But I don’t read them. I mean, I skim them, ish, but they don’t stick. Even when I have read them and they become relevant in the story? I’ve long forgotten them. SORRY AUTHORS. I don’t hate you I promise I just have a weird attention span for these things? It’s so weird I just, can’t? Am I alone in this?
Passages in italics in books
Okay I am VERY aware this is a weird one. Other than occasional words in italics, if there are passages italicised, I can’t focus or take them in very easily. In fact – when I first read Robin Hobb’s books I missed a LOT of plot because of this. The beginning of a chapter had a paragraph or so of italics that were flashbacks or dreams of the character’s past. I didn’t know this though as I NEVER READ THEM. It wasn’t until I reread it years later that I did and was amazed at what I’d missed…
I do TRY to read these things but honestly, I have to really focus.
Okay so I started writing this in March, and then today I saw a post on Twitter about THIS EXACT THING. I AM NOT ALONE IN THIS. See the tweet below.
Does anyone else hate italicised sections of books, usually memories, dreams, or something of that sort. I genuinely groaned in annoyance when I came across these 3 pages (which I’m skipping)? pic.twitter.com/5zWgyQ4zSE
— Rachael Dewhurst (@ReDewhurst) July 1, 2019
So am I alone in these? What parts of a book do you find yourself skipping?
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8 Comments
While I don’t skip epigraphs and italicized passages, I do tend to skim long descriptions if they get a little too verbose and make me lose my place in the actual story line.
I also tend to skim over action scenes a LOT. I don’t need to know who hit who with what and who has a resulting injury. All I need to know is who wins the skirmish. I’m not one of those readers who tries to map out the fight in my mind as I’m reading.
I’m totally the same about skipping poems and/or quotes at the start – i might skim them but generally I just want to get to the story! Great post 🙂
Yay not just me haha! Thank you!
I absolutely hate long footnotes. A quick joke is okay but if the footnote is a paragraph or worse… a page long… I can’t stand it. I didn’t like Nevernight as much as I wanted to because of this.
Ooo this is a good one! Definitely agree.
writingwithwolves.co.uk
I don’t really skip sections in books! I will skim over passages that are violent/gory as I hate that kind of stuff, but that’s about it!
I have *always* missed any poems/quotes/etc from the front of chapters! And I think I’ve also trained myself to skip italics too because they’ve been songs and that in other books!
I definitely skim read descriptions unless something jumps out at me! Lol. I write a lot in italics, especially translations and dreams and stuff, so I read those. But I understand why some people don’t. Lol.