Too much analysis is killing my reading buzz

Illustration copyright Matt Clare at Mono Design

I love reading. Fiction, non-fiction and of course, memoir. But it wasn’t until I started writing a book that I have found myself analysing books as I read them.

Do you remember what you were like when you first started uni? I was the strident know-it-all in the corner of the party boring everyone to tears reiterating something I barely understood.

After growing old enough to realise I knew next to nothing about next to nothing, I had thought those days were behind me. But alas, the uni student is back. Luckily for most of my friends the conversations I am having are mostly going on in my head as I read. They go something like this…

Uni me: Wow! That was the point of no return. Do you see how there is no way the character can keep living his old life now? I could think of about five different way this could go now.

Reading me: Shut up, I am reading.

Uni me: Look at the way they split that story to create suspense. I think I need to split some of my stories like that.

Reading me: Shut up, I am reading. But now I am also thinking about my own book, which I don’t want to do right now because I am reading.

Uni me: That was the moment of transformation at the end of the second act. See how the character has had to change into someone they never thought they would be…

Reading me: Great. You have completely distracted me from the storyline and I am now anxious that my book doesn’t have any moments of transformation. Could you give it a rest? Seriously. I just want to get lost in the story. Is that too much to ask?

Books have always been an escape for me. I know lots of people have always filtered their reading through layers of intellectual construct. They demand beautifully formed prose and impressive feats of literary mastery or they are just not interested. Blockbusters and page-turners are beneath them.

Not me. I think of reading like eating. Sometimes I want a fancy dinner of delicate quail eggs with truffle and proscuitto. But sometimes I feel like a bit of spag bog, or a whole block of chocolate for dinner. (What can I say? I’m a pig.)

Though I can glory in the perfect poetry of the written word, I love story more. I always forgive less than perfect writing if the story captivates me.

I don’t want the analysis part of my brain switched on when I read, at least not the first time through. It is extremely annoying and it is killing my reading buzz.

Do you have to keep that voice in check when you read? Am I the only one who has eaten chocolate for dinner?