Sunday, May 29, 2011

Expectations in Reading

I love to read. I learned how to read at a very young age. (Okay, two years old....) Since then my nose has been stuck in a book. And I prefer a physical book in my hands so that I can enjoy the multisensory experience of reading. However, I do love my free ebooks that I can download to the Kindle on my Droid. I am able to whip out my phone, which is always in my pocket, and sneak in a few pages while waiting in line at Target or sitting in a hospital waiting room.

I like to read just about anything. I enjoy light, breezy, cheesy reads as well as the heavier darker stuff. Each type of story can fulfill a different need and a different mood. I just have a few expectations from all of these books.

**Use good spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Am I perfect with these skills? No. And I am okay with a few errors on occasion. But if your story is full of them, I will be too distracted.

**Have a well-developed plot and characters. Shallow stories and characters are no fun to read.

**Engage me. Tell me a good story straight from the heart. Don't give me a bunch of filler or try too hard to be edgy. It will show and I will quit reading. I want to be transported into the characters' world and leave mine behind for a while.

See? I don't ask for much! I don't need a constant Vonnegut!

I will continue to share what I think of certain stories and how they meet my expectations.

5 comments:

  1. This is good and not much expectation. I love to read too and I like the free e-books as well.

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  2. A great blog about the simple expectations to have when picking up a book! Well done.

    Kathy
    http://www.thetruckerswife.com/

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  3. It seems reasonable enough to expect that writers have a mastery of the basics and tell good stories. The funny thing is that even with your short list of expectations for books (it matches mine, by the way), there are plenty of books out there that fall short.

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  4. How true..right to the point. Liked this. Question, i have been seeing alot of Ads by Google on people's blogs; like yours. Do you get paid to do this? curious

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  5. I feel the same as Mrs. Word Nerd : )

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