How did writing spoil reading experience for you?

[Enigmatica91]

By being more able to spot contrivances in stories, anal with no lube beyond saliva being a good example. Is it possible? Of course, been there, done that. Fun to try, out of pure curiosity as to how far you'll get without reaching for the bottle? Yep. Pleasurable enough to continue? Nah, it's like fucking sandpaper!

Some things you just can't unsee once you notice, but they seem to be everywhere in the types of story a younger me would've read, unnoticed in plain sight until I had to consider them for a piece I was writing myself.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

When I pick up a book, rather than just enjoying it, I find myself dissecting the story. I think of other words I might have used, and notice if something sounds clunky.

Though I realize when I'm reading something I really enjoy, that I'm amazed at the skill of the author.

 

[Paul_Chance]

It didn't take anything away from my enjoyment of reading. I've always had the ability to switch the critic on and off - I assumed it's something I learned at some point in the journey.

I can read something, enjoy it, then come back and re-read it with a critical eye and pick it apart. I still read as much as I ever did.

 

[djrip]

I may have had the opposite reaction from many here. As a kid I would often think about a book or movie, huh, I could have done that better! Or at least, I would have done that differently!

But after writing my own stuff, I have a much deeper appreciation for what others have done. No, I probably couldn't have done that better. In fact I now see the interesting things they were doing that I missed before. I often, now, get a sense of awe at the way authors like Neil Stephenson (in the Baroque Cycle particularly, but also others) or Gene Wolfe or Samuel Delany especially have constructed all the intricately interlocking mechanisms of their works.

 

[lovecraft68]

Reading-and watching movies-while I'm in the middle of writing a story messes with me, puts other people's voices in my head. That and time constraints. I could read someone else's story, or write my own..hmmm

 

[EmilyMiller]

How did writing spoil reading experience for you?​

I don’t find my reading experience compromised by writing (save for something I’ll get on to in a bit). In a way it’s enhanced.

I think of Feynman’s famous monologue about beauty. His friend - an artist - claimed that he (the artist) appreciated beauty more than Feynman (a Nobel Laureate). Feynman says that’s BS. He agrees that his esthetic sense is not as refined as his friend’s. But claims he has access to other sources of beauty.

Specifically taking about a flower, he says that he can appreciate its beauty like anyone else. But… that he can also appreciate the wonder of it from a scientific point of view. The tiny structures. The way it grows. The fact that it has evolved to attract bees. The fact that bees must perceive color. The microscopic world of cells and signalling pathways. All the way down to the sub atomic. He claims that all this adds to his appreciation of a flower, it never subtracts from it.

I agree with Feynman. But I also get that now writing. I appreciate a story not only as a reader, but as a writer. I appreciate the author’s choices and technique. It doesn’t subtract, it adds to my enjoyment.

But… what does subtract is spending so much time writing, that I read less than I used to. That’s the only downside.

Emily

 

[Bramblethorn]

It must have been a quick process? I believe Dickens was being published weekly!

For some of his works, yes - five were published as weeklies and another ten as monthlies, according to Wiki's bibliography.

His Wiki article mentions that "The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback". That implies he couldn't have had the whole story finalised before starting to publish, but I think he may have been writing several chapters ahead of what was being published.

Certainly he was doing that for his last work, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood", because he died partway through publication but there was enough material written to keep publishing for another three or four instalments. If he was writing about three months/three instalments ahead of what was being published, that should've allowed some space for editing.

 

[Djmac1031]

Actually, kinda the opposite for me; I've learned to appreciate good writing and admire those who do it better than me.

And when it's worse, well, I've always been an asshole about bad writing long before I started writing lol.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Funnily enough, I think this happened before I started writing. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when, but sometime in my thirties, I suddenly started to really engage with the underlying structure and presentation of movies. Especially bad ones. Rather than just laugh at it and move on as I'd done in my twenties, when I came out of a movie disappointed, I'd spend way more time cutting it apart in my quiet moments, trying to work out where it had all gone wrong and how I would have done things differently. I tend to work from the assumption that this could have been good but something got lost along the way and try and work out how and where things went wrong.

One I particularly remember is somehow being forced to watch Step Up to the Streets 3 and being utterly bewildered that anyone could get the Kids from Fame formula that wrong. Not least someone who was being paid for it. And then just spending ages thinking about what the requirements for that genre were and how you crafted a proper story from it.

For what it's worth, I decided that SUttS3's great sin was this. The story is 'Bad boy gets community service after vandalizing part of an elite dance academy and during it discovers a love of dance along with the snooty dancing girl'. A generic but workable premise. The problem, as I saw it, was at some point the scriptwriters had decided that it was a bad idea to give people the impression that dance academies were that elite and scare the youngsters off and so added a whole bunch of characters who were not only from not only the same socio-economic class as the MC, but also the same darn area and who hung out at the same clubs and included hip-hop and other modern elements into their dance already. And yes, a lot of these characters were from minority groups (the movie was, IIRC, set in Detroit after all) - that wouldn't have been a problem if they'd been snooty minorities. As it was the whole two worlds collide premise was completely undermined pretty much from the get go.

Also and probably actually the main thing, the music didn't pop.

 

[BlazonG]

I now notice when an author was going too fast and included something that only sounded good at the height of arousal. Like when the the term “vaginal drool” is used to describe wetness. I’ve seen it twice now, please don’t lol!

 

[PapaRomantic]

I was a public school music teacher for many years, and I still have a problem allowing myself to simply listen to music for the enjoyment of it without analyzing it for form and content.

It's somewhat the same on Lit. I look at stories here more clinically as a writer than I did as only a reader. I don't think that's a bad thing. But I do struggle to find stories worth reading at times.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I was a public school music teacher for many years, and I still have a problem allowing myself to simply listen to music for the enjoyment of it without analyzing it for form and content.

I don't teach music, but I've been a semi-pro musician for twenty years or so, and yeah, the experience has spoiled most of modern music for me. But I enjoy classical music and some quality rock/blues more than ever.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm proofreading something at the moment. I've taken the plunge IRL and found myself a writing group and we're given work to critique before the next meeting. After writing pretty much non-stop since 1st Nov 2021, I now have a totally different view on how stories work. From "comma missing" to "people who, not people that" to wholesale restructuring of opening chapters to get to the meat and eviscerate the padding, it's changed the way I look at things.
(...) Re-reading 3000 words to make sure of the spelling and the grammar and the pacing and the narrative, it trains you to notice the flaws because you need to see these things to fix them. But, as a result, it pops you out of a story, or a film, or a TV show, when you see them everywhere else.

I've been an editor and proofreader for 25 years, and yes, it becomes impossible to ignore those things.

How did Charles Dickens, the Bronte Sisters and others manage to write such excellent stories without editors?

Presumably they used the Read Aloud function in Word.

Actually, kinda the opposite for me; I've learned to appreciate good writing and admire those who do it better than me.

And when it's worse, well, I've always been an asshole about bad writing long before I started writing lol.

It's much the same for me. I rarely had any patience for poor writing to begin with, but I can really appreciate the good stuff.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I wouldn't say that it's ruined my enjoyment, but it has led to me understanding my enjoyment better. If a story feels unsatisfying, I'm much more likely now to analyse why it feels unsatisfying and figure out what I'd have done better if it were my story.

 

[Mogrem]

Mostly it hasn't, especially not for reading other people's stuff on Literotica.

However I do now have a much lower tolerance for writerly indulgence at the start of a story (especially my own when I go back and read old ones). Now I can spot an indulgence that was written because it pleased the author at the time and because they were precious about it, not because it served the reader's immersion. At the very least move it down the page until after the hooks, so the reader can skim through it, if they have the temerity to be less than enthralled by your purple nonsense.

Nothing wrong with writing for yourself, but even then you've got to write for yourself as you are as a reader.

 

[ronde]

I wouldn't say that writing has "ruined" reading for me, but it's made me a more critical reader. I sometimes re-read stories I read 20 years ago and am struck by all the stylistic and grammatical errors I overlooked before, or the unsatisfying simplicity of the presentation of characters. On the other hand, being a writer makes me appreciate good writing and good storytelling even more than before.

I would agree and add that it's also made me more critical of what TV shows and movies have to offer. I write on a variety of topics and that has resulted in significant research so I get the facts right. Many books and TV shows seem to make up situations as they go and then attempt to mold the characters they've already introduced into something else that fits that situation. People do not change personalities at the drop of a hat, yet that's what seems to be in vogue right now. I suppose they chalk it up to the person "growing" with time, but few people really do that.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I would agree and add that it's also made me more critical of what TV shows and movies have to offer.

I don't know if it's just me, but in this particular sense, I find modern movies and shows to be absolute garbage. It's like this whole generation of writers and creators is severely lacking in talent. There is also the obsession with political aspects of their work, and of course the obsession with remaking everything, every past movie, show and book, rather than creating new ones.

 

[Duleigh]

Did the same happen to you as well? Did writing and, let's say, a better understanding of the story-creation process and its nuances, change your perspective and enjoyment of other stories?

I can't watch TV anymore. I started writing because my wife was watching non-stop Lady Murder Network (Lifetime Movie Network) crap and Hallmark Christmas movie bilge scrapings and I said "I can write better than that." (I was right) I can see the contrived dialogue, the lazy plot development, the "SURPRISE" twists that Stevie Wonder could see coming from a mile away, and the ridiculous casting decisions. (If he wasn't righteously slaughtered by the terrified innocent brunette protecting her terrified innocent niece, the only male with any hint of testosterone in the movie is always, always, always the murderer)

Reading is tough too. First of all, when I'm writing something I don't read unless asked. I don't want outside work to influence my story unless I'm writing a fan fic or an homage. When I have time to read I stick to authors I know are good and hopefully positively influence my work (yeah right, like I'll ever be published) On Lit a good story is a joy but a bad story just hurts to read. Now if you look at my library the vast majority of my books are railroad history books and books by classic (1950's) scifi authors and writers like Terry Pratchett and Andrew Klavan.

 

[Mogrem]

To be honest, reading stylists, humourists and wits has spoilt my reading experience more than doing my own writing has. An author with a real zinger of a style makes you very hard to please when you go back to workman-like authors. Even if their plotting, character development and everything else is far better, I now find lifeless or insufficiently honed sentences hard to chew through.

For example: Try reading detective stories by Dashiell Hammett, then go read The Ink Black Heart by JK Rowling. There might be --- and probably is --- a lot more going on in the latter, building up to a series of masterfully interwoven greater emotionally impactful moments... But I'll never know, because all I can think about when plodding through the extended opening chapters of Ink Black Heart is that old Dashiell would have covered all of this in half a page and sounded fantastic doing so. So I stop reading.

 

[DoctorSmith8]

If anything, becoming a writer has made me more critical, both of myself and others. My tolerance for junk has dropped, that's for sure. I used to give a story five hundred words or so, now I'm gone in 250 if it's not pulling its weight. Life's too short!

Many of my stories don't reach the 750 mark. It's sad because they work well just as they are, and adding a lot of fluff just to bring them up to 750 seems counterproductive.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Many of my stories don't reach the 750 mark. It's sad because they work well just as they are, and adding a lot of fluff just to bring them up to 750 seems counterproductive.

You keep saying this, but you're on the wrong site. Lit doesn't cater well for flash fiction, and your micro-fiction is another thing altogether. I reckon most readers come here for arousal, but a paragraph or two surely isn't going to satisfy an itch.

 

[DoctorSmith8]

That depends on how much imagination goes into it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

That depends on how much imagination goes into it.

I think most folk take more than a minute to get satisfaction.

 

[djrip]

Many of my stories don't reach the 750 mark. It's sad because they work well just as they are, and adding a lot of fluff just to bring them up to 750 seems counterproductive.

Simple - combine two.

 

[HordHolm]

Did the same happen to you as well? Did writing and, let's say, a better understanding of the story-creation process and its nuances, change your perspective and enjoyment of other stories?

I am grateful that, by and large, it hasn't had any effect on my enjoyment. I write, I professionally correct for publication, and I read for pleasure, and I can switch between the three without any effect. Obviously, my writing could always improve, but any errors in style or content are not due to correcting or reading. Equally, neither writing, nor correcting, has affected my enjoyment of reading. Lucky me, I guess.