Please stop

In preparation of my third year of university, I have been doing some summer reading. Since I am studying Literature, we're advised to begin the reading process as early on as possible. I like to imagine a wild scramble for books as soon as they release the year's book list. Pages and money and students flying in all directions while I calmly log on to my various websites and order all I need, chuckling to myself with all the malice of a villain.

Anyway, my deviousness aside, reading ahead during summer is a really good strategy so when classes start up again, the books don't pile up in a to-be-read-THIS-week backlog of stress. Normally we'd be expected to read a novel a week, plus a chapter of theory, a couple of short stories and maybe some poems. And that's just coming from my experience; I'm sure there are students on my course but not doing the same modules as me who had to read a lot more last year. I'm thinking Moby Dick more.

I have yet to meet a person who even
vaguely enjoyed reading this book.

This year, my last year, I'll be reading two detective novels a week, a novella (I'm guessing. The books are pretty thin so far) and-

Well. Nothing. The modules I chose are detective fiction (Sherlock Holmes, here I come!), surrealism and creative writing. I think I've already mentioned this before but it's getting harder and harder to keep up with what tumbles out of my fingertips. Sorry if I am repeating myself.


"But Terri, what does any of that have to do with the title of this blog post?"

Good question, Voice in My Head. And the answer is this: two of the books I have read in advance I already dislike. One of them I couldn't bring myself to finish. Both of them felt like a physical struggle to drag my eyes across the sentences while understanding what they were saying. What made them so difficult to read was that they emulated everything I hate about books. On the plus side, it's given me a check list of things I definitely want to avoid in my own writing.


1. Zero plot. Like, zilch. One of the books is about a guy who witnesses a crime one night in Paris and then starts following a prostitute who was also there and then he befriends her brother who is too artistic to be bothered with things like human interaction and I just don't care about any of it. I don't know the characters, I don't know their motivations, I just don't know. That's the one I gave up on. The other is an autobiography-of-sorts, but it has surreal things just thrown in for the hell of it. Although for an autobiography, I know surprisingly little about the writer or his life and I'm nearly finished.

2. Paragraphs that continue for two pages. I am not even joking. If a paragraph has no foreseeable ending in a book that does not have chapters, where am I supposed to take a comfortable break? Where? Between sentences? My attention span is such that if I do that, when I come back to the book I have no idea what's going on but I keep reading onwards because no way am I suffering through it twice.

3. Untranslated French words. Frequently. In a book that is supposedly translated. I never learnt French and I don't plan to. If a book is in one language (in this case, English), why did someone think it was a good idea to leave snippets of it in the original language? To make my life more difficult, obviously, and increase my dislike for French literature. I am still remembered by my A-Level English teachers for being the one girl who refused to attempt a pronunciation and simply said "French word" in class readings.

4. Long-winded descriptions. I like a bit of description as much as the next person but overdoing it will put my mind to sleep. Especially if they aren't relevant.

And there you have it, my check list of things not to do in a book. I hope they were helpful - or at the very least interesting. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get ready for a family and friends gathering. By which I mean I'm about to take a nap.