# Don't Write the Parts People Skip



## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

I'm watching a presentation from Writer's Digest on plotting a novel, and the presenter is talking about how to keep our novel moving so our readers won't get bored. One of his tips was to _cut (or don't write) the parts people will skip_. Sounds like great advice, but how do you know what parts readers will skip? So, I thought it would be fun to to ask all of you what parts of a book you are most likely to skip over.

I skip description paragraphs. I like descriptions of people and places to be woven into the story, preferably in some kind of action scene. Nothing bores me faster than a paragraph, or multiple paragraphs, describing every last detail of a room, from the lighting fixtures to the color and pattern of the wallpaper. I always fast forward past those parts.

So, what about you? What parts of a book you are most likely to skip over?


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

Descriptions for sure.

I skip fight/battle scenes (I don't tend to read a lot of books that have them anyway). I'd be totally happy if the author wrote "there was a fight and X won."


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I've heard that some people skip the sex scenes

*g*

*boggles*


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

The sex scenes.  

Not every time, but frequently.


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## Fishbowl Helmet (Jan 12, 2014)

Overlong descriptions (say more than a few quick lines at most), prologues, and whinging scenes (mostly in literary fiction).


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## K.B. Rose (Sep 7, 2014)

I skip over long descriptions of rooms, what people are wearing, long conversations between characters that I don't care about or aren't central to the story, really anything that feels like filler.

I sometimes skip over sex scenes, if they aren't done well. If it's just a lot of thrusting and moaning and mechanical descriptions, I skip it.  I think sex scenes need to be a bit playful and original, and let us into the characters' heads, to be really interesting.

Fight scenes. I agree with another poster. I'd totally be happy with, "they fought and X won."


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Fishbowl Helmet said:


> Overlong descriptions (say more than a few quick lines at most), prologues, and whinging scenes (mostly in literary fiction).


Interesting you should mention prologues. He discussed that, at length. The general consensus among agents and publishers is not to write prologues because most people do skip them. His advice was to write the prologue, but call it Chapter One.

Edited for typo


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## A.C. Nixon (Apr 21, 2011)

Huge blocks of descriptions make my eyes glaze over. I also prefer introspection blended in with dialogue or action rather than take an entire page. Of course the caveat is if they're well written I might stick with it. But rare is the writer that can.

Consequently I don't write a ton of description, just what I think is important. It may not be enough, but I attempt to make it count.


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## dirtiestdevil (Aug 20, 2014)

Filler lines bug me most. I read a book earlier today where the opening pages literally spend about 2-3 paragraphs describing how a mom took out groceries from the back of her car...

"Then she put the other strap over her left forearm and bent down to grab the next strap. She then placed this one on her opposite arm, looping the strap firmly over... blah blah blah" WTF!! 

It was a best-selling book btw... I can only imagine how that 300 page count got filled in...


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

dirtiestdevil said:


> Filler lines bug me most. I read a book earlier today where the opening pages literally spend about 2-3 paragraphs describing how a mom took out groceries from the back of her car...
> 
> "Then she put the other strap over her left forearm and bent down to grab the next strap. She then placed this one on her opposite arm, looping the strap firmly over... blah blah blah" WTF!!
> 
> It was a best-selling book btw... I can only imagine how that 300 page count got filled in...


I shouldn't be laughing at that but I just can't help it. Reading that would drive me crazy.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

A.C. Nixon said:


> Consequently I don't write a ton of description, just what I think is important. It may not be enough, but I attempt to make it count.


I truly believe that sometimes less really is more. I love it when a writer gives me just enough information that I form my own picture of the character or place. I think what bothers me about too much description, besides being tedious reading, is that often the writer's description of the person or place is different than what I imagined, and when that happens, it pulls me out of the story.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

I skip nothing. And honestly, if a reader is someone who likes to skip sections, they can just go ahead and skip my book entirely. I'm supposing those people who read The Hunger Games and then got mad because Rue was played by a black actress in the movie were some of those people who skipped the part that described the character as having dark skin.


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## ecg52 (Apr 29, 2013)

I hate descriptions. How many ways can the edge of the brilliant orange sun touch the horizon before it quickly sinks behind the edge of earth? Geez, I live in Arizona. I see a gorgeous sunset or sunrise every friggin' day!
I don't care what color hair, eyes, skin, clothes, the hero or heroine has. I'm sick of ice blue, sky blue, indigo blue eyes. I'm sick of pale white, creamy white, honey tanned white skin. I'm sick of whisky colored, wheat colored, ebony colored hair. I have my own image of a hero/heroine. Your description is not my idea of the perfect hero/heroine. Just tell me how he/she feels without taking up 3 or 4 pages. Get on with the story. I want to know what happens next.
I want to write like that too. But all this show, don't tell makes me feel like I have to include a s***load of descriptive paragraphs.


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

An info dump of back story. If it's that important to tell me what happened about a character from birth to adulthood, then the story is starting at the wrong place.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

artan said:


> An info dump of back story. If it's that important to tell me what happened about a character from birth to adulthood, then the story is starting at the wrong place.


I believe that is the issue a lot of people have with prologues, too. There was a discussion in another writer's group about them, and most of them felt that if the information was important to the story, it should be part of the story.

Back story is fine if woven in throughout the body of work, but info dumps are annoying, I agree.


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

So no descriptions, fights, sex scenes, ancillary conversations, or backstory. Sounds like AMAZING advice.


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## Douglas E Wright (Mar 11, 2011)

I skip prologues - and if I download a sample and it starts with a prologue, I'm not buying it. I don't mind descriptions, but keep them simple. I don't usually describe the people the story is about. However, lately I try to add a little something more than what I had in the past. As far as fast paced with no scenery or descriptions at all, I pass on those too. I like literary stories. One of my favorite authors is Justin Cronin. (Author of The Twelve & The Passage)

BTW~ I read every word in a book. I don't skim over pages, of course that's likely why it takes so long to read a book. Right now I'm reading 'Chain of Evil' by Micheal Collings. It's about the history of horror and how he edits it. Probably boring for many but I love it!


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

Domino Finn said:


> So no descriptions, fights, sex scenes, ancillary conversations, or backstory. Sounds like AMAZING advice.


Right.

Also, how is a prologue not part of the story? Lots of writers use prologues. I'm reading Doctor Sleep right now. The first ten percent of that book is prologue.


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## Istvan Szabo Ifj. (Dec 13, 2013)

In my opinion who skip things that one is a dumb and / or impatient person, mostly because unless they can't see the future and tell what those descriptions are all about, they're skipping things randomly and completely blindly. The fact is people tend to skip elements they don't or can't understand. You can't fit your book for everyone. What some may find boring, others may love that part. There are different types of people with different skills and knowledge. Some may have the attention span of a blowfish, while others can focus and enjoy the details. So, write what you want to write. If some people can't understand or skip elements, that's their loss, not yours. There are seven billion people on this tiny wandering paradise. You don't have to write your book for everyone.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

I like descriptions, within reason. I can read a page of that in one place, but more is stretching my patience and interest too thin. But if they help me immerse myself in the setting and world, I want them. Unlike ecg52 I want the author to provide me quite entirely with their vision of place, looks and time and will consider writing which lacks that (as often happens) lazy, unemotional writing which leaves me cold. I don't want to listen to a movie.

I will read prologues, long or short, I love them. I will even read very convoluted story structures, such as diaries or epistolary novels.

I tend to skip fight scenes, a lot of them are simply boring. They belong to me into a visual medium, though Patrick O'Brian wrote great sea warfare. I skip most "snappy" and "sarky" dialogue, in fact, I prefer books to be low on needless dialogue and lately the sarcastic repartee and double entendres seem to be (far too) much in vogue.

I do not think that the advice you received there is good. There are people around for every kind of book and narration.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Nic said:


> I like descriptions, within reason. I can read a page of that in one place, but more is stretching my patience and interest too thin. But if they help me immerse myself in the setting and world, I want them. Unlike ecg52 I want the author to provide me quite entirely with their vision of place, looks and time and will consider writing which lacks that (as often happens) lazy, unemotional writing which leaves me cold. I don't want to listen to a movie.


I don't read scifi or post apocalyptic type fiction, but I would imagine that a generous amount of description would be mandatory in such novels, where other worlds exist.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Domino Finn said:


> So no descriptions, fights, sex scenes, ancillary conversations, or backstory. Sounds like AMAZING advice.


Ha ha. Not exactly. I think what some of us are getting at is to not go overboard. Weave the details into the story, don't just vomit information on us. Allow the reader to use their own imagination, too.

What I'm hoping to do is learn more about what readers like and what they don't like, so we can craft stories they will enjoy. If fifty people answer, and forty-five of them say they don't read prologues, then I'm not going to call it a prologue. I'm going to do like the presenter suggested and call it Chapter One.

We can't change other people's behavior, but we do need to understand it.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

It bears looking at the ethnographics of your intended audience and the opinions you get. I see some distinct differences there within the English-speaking world.



vlmain said:


> I don't read scifi or post apocalyptic type fiction, but I would imagine that a generous amount of description would be mandatory in such novels, where other worlds exist.


I read mostly erotica and erotic romance these days, with a sprinkling of scifi, literary fiction and lots of non-fiction.

I tend to wince when a mere paragraph gets called "a generous amount" or "info dump". That sort of thing starts, in my opinion, either when we're talking about pages and pages of description, or when we're talking about description of items which do not really matter, not even to get an idea of the scene.

I dislike prose which makes me "invent" everything. That's not what for I read. I can invent hundreds of plots and stories in my head without any difficulty, in fact I'm doing that non-stop. It's why I write, to get the invented stories out of my head. When I read someone else's stories I want THEM to provide me with the full picture, with everything to give me an experience I otherwise could not and would not have, with people from OUTSIDE of my head, with emotions not engendered by myself, with facts and a world I did not build. That's what I read for. An author who counts on me to "use my imagination" fails me. It's one of the main reasons why I will give a book a bad review and rating. It's because I could have done all that myself and spent money on something which asked me to do the work for them, so to speak.


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## Adrian Howell (Feb 24, 2013)

I don't have the exact quote here, but I think J.R.R. Tolkien once said that the very sections of his books that some readers complained most about, saying that they were boring and should have been cut, were the exact same sections that other readers loved the most.

As a reader, I prefer not to read more than two consecutive pages of scene description, but that's just me. Some people can't get enough of it.

As a writer, I obviously wouldn't write anything that I myself would skip, but I'd suggest that it's impossible to try "not to write the parts that people skip." That's like a farmer trying to grow a crop that "people like," as if there's one crop out there that all people like. There just isn't.


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## Guest (Sep 8, 2014)

I once read a book that had two pages of one of the characters walking into an inn, sitting at a table and eating a meal. I always felt hungry when reading his books because of how much detail he put into the descriptions of food. It didnt really do anything for the story though. 

Its the same with overly describing characters. My preference is if the author has sketched an outline that you can fill in. Having an idea of how they look and then setting that in your mind is different from the author telling you exactly how they look and you having to try and form that image. Especially if not done well, since you have the image you think is right, just for the author to tell you half way through the book that the character has this or that feature and it screws up your image.

Perhaps I have taken that to extreme with my books, since it is written from the main characters perspective he never describes himself. So one reviewer actually said "I have no idea what the main character looks like" which admittedly was kind of my point. Since the main character is speaking in first person and you are essentially a passenger in his head, you can experience the story from his perspective in whatever form you like. The character can be you, it can be a skin colour you prefer, eye colour, hair colour, body size etc...


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## Raquel Lyon (Mar 3, 2012)

My first thought, as I was waiting for this thread to open, was that different people would skip different parts, and that there wouldn't be much story left if we didn't write any of it. Reading everyone's answers, it seems I was right.
Personally, I have been reading a lot of NA recently, and I'm totally bored of all the repetitive inner angst. Just tell me once or twice why the characters feel the way they do, and I'll remember it. I promise. I don't need telling fifty times over. Some of those books would be half their length if the author hadn't written the parts I skipped!


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## C Ryan Bymaster (Oct 4, 2013)

I don't skip a word when I read a book. I may pick up the pace on page so-and-so, but I read it all. Even if the author goes overboard with something like detailing how a character ties up his shoe laces, there's a little voice in the back of my head that says "If the author put it in here, it must be for a reason" so I grin and bear it.
I guess I give authors the benefit of the doubt when it comes to reading their work, praying to the gods of broken pencils and dead laptop batteries that the author put their best work out there before publishing.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Adrian Howell said:


> As a writer, I obviously wouldn't write anything that I myself would skip, but I'd suggest that it's impossible to try "not to write the parts that people skip." That's like a farmer trying to grow a crop that "people like," as if there's one crop out there that all people like. There just isn't.


LOL This is very true. A writer can never please everyone. I believe the lesson in all this is to know our audience. Learn as much as we can about what our readers are looking for, what they like and don't like, and do the best we can to deliver. There will always be people who dislike some aspect of our story. There is no way around that. But the more we understand about our readers, the greater our chances of pleasing the majority.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

Domino Finn said:


> So no descriptions, fights, sex scenes, ancillary conversations, or backstory. Sounds like AMAZING advice.


I agree. Prologues cause various nervous system diseases, and shouldn't be forced upon readers. Sex is icky, deviant, and immoral unless missionary and between male & female, and only for procreation, so let's nip that little big of disgusting nonsense out of the book. Backstory... no one cares about a character's backstory. We all know characters are born, grow up, and now have magic powers or superhuman strength, because that's... DUH! That's all human beings. Sheesh. No fights either. Not interested in finding out about who won the interstellar war, or which ninja got whipped by his rival ninja enemy. I definitely like a book that doesn't have any fights or battles. And come on... descriptions? Do we even have to mention this? Descriptions totally detract from the story, and I can't believe anyone still uses such things. You guys don't still do descriptions, do you?

So, let me show you how a proper novel is written. Watch and learn, rookies:

*The Book That Ended*
_by Travis Hill
Copyright 2014
Cover art by: Kboards.com background_

*Chapter 1*
Dave used his superpower to defeat the evil Dr. Gajira in record time. 
*
Epilogue*
The world continued to spin.

*Author's Notes*
I came up with this story after reading a thread at one of my favorite forums. A lot of authors gathered and talked about all the terrible parts of a story, from characters, to dialog, to fight scenes and sex. Going by what they described as the "perfect novel," I decided to get on the bandwagon and make my millions before they took too much of the pie. I hope you enjoyed the story. The Book That Ended Again, the sequel, will be available Q3-2015, but if you just can't wait, I can send you one word at a time by joining my mailing list. As always, thank you for reading!

_Travis Hill
Boise, ID 
Sept 8, 2014_

*Special Thanks*
I'd like to thank Domino Finn, as without his idea for this story, it would have never come to be. I'd also like to thank the various members of Kboards.com for helping me shape this story into what it is. I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I hope they all go on to write their own bestsellers (without copying me, haha... author joke).

*Shameless Self-Promotion*
I wrote some books! They're terrible! Don't read them!


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## Ceinwen (Feb 25, 2014)

I just skip the parts of a book I think aren't written well/aren't working for me. I don't do it on purpose, but it ends up happening. I'm totally fine with slow scenes, prologues, description, action, romance, angst, whatever, so long as they're written well and suit the story. Half the time when I hear this 'don't write the parts people skip' thing, I worry they're talking about character development.


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## jcthatsme (Mar 19, 2014)

I don't skip anything entirely, but I do find myself skimming overly long descriptions. But I think that's just a preference thing - I like less specific descriptions because I can then fill in the rest with my imagination, and so I tend to do the same in my own writing.

But I think it's hard to say 'don't write the sections readers skip' as a rule, since that's different for different people. I don't begrudge authors putting longer descriptions in, because people do like them -- if they work for the story and aren't just fill -- and those who don't like them can just skim. 

I take the advice to mean more "If I get bored writing it, readers will be bored reading it", so cut those parts.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Hate inner monologues. Get bored with long descriptions. Avoid prologues.

If I'm watching a film I will fast forward car chases, fight scenes and people chasing others across towns or cities (especially the latest James Bond type chases) Therefore I will speed read these scenes in a book because you know the MC is going to win through in the end.

Hardly anybody skips dialogue.

Basically I will speed read anything that doesn't move the story forward or reveal character.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

AngryGames said:


> *The Book That Ended*
> _by Travis Hill
> Copyright 2014
> Cover art by: Kboards.com background_
> ...


So prologues are a big no-no but epilogues are okay? Hardly seems fair...


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Sam Kates said:


> So prologues are a big no-no but epilogues are okay? Hardly seems fair...


I just read an epilogue which I could have done without. It just tied a little pink and polka-dotted bow to the story. Superfluous.



Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Hardly anybody skips dialogue.
> 
> Basically I will speed read anything that doesn't move the story forward or reveal character.


I don't like reading (a lot of) dialogue, I also don't like theatre plays much for the same reason. Or soap operas. That's all talking heads. It's not something I particularly enjoy. I do like inner monologues though, especially when well done.

Unlike you I like stories which meander, move sideways, have little quirks or show me things I didn't know about or of which I don't have much detail.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

Chapter 1 of The Grapes of Wrath is all description.


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## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

I like descriptions, case in point look at wool the free book. It had almost a page or so when someone was walking on the stairs, the description helped bring the reader into the story as if they were there, a part of the story. It depends how the writers handle it. I find myself trying to improve on that in my stories.
If you have a war story and your inventory every single weapon and munitions the reader will fall asleep.

Everyone is different, I could not imagine a book that did not go into the battle and describe it. I love W.E.B Griffin books and how he tells the story of fighting a battle. Sex in books if it is kept short, it's alright. I like love stories and the conflict built along the way. I like Nora Roberts books. I like descriptions in books as long as they are kept short. The reason Wool did so well his descriptions flowed with the story line.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

Sam Kates said:


> So prologues are a big no-no but epilogues are okay? Hardly seems fair...


Ah, are epilogues now on the 'causes pulmonary embolisms' list? Seems appropriate, and my apologize for presuming they were still acceptable and in style


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

I think a lot of Elmore Leonard's point was to go directly from scene to scene, skipping the meaningless transitions, such as, "Jan took Highway 66 to the last exit," and on and on, until she finally reaches the house where she confronts her husband, or whatever. Just start with her pulling into the driveway.

Good descriptions put you into the story, into the character's head. In fantasy, they create the world. They don't have to be boring. I can't imagine skipping the descriptions in Lord of the Rings. Why read such a book if you just want slam bang?

Myself, if I find myself skipping parts of a book, I just put it down. That's a sign the author is not in control of their craft. There're too many books
where everything from the descriptions to the action to the prologue to the sex to the inner angst are all interesting and comprise a terrific story.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Italics. Whether it's prologues or long passages, if it's in italics I skim or skip it entirely.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Some people skip the entire book and go straight to the last chapter.

You should only write last chapters.


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

I thought that quote was apropos for when we are writing and we start to complain that the scene is boring us and we're finding it darn near impossible to get to the keyboard to power through it.

If the scene is boring us, then it's most likely (but not always!) going to bore the reader.

That's what I thought the quote meant anyway.



PamelaKelley said:


> Italics. Whether it's prologues or long passages, if it's in italics I skim or skip it entirely.


I was just thinking that myself. Long italic passages have my eyes starting to glaze and skim because it's so hard for me to read.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Obviously the quote "don't write the parts people skip" is facetious, since nobody would consciously write a scene(s) that readers will skip.  Just as obviously, it's impossible to know which parts some readers skip... not to mention that one reader's beloved scene is another's purple prose or superfluous waste of words.  (Similar to other examples noted, I read a book with a 2-3 page description of the MC's apartment... which she left the next day and never returned to, so it was all totally irrelevant.  And yet I'm sure the author thought she was being thorough and writing very well.)  Let's face it, some people equate full and explicit detail with good writing, setting a good scene, etc.

(For the record, I skip most sex scenes--because I'm familiar with what happens--and pretty much skim extended descriptions of rooms,houses, lakes, etc.  Every once in a while I discover there might have been an important nugget of info in one of those descriptions, but for the most part, my skimming/skipping doesn't cause me to miss anything important.)


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## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

Richard Stooker said:


> I think a lot of Elmore Leonard's point was to go directly from scene to scene, skipping the meaningless transitions, such as, "Jan took Highway 66 to the last exit," and on and on, until she finally reaches the house where she confronts her husband, or whatever. Just start with her pulling into the driveway.
> 
> Good descriptions put you into the story, into the character's head. In fantasy, they create the world. They don't have to be boring. I can't imagine skipping the descriptions in Lord of the Rings. Why read such a book if you just want slam bang?
> 
> ...


I agree if I feel the need to skip parts of the book. It's better to book the book down and start another.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

My best writing is the parts people skip.
I have a whole long chapter in one novel wherein the characters at dinner tell stories.
Each story helps develop its character (without a lot of description or 'angst'), but as I was writing it and spending hours working out the stories, I knew that nobody would ever read it.
This amused me.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Ceinwen L. said:


> I just skip the parts of a book I think aren't written well/aren't working for me. I don't do it on purpose, but it ends up happening. I'm totally fine with slow scenes, prologues, description, action, romance, angst, whatever, so long as they're written well and suit the story. Half the time when I hear this 'don't write the parts people skip' thing, I worry they're talking about character development.


This is what I was thinking . . . . . I skip it if it's not written well, or, at least, only skim it. If I realize I'm skimming page after page, I probably put the book down never to be picked up again.

For me, whether descriptions, or sex scenes, or any of the other things mentioned here are going to be skipped is based on whether they're well written in the first place!


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

I always interpret that particular piece of advice as: Don't be boring.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Jena H said:


> I read a book with a 2-3 page description of the MC's apartment... which she left the next day and never returned to, so it was all totally irrelevant. And yet I'm sure the author thought she was being thorough and writing very well.) Let's face it, some people equate full and explicit detail with good writing, setting a good scene, etc.


It's best to avoid long descriptions of the appearance of a room (unless it's to reveal character) and concentrate on providing the atmosphere. e.g most people know what a railway carriage looks like, so it would be better to describe it "As George sat down the train began to move. It rocked and swayed as it gathered speed, and hidden dust from the corners of the compartment swirled about his feet coating his shoes with a dull haze. George slid across the seat, which felt slightly greasy to the touch, and with a feeling of irritation banged the window shut."


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> I always interpret that particular piece of advice as: Don't be boring.


This +10


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## S.G. Dean (Jan 25, 2014)

Domino Finn said:


> So no descriptions, fights, sex scenes, ancillary conversations, or backstory. Sounds like AMAZING advice.


Yeah, I can just imagine it now.

Chapter One, boring, boring, boring, The End. 

Personally, I don't believe in skipping anything. If you're going to read a book then read the book. You miss things when you skim. I believe all aspects of a story should be working parts. No words should be wasted. If a reader is skimming then the writer's storytelling isn't very gripping.

I'm actually good at the things listed above. I see the story in my head, deconstruct it into words, which then translates into images again. For me, writing or reading a story is like watching a movie in a theater, only far more personal. I practically step into a character's shoes, which might explain my life-long love for POV.

Besides, clues/context/weirdness/important plot points often infiltrate the entirety of my stories and things that don't seem important at first become vital later on. A reader would miss a lot if they started jumping ahead.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I wish I'd skipped this:



> She drove to IKEA at Kungens Kurva and spent three hours browsing through the merchandise, writing down the item numbers she needed. She made a few quick decisions.
> 
> She bought two KARLANDA sofas with sand coloured upholstery, five POÄNG armchairs, two round side tables of clear lacquered birch, a SVANSBO coffee table, and several LACK occasional tables. From the storage department she ordered two IVAR combination storage units and two BONDE bookshelves, a TV stand, and a MAGIKER unit with doors. She settled on a PAX NEXUS three-door wardrobe and two small MALM bureaus.
> 
> ...


From _The Girl Who Played with Fire_, by Steig Larsson.

Mind-numbing.


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## J.A. Sutherland (Apr 1, 2014)

swolf said:


> I wish I'd skipped this:
> 
> From _The Girl Who Played with Fire_, by Steig Larsson.
> 
> Mind-numbing.


And, see, I rather liked it. I like lists and minutia like that. One of my favorite books seems to be mostly about how the main character improves the coffee.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

I don't skip anything.  If I feel the need to skip stuff, I close the book and open another one.


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## Istvan Szabo Ifj. (Dec 13, 2013)

swolf said:


> From _The Girl Who Played with Fire_, by Steig Larsson.
> Mind-numbing.


Actually there was a german book, Vollidiot by Tommy Jaud where the author have made an excellent comedy book with IKEA descriptions like the ones you've hated so much. If I recall correctly that book is actually started with the destruction of an IKEA furniture. You would love it.


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## Adrian Howell (Feb 24, 2013)

Flay Otters said:


> My best writing is the parts people skip.
> I have a whole long chapter in one novel wherein the characters at dinner tell stories.
> Each story helps develop its character (without a lot of description or 'angst'), but as I was writing it and spending hours working out the stories, I knew that nobody would ever read it.
> This amused me.


I'm actually the kind of person who loves reading things like that. I enjoy action, but the quiet times are just as important, and sometimes more enjoyable to read.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

dirtiestdevil said:


> Filler lines bug me most. I read a book earlier today where the opening pages literally spend about 2-3 paragraphs describing how a mom took out groceries from the back of her car...
> 
> "Then she put the other strap over her left forearm and bent down to grab the next strap. She then placed this one on her opposite arm, looping the strap firmly over... blah blah blah" WTF!!
> 
> It was a best-selling book btw... I can only imagine how that 300 page count got filled in...


Here is the problem I've encountered as a writer. I do skip all that. Then people complain my stories are interesting, but too short. It's like some people would rather have 500 pages of filler just to justify the money they spent, rather than an interesting, well paced story. I write erotica now, so short is not such and issue, but when I was doing thrillers I got this complaint all the time.


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## Lucas (Jul 15, 2014)

Just be direct, say what you want to say. Descriptions are necessary in Scifi and Fantasy, but if it's a kitchen (say in a thriller), just describe things that are relevant later on (like the knife rack or the chopping board, or the faucet--the hand towel hanging neatly above the stove). _Readers have imaginations_, they know things we know--if the descriptions are too long, the reader will feel exhausted and it will kill the flow of the story--and the reading won't be a breeze.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

TattooedWriter said:


> This is actually a quote from Elmore Leonard.
> 
> I don't think Leonard is advising to stop writing descriptions or sex scenes. He means write them in a way that the reader won't skip them.


Exactly!


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

I concur with skipping looooong descriptions. A paragraph will do - just move the story along, please. Which is why I don't ever read Stephen King - I prefer Dean Koontz. Same type of story as King, but with 90% less description of every little thing. 

I hate to say it, because I'm a romance author, but I usually skip over sex scenes, too. Tee hee.

I write like what I want to read, and describe very little. Some of my readers love that, others think my books are shallow because of it. To each their own.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Richard Stooker said:


> Myself, if I find myself skipping parts of a book, I just put it down. That's a sign the author is not in control of their craft. There're too many books
> where everything from the descriptions to the action to the prologue to the sex to the inner angst are all interesting and comprise a terrific story.


Yes, this is pretty much me. I don't skip. I am surprised to see how many do. When I feel like scanning over pages to me that means I don't like the book, period. I stop reading. It happens very rarely to me, but those will be DNF's. 
I pick up the next book. Thankfully I like most books I read at the very least. I think its because my vetting system works.

I want to get a feel for the world that is being created when I read. I want the author to set that mood. I want everything from world building, character building, settings descriptions, emotional connections which include sensual scenes, I want it all to be interesting. And in the majority of books I read it is. If its not, I stop reading. Why would I skip something. Why would that book get better later on if I need to keep skipping stuff. If I felt like skipping fight scenes, I would think the book is just not written in a way to satisfy me. If I felt like skipping descriptions, the writer just didn't make interesting enough. That means to me the book just isn't interesting to me to read.

Way to many books out there that I enjoy reading.

So year, for me skipping means its a DNF and I put it down right away. Open next book.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

katrina46 said:


> Here is the problem I've encountered as a writer. I do skip all that. Then people complain my stories are interesting, but too short. It's like some people would rather have 500 pages of filler just to justify the money they spent, rather than an interesting, well paced story. I write erotica now, so short is not such and issue, but when I was doing thrillers I got this complaint all the time.


When I read a story I feel is too short, it is usually for one of two reasons. Either I loved the story so much that I didn't want it to end, and no matter where it ended, it would have been too soon.

OR

There was more to the story that could have been told. Not filler. It has nothing to do with page count or how long the story was. It's more to do with having a fully fleshed out story. Maybe there was a character I would have liked to know more about. Maybe a secondary storyline that had potential but wasn't developed.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

S.G. Dean said:


> If a reader is skimming then the writer's storytelling isn't very gripping.


No.

It just means those parts don't appeal to that specific reader. Other readers might love the parts that one reader is skimming. Furthermore, an eighteen-year old might find some things boring that a thirty-year old finds riveting.



S.G. Dean said:


> Personally, I don't believe in skipping anything. If you're going to read a book then read the book. You miss things when you skim.


Yes.

And yet you'll find comments galore stating, "I skimmed 70% of the book. The plot didn't make any sense."


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

In writing, I write whatever I want to write (following my outline)...but when I edit, I "X" out the parts I'd skip in a published novel. I leave the parts I like, understanding I'm not necessarily appealing to every reader with every paragraph. 

I'm my first reader, the one I'm writing for. (Is that egotistical or solipsistic of me? Quite possibly.) Part of why I write is I can't find many of the sorts of books I'd most like to read...so I write them. I accept they might not be the sorts of books you, or you, or you like to read. The assumption that "people" or "readers" are all alike isn't useful to me as a writer.


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## LovetoWrite (Aug 12, 2014)

Domino Finn said:


> So no descriptions, fights, sex scenes, ancillary conversations, or backstory. Sounds like AMAZING advice.


LMAO!


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## Lefevre (Feb 1, 2014)

That is a very subjective matter.

As a reader, I never skip anything. If I do, it is all of the "stuffing" (front and back matter) and as a huge fan of historical fiction, I actually look for books with good fight scenes. Plus, I think that fight scenes are a great way for a writer to "show not tell." For that reason, I cannot imagine skipping them.

Speaking as a writer, I will say that if you are writing a compelling story, then the reader won't be bored. Skipped parts, just need to be edited better.


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## kjbryen (Jul 3, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> I agree. Prologues cause various nervous system diseases, and shouldn't be forced upon readers. Sex is icky, deviant, and immoral unless missionary and between male & female, and only for procreation, so let's nip that little big of disgusting nonsense out of the book. Backstory... no one cares about a character's backstory. We all know characters are born, grow up, and now have magic powers or superhuman strength, because that's... DUH! That's all human beings. Sheesh. No fights either. Not interested in finding out about who won the interstellar war, or which ninja got whipped by his rival ninja enemy. I definitely like a book that doesn't have any fights or battles. And come on... descriptions? Do we even have to mention this? Descriptions totally detract from the story, and I can't believe anyone still uses such things. You guys don't still do descriptions, do you?
> 
> So, let me show you how a proper novel is written. Watch and learn, rookies:
> 
> ...


Haha! Exactly what I was imagining when reading this thread! 
Honestly, I guess all readers are different, but its hard to imagine not liking action scenes. Unless their written badly, they're usually the most thrilling parts of a book! I also love prologues (though I admit, I used to skip over them) and often find they have vital information in them. And description can be absolutely beautiful!

The only scene I've ever skipped in a book was the whole chapter in Hunchback of Notre Dame that described every detail of Paris. It was like twenty pages describing the location of every building and street, I mean, really. I would have preferred a map lol


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

Domino Finn said:


> So no descriptions, fights, sex scenes, ancillary conversations, or backstory. Sounds like AMAZING advice.


 

As readers, we all have our pet peeves and preferences. I love well-done descriptions that make me feel like I'm there in a fully formed world. I hate sex scenes _if_ they go on and on and on and ...

Write what you're best at, what your readers enjoy. Use your powers only for good.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

TattooedWriter said:


> This is actually a quote from Elmore Leonard.
> 
> I don't think Leonard is advising to stop writing descriptions or sex scenes. He means write them in a way that the reader won't skip them.


Write. Or, er, Right.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

vlmain said:


> I truly believe that sometimes less really is more. I love it when a writer gives me just enough information that I form my own picture of the character or place. I think what bothers me about too much description, besides being tedious reading, is that often the writer's description of the person or place is different than what I imagined, and when that happens, it pulls me out of the story.


I do that with my series, dropping in a word here or there about what the character looks like, but don't complete the picture until about 2/3 of the way through book one. It's not a jaw dropping description and doesn't change anything prior (ie, he's not a hunchback or anything, so no big reveal. lol) but I had one or two readers get ticked because I didn't give a description of him right off the bat. 

And clothes, heh heh, for the most part, my characters run around naked.  Okay, I lied. They don't, but I don't describe their clothing unless it's important for some reason. Ex. character puts on his prison garb for the first time, or street clothes after getting out of prison. Otherwise, I let my readers assume my characters are dressed.


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## Miss Tarheel (Jul 18, 2014)

I also hate prologues and skip over them. Mostly because I've never read one that didn't make me wanna yawn.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

There are times when Stephen King goes off on his little tangents that have nothing to do with the story, and they might last a page or two. I'm not going to give up on the whole book over a short segment, but yeah, I usually skim through those sections.  If it turns out to be relevant later, I'll go back and read it.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Tiara McClure said:


> I also hate prologues and skip over them. Mostly because I've never read one that didn't make me wanna yawn.


I never understood that attitude. Yes, if a certain author is known for writing prologues that are meaningless to the story, I might consider skipping it. But sometimes prologues set up the rest of the story or develop the character. Sometimes the roots of a story begin long before the main timeline, and if it's worth showing, then it's worth being part of the story.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

jcthatsme said:


> I don't skip anything entirely, but I do find myself skimming overly long descriptions.


Same for me. Long paragraphs (more than 10 lines or so) tend to make me skim. Overwrought descriptions of things (particularly clothing) also hit the skim button for me. Like, It's a beautiful sunset, I get it. Your nuanced description of it isn't carrying the story forward. Move along.

Also any time there's nothing happening in the story, I tend to start skimming to find something happening. I want characters that do things and who move me and who make me care. Slathering on description and using words the writer clearly pulled out of the thesaurus for no reason other than to look smart--wasted on me.

Also, adverbs and Tom Swifties. Just stop. Please. I was reading one particular indie-pub book recently and every single line of dialogue had a swiftie involved. Uttered, hinted, quipped ruefully, questioned, responded, whimsically retorted, etc. Bleah.


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## Paul Huxley (Feb 27, 2014)

The only thing I have ever skipped in any book that I have finished is Tom [redacted] Bombadil.


_edited per forum language guidelines -- Ann_


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

Some good advice might be to read your own story. If you start skimming over sections you wrote, then that's probably a sign that readers might do the same, too.


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## ♨ (Jan 9, 2012)

Most people skip over my whole book.  That's going to make the next one real easy to write.  I can just leave the entire inside blank.

Ooh.  I can probably crank out five to ten books a day, depending on how fancy I get with the cover work.  Some people say they don't start making money until book twenty, which I'll be able to release in two to four days!  Woohoo!  A month from now, I should have anywhere from one hundred and fifty to three hundred books out.  I AM GOING TO BE RICH!!!


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> *Special Thanks*
> I'd like to thank Domino Finn, as without his idea for this story, it would have never come to be.


I've never made Special Thanks before! I will always remember this moment!

Seriously, though, why do people skip prologues? Do you just assume it is backstory? Or a mini-story that has nothing to do with the main book? I'm not accusing anybody of anything- I'm honestly curious what it is about prologues that turns you off.


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## SBJones (Jun 13, 2011)

If I am re-reading a book, I tend to skip over parts because I already know what's going to happen.  I will have to pay attention the next time I do this and try to figure out if I skip certain types of parts over others.  When I outlined my trilogy, one of the goals I had was to make it re-readable.  Once you get to the end and all the time travel twists have been revealed, I wanted the reader to be able to go back and re-read them and it would be almost like a new story.

The only book I ever skipped parts during the first time I read it was, Robert Jordan's "Winter's Heart".  It was so boring that I only read the parts about Matt and Rand.  I skipped the rest of the Perrin and Falie crap.  It was also the LAST Robert Jordan book I bought because of the same reason.

Prologues are an interesting beast.  My thoughts are the following on them.  Because most of us are not famous superstar authors AND the general feedback is that (some, many, few, lots, whatever amount) people do skip them or are turned off by them, that we shouldn't use them.  I don't think any one of us can honestly risk having customers pass our book up because it has a prologue.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

I honestly can't remember reading any prologues that were pointless or didn't serve the story in some way.  Maybe it's a genre thing?


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

MyraScott said:


> I honestly can't remember reading any prologues that were pointless or didn't serve the story in some way. Maybe it's a genre thing?


That's weird. I've never read a prologue that didn't serve the story in some way.


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## SunshineOnMe (Jan 11, 2014)

I admit it, I skip prologues. I can't help it. When I get a new story I want to get right in to the thick of it. A prologue represents to me beginning the story, only to be ripped out and into another part, ie: new time frame, new characters with chapter one. Sometimes I will go back and read the prologue, but usually I figure out anything I missed by the context of the story. 

And oddly enough, I have a prologue in both of my books. From what I've gleaned from reader feedback, it's usually skipped. lol


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Tiara McClure said:


> I also hate prologues and skip over them. Mostly because I've never read one that didn't make me wanna yawn.


Val McDermid?


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

TLR
Can I now use adverbs if I leave out all the other stuff, he asked charmingly but forthrightly.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Flay Otters said:


> he asked charmingly but forthrightly.


This is why we can't have nice literature.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Tiara McClure said:


> I also hate prologues and skip over them. Mostly because I've never read one that didn't make me wanna yawn.


Darn. I have a prologue in my romantic suspense. It sets up the whole story, but I couldn't very well have the main character falling in love right then, so I had to skip ahead almost a year so it would be appropriate. I wonder how many people skip it?


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> This is why we can't have nice literature.


See, I always get slammed for my no adverb rule, but there lies my argument. lol.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

If I find myself wanting to skip the descriptions, I skip the whole book. The problem isn't that descriptions are boring, it's that some writers are boring and don't know how to write. Read the opening descriptions in Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, The Yearling, Giant, The Big Sleep, and countless other contemporary classics. Steinbeck, Chandler, Rawlings, and Ferber could write. Only an "instant gratification" nut would skip those descriptions.

Rather than cut my descriptions because readers might skip them because some agent thinks so, I'd rather try to write descriptions that readers want to read. At least that's the idea. I'll let you know when I've figured out how.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

vlmain said:


> When I read a story I feel is too short, it is usually for one of two reasons. Either I loved the story so much that I didn't want it to end, and no matter where it ended, it would have been too soon.
> 
> OR
> 
> There was more to the story that could have been told. Not filler. It has nothing to do with page count or how long the story was. It's more to do with having a fully fleshed out story. Maybe there was a character I would have liked to know more about. Maybe a secondary storyline that had potential but wasn't developed.


I do short better. I strip out everything I don't need and get to the essence of the story, or I try to, anyway. I always use Gone with the Wind as an example. I love that book, but I could love it minus a few hundred pages or so, too.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Why would I skip a prologue? I've just paid x amount of money for that book, I'm reading every word! 

This is where good editors come in. They can spot waffle, whereas an author who is close to his/her work sometimes can't.


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## RaeC (Aug 20, 2013)

I take it as "Skip the parts you're not excited about writing, since if you hate writing it most readers will surely hate reading it."

And even _after _following that advice, I've caught myself glossing over entire paragraphs of my own stories to get the the 'good stuff'. I have to remember that what I consider perfunctory while writing might seem superfluous while reading. It screws with the rhythm.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

MaryMcDonald said:


> And clothes, heh heh, for the most part, my characters run around naked.  Okay, I lied. They don't, but I don't describe their clothing unless it's important for some reason. Ex. character puts on his prison garb for the first time, or street clothes after getting out of prison. Otherwise, I let my readers assume my characters are dressed.


Sometimes describing the clothes shows a lot about the character. However, it's easy to go overboard. (I must say, I like the concept of all your naked characters.)


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## RN_Wright (Jan 7, 2014)

"So no descriptions, fights, sex scenes, ancillary conversations, or backstory."

Ditch that pesky plot and you can produce a pretty fair phone book.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I agree that information dumps and too much detail get to be tedious. I happen to be a reader that likes sections of books that don't necessarily move the story forward, though. You know what my favorite parts in the Harry Potter books are? I love degnoming the garden in the second book, Harry's time spent in Diagon Alley after fleeing Privet Drive in the third, the Weasley's visit to Privet Drive and the "mundane" camping in the fourth, the time spent at Sirius' house in the fifth. I love all of the books, don't get me wrong, but those are my favorite parts. I like character connections and simple moments. I like the action, too -- and I know action is important. I just think you have to strike a balance between fun character building and balls to the wall action. That's just me, though.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> This is why we can't have nice literature.





katrina46 said:


> See, I always get slammed for my no adverb rule, but there lies my argument. lol.


I understand; adverbs are the devil's hoof prints. So I guess they are off the table as well.
Too many rules in this writing game. Maybe I should take up drinking.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

RN_Wright said:


> "So no descriptions, fights, sex scenes, ancillary conversations, or backstory."
> 
> Ditch that pesky plot and you can produce a pretty fair phone book.


Too many characters.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> Same for me. Long paragraphs (more than 10 lines or so) tend to make me skim. Overwrought descriptions of things (particularly clothing) also hit the skim button for me. Like, It's a beautiful sunset, I get it. Your nuanced description of it isn't carrying the story forward. Move along.
> 
> Also any time there's nothing happening in the story, I tend to start skimming to find something happening. I want characters that do things and who move me and who make me care. Slathering on description and using words the writer clearly pulled out of the thesaurus for no reason other than to look smart--wasted on me.
> 
> Also, adverbs and Tom Swifties. Just stop. Please. I was reading one particular indie-pub book recently and every single line of dialogue had a swiftie involved. Uttered, hinted, quipped ruefully, questioned, responded, whimsically retorted, etc. Bleah.


See now I want to buy one of your books because I hate all that stuff too.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

IstvanSzaboIfj said:


> In my opinion who skip things that one is a dumb and / or impatient person, mostly because unless they can't see the future and tell what those descriptions are all about, they're skipping things randomly and completely blindly. The fact is people tend to skip elements they don't or can't understand. You can't fit your book for everyone. What some may find boring, others may love that part. There are different types of people with different skills and knowledge. Some may have the attention span of a blowfish, while others can focus and enjoy the details. So, write what you want to write. If some people can't understand or skip elements, that's their loss, not yours. There are seven billion people on this tiny wandering paradise. You don't have to write your book for everyone.


I skip it if it bores me. I've had writers that can actually hold my attention with pages of description An example that might make some laugh is Jaws. Peter Benchley spent the first couple of pages describing how the fish worked, what its motivation was, how its body reacted to the girl skinny dipping when it first felt the waves she made in the water, how close it got to her before it actually smelled and saw her. He also explained maybe on the first page that if the fish ever stopped swimming it would die. In the end that is how it died. Simply stopped swimming and drowned, so great foreshadowing. If you can't get me that into your description, chances are you aren't going to write anything else I like either. And yes I'm aware I just wrote the hugest run on sentence ever, but I was making a point.


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## AmpersandBookInteriors (Feb 10, 2012)

Our prologues are the part of a movie that pulls you directly into the conflict right off the bat, before getting to the thick of the story. But that's just us. Shame if it was skipped, though. 

We write everything a character wants us to include. What you read of that probably depends on if you find that character interesting or not. Regardless, it will all be written.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I have a question for the folks who skip prologues:

Do you also show up fifteen minutes late for James Bond movies?


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## Navigator (Jul 9, 2014)

swolf said:


> I have a question for the folks who skip prologues:
> 
> Do you also show up fifteen minutes late for James Bond movies?


Yes. 

My first book actually had a prologue but it was starting to look like an information dump so I gutted it and made the rest the first part of chapter one.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

vlmain said:


> I'm watching a presentation from Writer's Digest on plotting a novel, and the presenter is talking about how to keep our novel moving so our readers won't get bored. One of his tips was to _cut (or don't write) the parts people will skip_. Sounds like great advice, but how do you know what parts readers will skip? So, I thought it would be fun to to ask all of you what parts of a book you are most likely to skip over.
> 
> I skip description paragraphs. I like descriptions of people and places to be woven into the story, preferably in some kind of action scene. Nothing bores me faster than a paragraph, or multiple paragraphs, describing every last detail of a room, from the lighting fixtures to the color and pattern of the wallpaper. I always fast forward past those parts.
> 
> So, what about you? What parts of a book you are most likely to skip over?


This is the kind of writing advice that sounds great when it's given, but becomes less and less useful the more you think about it.

"Don't write the parts people skip" is entirely subjective to the tastes of different readers, and last I checked, I'm not psychic.

Illustration:

The second book I published, Shada, has been generally well-received.

However, it's also been a bit surprising looking over different reviews that were written, because of how contradictory some of them are.

For example, one reviewer wrote that the book had "too much dialogue and not enough description, it read more like a script."

Yet another reviewer wrote Shada, "felt bogged down in description, and made me wish the narrative would move along a bit faster."

Neither reviewer is right or wrong; they're different readers with different impressions, based on their own tastes.

The fact that I got reactions on both sides helped me feel as though I'd probably struck a decent balance, to be honest. 

But as it pertains to the main point: one can never know which parts of one's book are going to be skipped and which are not. And what parts are skipped will vary between readers.

So the main point is to make sure everything you write is essential to the story, moves things forward, or adds something necessary by being there.

If any sentence, passage, or even individual word doesn't meet that criteria, trim it up.

If it does, keep it.

But trying to guess what parts people will skip? A fool's errand and bad advice, IMO.


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

Some of it is my ADD, but ...

I don't like descriptive blocks either--whether it be people or, worse, scenery.  I skim those.  I prefer the description to be active if it must be in a block; not static like a text book.  And I prefer smaller, scattered doses over blocks, period.

I also dislike infodumps unless kept to a few lines.  I make some allowances for longer infodump passages, but there must be an immediate payoff for it and it must be a case where the alternative would warp the story more than the infodump does.  Even so, I will still skim it. 

I also dislike a lot of names and relations dumped on me in one go.  I skim those. 

ETA:  Sex scenes.  Sometimes I will read fanfic with that, but even with that, I usually skim past it.  But the reason I may dig it in fanfic is I've invested several years watching and reading about these characters.  Otherwise, my preference is "sweet" over "spicy."  (But that is very much a personal reading preference there.)

ETA2:  I forgot to mention my preferences change according to genre.  Historical fiction I want to know what the characters are wearing, what a certain building looks like inside, etc. even I don't understand all the words.  But I still don't want it to read like a history text.  I just have a higher threshold for how much info writers give me.

Jodi


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Marie Long said:


> Some good advice might be to read your own story. If you start skimming over sections you wrote, then that's probably a sign that readers might do the same, too.


Not necessarily.

Familiarity breeds over-familiarity.

One cannot write and rewrite and read and reread and then rewrite again without some skimming setting in. It's often not because a passage isn't intriguing, but because you're so familiar with a passage, you know it doesn't have further issues to catch.

One cannot read one's own work with the same sort of fresh eyes a first-time-through reader will. The suggestion that it's possible is a fiction in and of itself.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Jodi said:


> Some of it is my ADD, but ...
> 
> I don't like descriptive blocks either--whether it be people or, worse, scenery. I skim those. I prefer the description to be active if it must be in a block; not static like a text book. And I prefer smaller doses scattered about over blocks, period.
> 
> ...


All legitimate. And all subjective to your likes and dislikes as a reader.

Some other reader might not have the same likes and dislikes.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Many folks say they despise info-dumps.

Done poorly, they can indeed be boring.

Yet many Tolkien fans praise The Simarillion, which is more or less one 365-page info dump.


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

vlmain said:


> Interesting you should mention prologues. He discussed that, at length. The general consensus among agents and publishers is not to write prologues because most people do skip them. His advice was to write the prologue, but call it Chapter One.
> 
> Edited for typo


Weird musing at large:

I wonder who is "most people." I doubt many readers are exposed to many prologues, so why would they automatically skip them?

After thinking about it a bit, I came to this weird thought: It may be more of a roundabout way of saying there are writers who use prologues to dump several pages worth material that doesn't directly connect to the story at hand and may not be active or may set a different tone than the novel itself has. (There are probably other issues than these. Oooh, such as ... the prologue may be a recap of a previous novel. Now some new readers may want to read this; other new readers may find it like a book report and skip it. And series readers may skip it just because they know it already.)

When you mention calling it chapter one, that makes me think it may be a subliminal influence at work then. The author who may be writing something less connected to the whole of the novel may be forced to alter it fit more closely to the whole. Basically it forces the author to give it a second look he or she may not give it otherwise.

Jodi


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

IstvanSzaboIfj said:


> In my opinion who skip things that one is a dumb and / or impatient person, mostly because unless they can't see the future and tell what those descriptions are all about, they're skipping things randomly and completely blindly. The fact is people tend to skip elements they don't or can't understand. You can't fit your book for everyone. What some may find boring, others may love that part. There are different types of people with different skills and knowledge. Some may have the attention span of a blowfish, while others can focus and enjoy the details. So, write what you want to write. If some people can't understand or skip elements, that's their loss, not yours. There are seven billion people on this tiny wandering paradise. You don't have to write your book for everyone.


Some of it is impatience. Some of it is boredom. But I also believe something not every writer or reader believes: I do not believe that every word in every book is actually necessary. I think this even if the author has a dozen editors and beta readers. I also think different readers will believe different things are necessary (depending on their mood, knowledge, familiarity with the genre, etc.). Mostly it comes down to the fact I don't think every writer and editor is perfect, especially not over a span of 100,000+ words.

Also, you do make a good point. Know your specific audience. Are you (general you) writing for the type that loves, for example, lush and ample description? Go for it, and keep that audience in mind.

By the way, this reminds me of learning styles. I bet tolerance for descriptive passages, for example, varies according to whether one is mostly visual vs mostly aural vs mostly tactile.

Jodi


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

ecg52 said:


> I want to write like that too. But all this show, don't tell makes me feel like I have to include a s***load of descriptive paragraphs.


Go ahead and just write what happens next. You'll be fine, because you have somehow gotten it backwards: the admonition of "show, don't tell" means that you do NOT include "a s***load of descriptive paragraphs" (as you put it). It means that the actions of the characters (that you "show" to your readers by briefly mentioning those actions) will advance the story without you having to "tell" a lot of unnecessary details. You don't have to describe every bit of what your protagonist looks like or what kind of person he is or say that he is the fastest gun in El Paso when he challenges another man to a gunfight. You can write, "My challenge was answered in less than a heartbeat. The handsome young stranger was dead on the floor." Notice that we also know nothing of the stranger's appearance except that he is "young" and "handsome." That's enough.


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

vlmain said:


> Interesting you should mention prologues. He discussed that, at length. The general consensus among agents and publishers is not to write prologues because most people do skip them. His advice was to write the prologue, but call it Chapter One.


If you have a bad prologue, then naming it Chapter One is probably doing MORE damage to your book than naming it Prologue. In the latter case, the type of people who skip prologues will skip it and maybe read the rest of your book. If it's named Chapter One, and people don't like it, then your book is gonna get dumped.

The key is to write something entertaining.


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

It's like video games- some will avidly watch every second of the cut scenes, while others will skip every last cut scene, preferring to get straight into the action.

In general, don't write the parts that people skip is great advice. No one wants blow-by-blow descriptions of things that aren't important to the story or meandering trips into dead-end sub-plots.

One of the best pieces of advice I've seen is to make every scene in your book a scene that you're excited to write. If you're not excited to write it, your readers won't enjoy reading it.

From there, it gets murky. I personally need description for atmosphere. If there's no atmosphere, I'm outta there. I want _cinematic_, I want an experience that I can't get anywhere else. If all there is is action and dialogue I'm not going to get hooked.
But I'm sure other readers are in it for the action and spills.

I remember years ago, when reading literary agents, reading their posts about first pages that had them instantly hooked. And I'd read the first pages that they posted as examples, yet rarely was I hooked. Reading is such a personal experience.



Peter Spenser said:


> Go ahead and just write what happens next. You'll be fine, because you have somehow gotten it backwards: the admonition of "show, don't tell" means that you do NOT include "a s***load of descriptive paragraphs" (as you put it). It means that the actions of the characters (that you "show" to your readers by briefly mentioning those actions) will advance the story without you having to "tell" a lot of unnecessary details. You don't have to describe every bit of what your protagonist looks like or what kind of person he is or say that he is the fastest gun in El Paso when he challenges another man to a gunfight. You can write, "My challenge was answered in less than a heartbeat. The handsome young stranger was dead on the floor." Notice that we also know nothing of the stranger's appearance except that he is "young" and "handsome." That's enough.


Agree with this.
Also, I see a lot books where they 'tell' the hell out of the opening paragraphs, and it works. Whereas if they gave the setup of the story slowly, over many chapters, the setup would get lost and it would also get kind of painful, with lots of "Well, as you know, Joe..." type of conversations.
It's good to start in media res, if it works. If you have the kind of story that needs a quick setup, then by all means do.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Peter Spenser said:


> Go ahead and just write what happens next. You'll be fine, because you have somehow gotten it backwards: the admonition of "show, don't tell" means that you do NOT include "a s***load of descriptive paragraphs" (as you put it). It means that the actions of the characters (that you "show" to your readers by briefly mentioning those actions) will advance the story without you having to "tell" a lot of unnecessary details. You don't have to describe every bit of what your protagonist looks like or what kind of person he is or say that he is the fastest gun in El Paso when he challenges another man to a gunfight. You can write, "My challenge was answered in less than a heartbeat. The handsome young stranger was dead on the floor." Notice that we also know nothing of the stranger's appearance except that he is "young" and "handsome." That's enough.


This is so funny, because I just came here to post this very thing. I have been thinking all day about why long descriptions bother me so much, and I realized it is more of a telling versus showing issue. I don't want to be told what a person or place looks like. I want to be shown what it looks like. I want to see it through the eyes of one of the characters.

"Her long, chestnut colored tendrils rested on her shoulders." Boring

Write a scene that shows me a couple snuggled up on a couch. Describe how he feels as he plays with her hair, how soft it is, how much he loves the color of it, and the smell of her shampoo. That, I will read.

If I read the first example, I would think, "Okay, she's got brown hair. Big deal." If I read the second example, I would think, "Wow, I really wish I had her hair. And maybe even her boyfriend."


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

Peter Spenser said:


> Go ahead and just write what happens next. You'll be fine, because you have somehow gotten it backwards: the admonition of "show, don't tell" means that you do NOT include "a s***load of descriptive paragraphs" (as you put it). It means that the actions of the characters (that you "show" to your readers by briefly mentioning those actions) will advance the story without you having to "tell" a lot of unnecessary details. You don't have to describe every bit of what your protagonist looks like or what kind of person he is or say that he is the fastest gun in El Paso when he challenges another man to a gunfight. You can write, "My challenge was answered in less than a heartbeat. The handsome young stranger was dead on the floor." Notice that we also know nothing of the stranger's appearance except that he is "young" and "handsome." That's enough.


Show vs. tell is a saying that bothers me too. For myself, I translated it to "watch when you summarize action/character development/quirks vs. show the action/etc. Make sure it's the right choice for story at that time and overall."

It also helps to know why you are doing a tell vs. a show. Sometimes it is right .... but when it's not, sometimes it may be because you are uncomfortable with writing a certain kind of scene. Don't let that get in your way. Sometimes it's because the telling way comes first to mind and it doesn't get changed. That passage may require a second look. Sometimes you revert to tell because you want to say it once and be done with it. This may or not work. Sometimes you have to show it affecting the character more than once to make it believable (Also keep in mind, people tend to remember "story" better than information just told). Anyway, it might help to highlight your tell vs. show in a single representative chapter. See what your tendency is and figure out why. Then find a like chapter in a book you like. See what they actually do.

But to be honest, I don't notice a few lines of tell that could be show. I notice when it starts piling on. For instance, I was reading a zombie book with female protagonists. The author had some awesome action scenes. I poured through those on the edge of my seat just like she wanted me to. But in between those, most chapters felt like summary. That was way too much tell.

So, IMHO, show vs tell is one of those things that is easy to misunderstand and go overboard on (I know I have). And these days, I take a lot of this advice with a grain of salt. I see many writing rules broken repeatedly in published fiction. That isn't an excuse to take the easy path and not work on building skills the "rules" touch upon, but it is a way to not obsess over it to the point you do more harm than good to the work.

Jodi


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Thanks for all your responses, everyone. This has been a very interesting and entertaining thread. Some great information has been shared, here, and I do appreciate that. Thank you.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Domino Finn said:


> If you have a bad prologue, then naming it Chapter One is probably doing MORE damage to your book than naming it Prologue.


True, but if the prologue is that bad it shouldn't be published, period. And if the prologue is that bad, then the rest of the book is probably equally bad and will get dumped, anyway.



Domino Finn said:


> The key is to write something entertaining.


Absolutely! That is the key to everything in this business.


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

A.A said:


> From there, it gets murky. I personally need description for atmosphere. If there's no atmosphere, I'm outta there. I want _cinematic_, I want an experience that I can't get anywhere else. If all there is is action and dialogue I'm not going to get hooked.
> But I'm sure other readers are in it for the action and spills.


All this talk on description reminded me of something.....

The book Thinking, Fast and Slow explained for me some of my intolerance of descriptive passages. (ADD books explained some other reasons). Anyway Daniel Kahneman, page 29 (hardback), has a passage that explains why he explained his "systems" of the mind the way he did. But when I read it, I had a eureka moment. I had found science to back up some writing advice (against using "was" etc.). Here it is, with a few bits skipped (any typos are mine):

"A sentence is understood more easily if it describes what an agent ... does than if it describes what something is, what properties it has. ... The mind appears to have a special aptitude for the construction and interpretation of stories about active agents, who have personalities, habits, and abilities."

For me, it explained part of my dislike of descriptive passages.

And at the time it made me remember a descriptive-fest in a work by H. P. Lovecraft that I liked (and was suprised I liked). The passage from "Memory" (in my B&N edition, page 46) (again any errors are mine): "Vast are the stones which sleep beneath coverlets of dank moss, and mighty were the walls from which they fell." And "Rank is the herbage on each slope, where evil vines and creeping plants crawl admist the stones of ruined palaces, twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths, and heaving up marble pavements laid by forgotten hands."

When I analyzed it, I saw that HPL didn't say you could see pavement broken by vines. He said the vines heaved up pavement. And so on. These verbs, these words went beyond properities and "state of being"; they made the description active (Of course, there is writer advice against anthropomorphizing inanimate objects--they'd probably object to the use of "sleep," which I liked.). These bits also fit the overall tone and purpose of the story.

My point is, I remembered this short story's use of description, I remembered I liked it, and thanks to Kahneman I understood why.

Jodi


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## joyceharmon (May 21, 2012)

I don't mind description of the characters, I think that's necessary, but keep it to a short paragraph and include something (at least one thing!) more about the character than physical appearance. And fer gawd's sake, once you've told us the heroine's hair and eye color, there's no need to keep reminding us over and over again. "She shook back her golden hair as her sapphire eyes flashed indignantly..."


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

vlmain said:


> This is so funny, because I just came here to post this very thing. I have been thinking all day about why long descriptions bother me so much, and I realized it is more of a telling versus showing issue. I don't want to be told what a person or place looks like. I want to be shown what it looks like. I want to see it through the eyes of one of the characters.
> 
> "Her long, chestnut colored tendrils rested on her shoulders." Boring
> 
> ...


I find the "show, don't tell" craze going on at the moment extraordinarily boring. If I were to name the single one most destructive writing advice given to people during the past 1-2 decades, then it is this. It creates an enormous bloat and makes for tedious reading. "Showing" works fine for select, important scenes. "Telling" works perfectly for the rest. Showing everything is bloating a story to the point of constipation.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

I don't skip anything. I love prologues in horror novels. I also don't fast-forward through any parts of shows or movies, always get to the theater in time for the preview, and stay after to see if there's an extra scene during the end credits.

If I'm reading something that makes me _wish_ I could skim ahead more than a couple of times, I give up on it and move on to a more enjoyable book.


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## joyceharmon (May 21, 2012)

Nic said:


> I find the "show, don't tell" craze going on at the moment extraordinarily boring. If I were to name the single one most destructive writing advice given to people during the past 1-2 decades, then it is this. It creates an enormous bloat and makes for tedious reading. "Showing" works fine for select, important scenes. "Telling" works perfectly for the rest. Showing everything is bloating a story to the point of constipation.


I think the 'show, don't tell' thing is a direct import from screenwriting. In screenwriting it makes sense, because nothing comes through to the audience unless they see it or hear it. So when a novice screenwriter writes that 
"Amanda, a stocky mid-twenties barista from the Midwest with a degree in anthropology" enters the scene, the only thing the director can put on the screen is that the character is female, stocky and mid-twenties. Then too, it's better to put into a screenplay that "Amanda shivered", rather than "AMANDA: I'm scared." But come on - this is prose we're writing! Whether we write "Amanda shivered" or 'Amanda said, "I'm scared"' - we're telling. We're not dressing a set and rolling film and putting actors in motion across a screen to show - we're telling.


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## Dobby the House Elf (Aug 16, 2014)

vlmain said:


> "...chestnut colored tendrils ..."


I've seen way too much anime and sci-fi to read the word "tendrils" and not be a little disturbed.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

kward said:


> OMG - so I got, like, totes bored reading Chapter One when so-and-so beat that evil whatever-his-name-is - so here, I've edited the story to make it, like, soooo un-skippably awesome!
> 
> *The Book that Ended*
> by That Guy
> ...


You plagiarizin' #@%@#^@#$%!!!!!

(also, @#$#@ YOU, your book is way better than mine, even if you stole it)

But, because I'm one of those jerks who can't ever walk away from competition/challenge, beat this:

*Book*
_author_
Plot.


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## Lucas (Jul 15, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> You plagiarizin' #@%@#^@#$%!!!!!
> 
> (also, @#$#@ YOU, your book is way better than mine, even if you stole it)
> 
> ...


  couldn't breathe for a minute there.


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## MT Berlyn (Mar 27, 2012)

Prologues don't bother me at all.  Prologues are often utilized in the mystery genre.  More than two or three paragraphs of description can leave me a bit dazed, but I'd have to say it depends on what is being described.  Page after page of inner dialogue can be a bit tedious, but again, it depends.  

I think the advice on being fairly concise is good advice, but at the same time I don't like to be told what I expect as a reader and what I don't; what I will gloss over and what I won't.  Does the story give a sense of layering and intrigue?  That's what I look for.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

A better phrasing of this advice is far less controversial:

_*Don't be boring.*_​


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Here's advice to make this a lot easier on writers:

_*People, don't skip parts in books.*_​


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Nell Gavin said:


> Charles Dickens, for one, would never find an audience today as a new author.


And Stephen King would have been arrested as a pervert and deviant and a leading Ripper suspect in Dickens' time.

Your point?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Let's not get testy, people. 

I think it's unwise to make broad generalizations about people's tastes, however. It's also true that tastes _change_. I definitely read different kinds of things now than I did 20 years ago.

I also think one ought to be very careful about saying something like "We all have ADHD because of the constant influx of mental, visual, and audio stimulation." This is patently false as I, personally, do NOT have ADHD. I get that you're being hperbolic, but when talking about diagnosable disorders, I think you have to be really careful.

I believe some people have a brain chemistry issue that makes focusing difficult. I think there are others who have not been competently diagnosed and just say "I have ADHD" as an excuse for avoiding responsibility. Which is incredibly INSULTING to those who, legitimately, have the disorder. I feel like you're using the term here in a non-clinical sense and I am not sure it's appropriate.

I'd characterize it as it's a lot easier for most of us to get distracted because the average person is subject, today, to way more input and stimulation then when, for example, I was a kid. All that additional input can be both good and bad -- it definitely needs to be managed. The difficulty for some of us adults is we might be a bit behind the power curve in learning how to do that.  The end result might be a rather higher percentage of folks who prefer quick reads than who prefer longer ones.


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## abishop (May 22, 2014)

I don't think I've ever skipped any text in a novel.  I'm surprised to hear that so many people do so.  Do you use the scene skip button to jump chapters on DVD movies?

If a writer thinks something is important enough to have written it down, I'll read it.  There's no way to know ahead of time what paragraphs are going to contain information that I'll wish I'd read further into the novel.  If the text becomes boring I don't try to jump ahead to another section, I just go find another book.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Faulkner's As i Lay Dying:

http://www.amazon.com/As-Lay-Dying-Vintage-International-ebook/dp/B004JHYRMW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1410287704&sr=1-1&keywords=as+i+lay+dying#reader_B004JHYRMW

Read the first chapter. It's short. Those who could skip that chapter and I have little in common when it comes to literary choice. As much as I dislike analogies, it's like skipping the Overture to West Side Story, fast-forwarding past the verse to Stardust, or glossing over the tiny and exquisite details in a Dali painting.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

My wife, who devours mysteries, says P.D. James fills her stories with details and descriptions often to the point where one doesn't know what to remember for later in the story. James is a best-seller, so some of those readers, whose tastes we're trying to assess, are buying them.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

I don't skip anything. I'd be too worried about missing something important, something I'll need to know later in the story. Anyway, I tend to take "Don't write the parts people skip" to mean write things in an interesting way. Not that there has to be a continual rush of action at all times but that even the quite stretches should be done in an entertaining way. Me, I like the slow parts of a story every bit as much as the action scenes. They're good spots for getting to know a character and finding out what motivates them. I enjoy description too, probably more than the average reader does. I like knowing what people are wearing, what their house looks like, etc. It helps draw me in and make me feel like I'm there with them. The only time I get antsy is when the description isn't broken up frequently. For example, I prefer to read one paragraph of description, followed by a little action or dialogue. Then I'm happy to come to another chunk of description half a page or so down. All I care about is that the description is broken up and sprinkled evenly.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

I don't like to skip anything, but I admit I do. Some times it's just so danged boring. Or repetitive. The first time I read about how a space battle is done using information that might be several minutes old, due to the time it takes images/sound to travel across space, okay. Two pages later, I don't need to be told that again. And then again at the next battle. And the ones after that. I've got a bad memory, but it ain't that bad.

That's one of the things that put me off S. M. Stirling's Dies the Fire series. The first book was good. Second one, okay. After that? OMG! Page after page of the exact same descriptions of what people wore, why they wore it, how it was derived from the historical clothing they wore in their SCA group, what they ate, how they grew it, how this one group was made up by people who loved Tolkien's books, over and over again. And then again three pages later. Book after book after book. One book had about a chapter's worth of new action, spread out over the whole book.

Same thing with G. R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, et al. I skipped so much in those books because it's deadly dull, and seems to never be mentioned ever again, or have any relevance to the story as a whole. I'll read a cheat sheet if he ever gets the next one up, simple to see if he really did kill off Jon Snow. That's the only character I care about at this point, as the others are dead, but I doubt I'll read any more of the series.

Now, I love description. I want to know how the writer envisioned the characters. I like knowing what they wear (though I can do without descriptions that are more like product placement), or how the house they live in looks/smells/feels. But tell me up front. I remember reading a book once, and it was going along great until the author off-handedly mentioned that the character was left handed, half-way through the book. That completely threw me off stride, and I really didn't like the rest of the book.

Also, I tend to skip prologues now, because I read so many that were boring, and didn't seem to relate to the book at all. I also skip quotes/poems at the beginning of chapters or parts. I found I was reading to see how they related to the story, rather than reading the story for itself.

But yeah, write description, tell me some back story, give me a flashback, but keep it relevant and interesting. And fairly short.


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## Fishbowl Helmet (Jan 12, 2014)

vlmain said:


> Interesting you should mention prologues. He discussed that, at length. The general consensus among agents and publishers is not to write prologues because most people do skip them. His advice was to write the prologue, but call it Chapter One.
> 
> Edited for typo


Better advice would be to not write a prologue, just leave it out as they're almost always densely packed with unnecessary background info that would work better sprinkled around in regular scenes.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

A brief prologue works for a setting that is unfamiliar to the reader (perhaps in the future) to explain how things got the way they are. Without the brief treatment of backstory, the author must contrive other ways to convey to the reader essential information that the characters probably already know.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Fishbowl Helmet said:


> Better advice would be to not write a prologue, just leave it out as they're almost always densely packed with unnecessary background info that would work better sprinkled around in regular scenes.


Highly misleading.

Some prologues that may be true of. "Almost always" only applies if you've read "almost all" novels that have prologues and can prove your thesis.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Al Stevens said:


> A brief prologue works for a setting that is unfamiliar to the reader (perhaps in the future) to explain how things got the way they are.


Ehh. Depends on genre.

For the genre I write in, a prologue can be useful by establishing, say, a haunting or a murder or whatever, that takes place long before the main story... such as the law getting involved, or a family moving into the haunted location, or something similar.

Doesn't have to be an info dump. Like all other parts of a novel, it's best if it's not an info dump.


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

> Same thing with G. R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, et al. I skipped so much in those books because it's deadly dull, and seems to never be mentioned ever again, or have any relevance to the story as a whole.


I'm reading it at the moment and have skipped chapters as well as huge chunks. If the chapters I didn't skip weren't so entertaining, I'd give up. And OMG the pages and pages describing house sigils and other crap! But then I rarely read fantasy novels and, I guess, to those readers, it probably adds something.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

CraigInOregon said:


> For the genre I write in, a prologue can be useful by establishing, say, a haunting or a murder or whatever, that takes place long before the main story... such as the law getting involved, or a family moving into the haunted location, or something similar.


Possibly, but the example given could just as easily be the first chapter. I have read many books that start with an event such as this in the first chapter, then Chapter Two opens years later.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

There's a difference between a prologue and a cold open, IMO.

A prologue is like 'here is something distant but connected to the main story that will be given greater significance as the tale unfolds and/or provides setting information so we don't need a historian characters.'

A cold open is 'this is an unrelated thing to establish the main character or a related thing about a character is is about to become a post mortem character.'


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Carol (was Dara) said:


> Anyway, I tend to take "Don't write the parts people skip" to mean write things in an interesting way.


That's the way I took it, too.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

I love prologues. A good prologue sets you up by getting you involved in a character's thoughts about what's occurred, but not giving it away. As an example, a person present day (whenever that may be in the book) thinking back over an event or events that changed his life or a huge regret, but not saying what it is. By the end of the prologue you should be saying, "What the hell happened?" and dying to find out. It adds drama and intrigue. A good prologue isn't supposed to set up background for a scene or give additional information, it's supposed to raise questions about what in the world has happened to the person and why.


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## joyceharmon (May 21, 2012)

Sheila_Guthrie said:


> I don't like to skip anything, but I admit I do. Some times it's just so danged boring. Or repetitive. The first time I read about how a space battle is done using information that might be several minutes old, due to the time it takes images/sound to travel across space, okay. Two pages later, I don't need to be told that again. And then again at the next battle. And the ones after that. I've got a bad memory, but it ain't that bad.
> 
> That's one of the things that put me off S. M. Stirling's Dies the Fire series. The first book was good. Second one, okay. After that? OMG! Page after page of the exact same descriptions of what people wore, why they wore it, how it was derived from the historical clothing they wore in their SCA group, what they ate, how they grew it, how this one group was made up by people who loved Tolkien's books, over and over again. And then again three pages later. Book after book after book. One book had about a chapter's worth of new action, spread out over the whole book.
> 
> Same thing with G. R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, et al. I skipped so much in those books because it's deadly dull, and seems to never be mentioned ever again, or have any relevance to the story as a whole. I'll read a cheat sheet if he ever gets the next one up, simple to see if he really did kill off Jon Snow. That's the only character I care about at this point, as the others are dead, but I doubt I'll read any more of the series.


Jean Auel! The Earth's Children series. It was fine the first couple books, Ayla didn't do a lot of talking with her adopted clan and in the second book she was exiled and on her own. But then she meets Jondalar and they start traveling and meeting people. And EVERY. SINGLE. person they meet is all 'Oh em gee! A horse!', and EVERY. SINGLE time that happens, Ayla has to tell the story about how she tamed the horse.

Now, I get it. None of these people had ever seen a horse that wasn't a wild animal, that would travel with people and carry their luggage, and they were naturally astonished. But after the first couple times, just tell us that Ayla told the story, we don't need a word for word transcription yet again. Well, that's one way to make a book a door-stopper, I suppose.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

joyceharmon said:


> Jean Auel! The Earth's Children series. It was fine the first couple books, Ayla didn't do a lot of talking with her adopted clan and in the second book she was exiled and on her own. But then she meets Jondalar and they start traveling and meeting people. And EVERY. SINGLE. person they meet is all 'Oh em gee! A horse!', and EVERY. SINGLE time that happens, Ayla has to tell the story about how she tamed the horse.
> 
> Now, I get it. None of these people had ever seen a horse that wasn't a wild animal, that would travel with people and carry their luggage, and they were naturally astonished. But after the first couple times, just tell us that Ayla told the story, we don't need a word for word transcription yet again. Well, that's one way to make a book a door-stopper, I suppose.


At some point didn't Ayla also invent the needle and thread or something? I remember rolling my eyes at everything she invented or discovered or did first. Maybe she even taught the first domesticated wolf to find Timmy in the well.


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## MT Berlyn (Mar 27, 2012)

Caddy said:


> I love prologues. A good prologue sets you up by getting you involved in a character's thoughts about what's occurred, but not giving it away. As an example, a person present day (whenever that may be in the book) thinking back over an event or events that changed his life or a huge regret, but not saying what it is. By the end of the prologue you should be saying, "What the hell happened?" and dying to find out. It adds drama and intrigue. A good prologue isn't supposed to set up background for a scene or give additional information, it's supposed to raise questions about what in the world has happened to the person and why.


Oh, that is a very good assessment of what a prologue is intended to provide. While I think having a prologue for prologue's sake is unwise, I, again, don't mind them. I recently read, "The Birth of Venus", by Sarah Dunant, and if I remember correctly, the book had a 7 page prologue which was captivating and dare I say, necessary to the intrigue of the entire novel.

But, to each his/her own, always.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Thayer Berlyn said:


> Oh, that is a very good assessment of what a prologue is intended to provide. While I think having a prologue for prologue's sake is unwise, I, again, don't mind them. I recently read, "The Birth of Venus", by Sarah Dunant, and if I remember correctly, the book had a 7 page prologue which was captivating and dare I say, necessary to the intrigue of the entire novel.
> 
> But, to each his/her own, always.


Clive Cussler is one of the best prologue writers I've read. He can suck me into a story faster than any other writer I know. His prologues are always purposeful and are a great example of what a good prologue should look like, and how it should feel.


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## Navigator (Jul 9, 2014)

Anwen Stiles said:


> I laughed so hard when I read this because I also thought of Jean Auel. Honestly, if I had to read one more time about flint knapping, I thought I might lose it. To this day, I'm pretty sure I could knap out a respectable cutting blade from a core, thanks to having read how to do it like ONE MILLION TIMES in that series. I still haven't read the last book -- too afraid Auel might repeat that god-awful earth mother song again and my eye twitch would return.


The Land of Painted Caves? The reviews over at B&N are... not good. I've actually been avoiding reading the last book because of it.


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## joyceharmon (May 21, 2012)

Jena H said:


> At some point didn't Ayla also invent the needle and thread or something? I remember rolling my eyes at everything she invented or discovered or did first. Maybe she even taught the first domesticated wolf to find Timmy in the well.


Yep, she invented the needle. And the snowman. And whistling. It did get rather amazing. If it weren't for that woman, we'd all still be hunter-gatherers living in caves.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

As an erstwhile fan of classical symphonies, I have just decided that i don't care for the opening sonatas.

So, I just skip sonatas and go straight to the adagio, because that's where the symphony REALLY starts.

Opening sonatas are usually just trifling, unimportant, superfluous pieces of music anyway, that never really add anything to the symphony.

Don't bore me with meaningless sonatas. Just play me the symphony.

Thank you.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

P.S. ... That low booming sound you thought you just heard was real ... a chorus of the heads of 1M music majors exploding simultaneously, in response to my above post.


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