The Reading Level of My Books

There are writers out there that love to write with exposition. That means they write extensive details about the worlds and characters that live within their stories. If you’re curious about an example, just look at J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. His books were full of lengthy descriptions with entire paragraphs about a tree. There was never a page turned that left the reader wondering what any aspect of that world looked like because everything was described at length.

For me, those lengthy descriptors detract from my reading pleasure. Sure, I knew what things looked like, smelled like, sounded like, and more, but only when I could keep my focus on the words long enough to really consume them.  I’m something of a busybody. I like to keep moving and reading requires me to sit still. If I sit there reading nothing but long, drawn out descriptions of inanimate objects for too long I get sleepy and quit reading. If I try to keep reading then I’m just scanning the words without really processing them and the next day I won’t remember what I read.

So when I started writing my stories, I decided to focus more on the action of the stories and less on the unnecessary descriptions. I wanted to give my readers enough to understand what my characters looked like and what their motivations were but not go into so much detail that the reader felt bored or overburdened by things that had little to do with the plot.

Some might say that my choice to minimize such things did a disservice to my writing. That by willingly omitting such details reduced the overall quality of the writing. Not that I’ve heard that criticism, just that when compared to certain writing standards and what I judge to be the expectations of certain groups in the literary world this is what I would expect them to say of my work.

But I have to disagree. Certainly as the author, I always want to defend my work but more than that, I think my choices make my work more attuned to readers like myself. Not everyone enjoys the excessive descriptions. Some people just want to see how the story unfolds without spending 3 chapters detailing what a town looked like centuries ago before it became abandoned as the story’s protagonist simply passes through the ruined city. Any my work is geared towards those readers, readers like me.

If I’m going to write a story, I have to want to read it. I have read my books dozens of times each. And while I know the story forwards and backwards, I still enjoy reading the books. My writing style fits my reading style so when I read my books, they keep me interested and focused. I can keep reading my stories because I don’t feel as dragged down by the exposition. Instead, I feel exhilarated by the action and suspense that I tried to create in exchange of exposition.

I like to compare my writing style to that of an action movie. What it lacks in development and background it makes up for with action and adventure. When people go watch movies, there are movies that focus heavily on the story, the drama, and you get a lot of dialogue with little action. But then there are movies that do just the opposite. You may not know much about the characters but you know they’re fighting and the constant action amps the viewer up with it. Well, I like to think of my movies as more like the latter.

The drama is in the action. The drama is in the unknown. The drama is in the conflict. I don’t need a lot of words or descriptions to explain the emotions of my character if I can get you invested in them directly. When the action captures your attention and the challenge faced by the protagonist seems like it’s almost too much, the reader becomes invested in the character and continues to read. With a focus on action, the reader becomes almost a participant in the imaginary fights, rooting for their characters to overcome and triumph. When they close the book, the reader likely won’t remember how much detail was given about the bark of a tree or the color of a stone but my goal is to have them remember the movements and actions of the fights. My stories are usually about struggles, mostly physical ones, so the focus on my writing is how those struggles unfold, how they impact the characters, what they reveal about the plot.

I don’t want my readers to be overly concerned about the masonry work that went into constructing a city’s wall. I want them concerned with how the characters fared in the fight and how that might influence their journey ahead. 

Why? Because that’s the kind of books I want to read. 

Not every book and literary style will be adored by all. My books will likely never win any major awards because of their more simplistic approach to storytelling. But for those readers out there who are like me and want a story without an overbearing amount of superfluous content, these books are for you and I hope that you enjoy them even if nobody else does.