Dear Author pointed at this article today, in which the article writer admonishes people who bail on a book before finishing it. I do not agree with the article, though I’ll give its author props for a cogently written argument.
As you all know, Internets, I am a voracious reader–voracious enough that I’ve started reading books in a whole extra language, for fuck’s sake. I read on the bus. I read at lunch. I read while waiting in lines for stuff. I read print. I read ebooks. I read on my phone. I read on ereaders. If there’s a newspaper lying around and I have nothing else to read, I’ll read that. Hell, if there’s something suitably interesting on it, I’ll read the back of a cereal box.
So trust me when I tell you that 999 times out of a thousand, if I commit to starting a book, chances are very high that I will finish it. If I pick up a book in the first place, I’ve already done my due diligence–I’ve read reviews of it, I’ve checked out its ratings, I’ve probably even read sample chapters. Something about the book has piqued my interest and made me think, okay yeah, this is possibly a book with which I will be happy to entertain myself for a few hours.
But every so often, I will DNF a book. (That’s Did Not Finish, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the acronym.)
And when I do, it’s typically because something in it has actively pissed me off. Crappy writing isn’t usually enough by itself to make me do that–though I’ve found that if I have too many reactions of “no no no YOU’RE WRITING IT WRONG”, I’ll bail. More often than not, though, it’s because something in the storyline has pissed me off. Usually, a character that does something that makes me want to climb into the book and punch them out of irritation.
As the article I link to points out, sure, it’s possible that a book that does that to me will eventually hand me something awesome that makes up for it pissing me off. But I can think of exactly one example of a book where the writing was compelling enough to make me stick around, despite the fact that I actively loathed every character in the book. And the book in question did not in fact redeem itself in my experience.
So I don’t honestly see the point of sticking around to finish a book that irritates me. That’s tantamount to saying “gosh, hitting myself on the head with this hammer really hurts! But maybe if I keep at it long enough, it’ll start feeling better!”
Seriously, who has time for that?
What about the rest of you? What makes you bail on reading a book?
Comments
18 responses to “Spotted on Dear Author today: to DNF or not to DNF”
Funny, before reading your post I was going to say that I seldom finish books that actively annoy me, but also, I do less due diligence than you and so also drop books the bore me.
Most of my did not finishes are ones that I simply got bored with. I read most of my books from the library so if I get bored with a book and stop reading it, eventually it expires. I like books that make me really want to continue finding out what happens and if I don’t click with a particular book my general thought is that there is something else I could be reading instead that I would find more interesting. I think it has to do with headspace as well though, because there have been times when I haven’t finished a book and then went back later and reread it and enjoyed it more the second time. So what bores me once may not always bore me.
Yeah, I get the whole “doesn’t work for me first time through, but surprisingly did on the second” thing sometimes. Usually it isn’t a matter of boredom for me, though–just a matter of my being able to see how the material might be interesting, but just not having it click with me at that one particular time.
When I was younger I used to read everything I started. Even if I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. I think it was just dogged determination: “I’d chosen the book, gosh darn it, and I’m a-gonna finish that sucker!”
As I’ve gotten older, I find less and less patience for a badly written book. Sometimes first and second chapters can be very well written and suck you in, but then the rest of the story fall apart. I also have found I can get bored with a certain book that has way too many characters and storylines. I don’t read voraciously. I read maybe 1 chapter a night. If I can’t keep the story straight in a 24 hour period from 1 chapter to the next, you, as a writer, are not doing a very good job, IMHO.
I like to spend my precious reading moments on books that are worth my time. 😀
Yeah, it took me a very long time to realize that just because I start a book, this does not mean I absolutely have to finish it. And even to this day it feels wrong to me to bail if I need to–so it still takes a lot to make me bail.
I find that a book will rarely just bore me–I’ve had a “BORED NOW” reaction to books I can remember trying to read in the last couple of years, but in order for that to happen, the writing has to be specifically sub-par, below my minimum level of ability to tolerate. But this’ll be why I try to yoink a sample down off of B&N or Kobo before I commit to reading anything by a writer I don’t already know. If the sample makes me go BORED NOW I won’t bother to buy it.
Though “unknown writer” will also mean I’ll probably check it out from the library if possible, rather than actually plunking down my money, too. If I actually bought the book it’ll also make it way more likely I’ll commit to finishing it.
TBH, I’ve dumped books because they made me work too hard at times when I didn’t feel like I had the mental energy (Delany, I’m sorry to say, you’re here); I’ve dumped books because I found one too many scenes unbelievable or ragemaking (Heinlein), and I’ve dumped books just because they Weren’t Keeping My Interest (Robin Hobbs). But #notallbooks #notallthetime and #notalwaysonreread.
Oh, Ellen, I’ve also dumped books that were taking up more mental/emotional capacity than I could give them. I often intend to go back and re-read these later, but seldom actually do.
I’m about half way through Capital in the 21st Century. It’s really, really interesting, but reading it is work and I haven’t been in a good place to have a hobby be work.
Books willbe dumped for several reasons:
1) giving me the heebie jeebies when that isn’t what the book is supposed to do.
2) craptacular editing.
3) typographical errors (those aren’t always caught in editing, and not really editing per se)
4) plot fail. Anything that wraps itself in a Gordion knot, folding in upon itself, leaving no possible logical manner of extrication without violating so many tenets of the given universe that it becomes impossible to suspend my disbelief
5) cliche fests
6) anything that reads lower than a n00b fanfic writer
7) violating canon in a canon-driven universe, or stepping so far OOC with a character that it no longer is even remotely plausible
8) if it doesn’t hook me by the time I’m ~~25pages in, I assume there is no hook for me.
Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ series left me feeling like I was wallowing through a desert minefield of drudgery. I abandoned it less than 20pages in. It was like slogging through thigh-high snow for zero anticipated reward.
Ellen: Yeah, I had trouble parsing Delaney. I’m not sorry I read Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, but it very much read to me like a thing I would have read for a college-level SF studies course as opposed to something I would have read for pleasure.
Pauline: Yeah, a lot of your list falls into my category of “anything that’ll make me start yelling NO NO NO YOU’RE WRITING IT WRONG”. If I start wanting to chide the author because I’m _certain_ I could have written it better, it’s time for me to go read something else.
Terri: The line between hobby and work is why it takes me some time to make it through a novel in French, indeed–my reading comprehension in French is improving, but it still takes me a while to make it through a paragraph! English stuff where the writer is specifically pulling tricks with language is the same way; that’s why I had a hard time making it through Delaney, what with his playing around with pronouns.
I didn’t list that as a reason I’d stop reading initially because sometimes I find the work of a challenging book very satisfying, but I have to have the energy to give to it.
I have read some stuff that was blatantly written by someone who’s grasp of English wasn’t necessarily up to the task for the complexity of work they were writing. This is true more in academic settings than in fiction, but I have seen it in many milieu.
If I have enough of a working knowledge of the phonetics and cadence with which their original language allows them to express English as a second language, then it have a much better time with the written work. It is as if my brain shifts into an audio track where the writing informs the aural, and the written becomes the accompaniment, which the opposite of how most English works by English authors are experienced by myself.
If I have significant trouble with the original language’s influence on phonetic expression and cadence when the person speaks English, it is typically obvious (to myself at least) that I am going to have a more difficult time with the written work. Then it becomes an exercise in effort/reward, a balance between how much of energies need to be expended to enjoy the work vs the amount of enjoyment the work can afford me. In fiction, if the effort overtakes the suspension of disbelief required to make the piece work, then that makes it untenable for me on that balance.
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