I feel like a few things will really draw me in with a book and make it stand out, but I feel like one of the big intangibles that really matters is having a certain almost musical rhythm and flow to how it is written. And I don’t mean flowery language (hell, Dr Seuss manages excellent flow through silly, simple rhymes, and I was argue that this is a big reason why they have remained so popular). I mean that there is something about how it is written (the words, the transitions, the structure) that moves according to such a natural rhythm that it draws you into the story and out of yourself. Then, once you’ve been lulled into forgetting that you are reading at all, the story itself is free to impact you as if everything was actually really happening to you. Of course, now that I’m trying to think about it, I’m having a hard time coming up with a really good example of this. But yeah, if I can get caught up in the flow of the words and story, I’m going to get much more immersed and the book will end up sticking with me more.
I feel like a few things will really draw me in with a book and make it stand out, but I feel like one of the big intangibles that really matters is having a certain almost musical rhythm and flow to how it is written. And I don’t mean flowery language (hell, Dr Seuss manages excellent flow through silly, simple rhymes, and I was argue that this is a big reason why they have remained so popular). I mean that there is something about how it is written (the words, the transitions, the structure) that moves according to such a natural rhythm that it draws you into the story and out of yourself. Then, once you’ve been lulled into forgetting that you are reading at all, the story itself is free to impact you as if everything was actually really happening to you. Of course, now that I’m trying to think about it, I’m having a hard time coming up with a really good example of this. But yeah, if I can get caught up in the flow of the words and story, I’m going to get much more immersed and the book will end up sticking with me more.