Reading from the Writer's Perspective

One of the more interesting things about being a writer is how it affects the way you read. Even when you're reading someone else's writing, there's always the tendency to look at the more technical aspects of the work.

This is particularly true if you have had the opportunity to read draft versions of a work. The writing community is a rather small one, and we frequently read one another's works in progress. For instance, I originally read Sherwood Smith's latest novel, A Stranger to Command, in draft form in the Athanarel community on LiveJournal. As a result, I kept noticing differences between the finished novel and the versions I had read.

For instance, in at least one version there was some earlier material in the beginning, dealing with Vidanric's parents observing him fencing and discussing the state of the kingdom of Remalna. However, that appears to have vanished altogether in the final version, which begins with the abrupt introduction of the rather lost young Vidanric at the Marloven war academy. Although there is a certain loss of background, the reader now gets to share Vidanric's sense of being out of place, even a fish out of water, which in many ways increases the sense of identification with him.

Beginnings are always the trickiest part of stories, because the writer must introduce the reader quickly enough to engage their interest and not bore them, but not so quickly as to overwhelm them and thus lose them.