Hearing the written word

I usually have a book on CD going in my car, as well as a book or two on the nightstand. Right now on CD, it’s book two in Meg Cabot’s Mediator series. I just finished Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. I just fininshed reading Susan Wiggs’ Dockside. On my iPod (my new gorgeous light blue nano), I’ve been listening to NPR Selected Shorts and New Yorker Fiction podcasts (free for downloading on iTunes). In the blogosphere, I’ve been catching up on Lin’s Breakdown in the Fastlane - a blog everyone should read.

Here’s what I’ve been noticing.

I love dialogue. I love how good dialogue advances the story and reveals so much. I tend to skip over lengthy detail in a novel and dialogue serves as the speed bumps to counteract my haste. If I ever fulfill my dream of becoming a writer, I think it will be when I learn to master the art of dialogue. It’s probably going to be a while.

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days, and reading Diane’s post about studying other artists for aspects you admire really brought it home. It’s easy for me to speed read/listen my way through 100 books a year, but to grow, I should slow down and pay attention. It’s one thing to say anyone can write a book (which I often hear about the romance genre, although I don’t think it’s true in the least), it’s another to really appreciate the skill involved in making short-attention span readers like myself NOT skip the detail.

So I’m going to take time to read about the smell of roses. Or something like that.

One reason I’ve been noticing dialogue so much is that in my current audiobook, The Ninth Key by Meg Cabot, there’s a lot of rehashing the first book to catch readers up in between the dialogue. I keep wanting to fast forward, but I can’t because it will just jump to the next track. So actually, the unabridged audiobook format is quite effective at making me pay attention.

If you’re a fan of podcasts, download some of the NPR Selected Shorts - they’re short stories written by well known classic and current writers, read by theater and film greats. My new favorite thing to take to the gym.