How was the book? – Describing the Reading Experience

In the last few weeks, I have had amazing conversations with my friends and fellow book lovers. Every conversation in my 2019 in books series sparked important ideas about how we read and what we readers try to take away from books. My conversations with Ariel, Erynn, and Brent were already setting me up to do this – to come up with some sort of scale or metric that would explain what I liked about a book. However, it was my chat with Joshua for an interview (to be aired in March) that really pushed me to think through the whole idea of how a reader can describe the experience of a book. 

Joshua asked me at what point after a book is published, the experience is purely a reader’s and not the author’s anymore. I am a firm believer of the fact that a reader has full control over the experience, not just how they read a book at a point in time, but also what they bring to the book and what they take away from it. If they ever want to come back to it.

I have always hated the 5 star rating system and being a data analyst, I know very well that numbers cannot represent everything. So, taking inspiration from all that I have learned from my fellow book lovers and authors in 2019, I present a set of criteria which you can use to explain your reading experience. Though I am writing this article, credit goes to each of the individuals I have named above because without them, without discussing with them and exploring and debating ideas with them, I wouldn’t have been able to do this.

Each criterion has three types of sub-values. We will be working with a spectrum here, and not a scale, so please be aware as you read that the value I assign to a criteria is not supposed to be positive or negative. It is just what it is in face value, a way of representing my experience, and maybe yours too, should you choose to use it. As you read each of the criteria, I encourage you to think about the books you have read and where they might fall in the spectrum. You can use this form to analyze your experience with a book and note the results.

What is in a book?

A story has a plot, a setting in which it takes place and characters that do things. It is written by an author and this person’s words take us on a journey. That already highlights 4 of the 8 things I’ll be talking about.

# 1 World Building

When I have thought of world building before, I’ve always imagined it to be about fantasy, but come to think of it, science fiction needs to have a strong world building as well… but I’m adding value judgements already! What is strong anyway? Brent explained world building to me like a set. As a Drama major, he explained that in a play, every object on the set is there for a reason. That helped me understand world building. What are all the major possibilities when it comes to world building?

• Maybe it didn’t do anything at all. This is possible when the book is about an everyday situation that you are quite familiar with. 
• The world peaked your interest. There were aspects of it that were not explained or made sense but they worked well.
• It aided the storyline really well. 

Say, a line represent all the possibilities with world building. Based on the three broad ideas above, I divided it into three parts.

And this is exactly what I’m going to use to tell you about world building in books I read. From 2019, here are some examples.

# 2 Plot

Plot is about the chronological sequence of events that take place in a story. I want to mention here that a story may be written as a mix of different timelines but ultimately the plot is the order in which the chain of events took place.

• Maybe the plot was hard to follow and you didn’t know what happened when.
• Maybe most events in the plot could be easily put together on a timeline and made sense in how they happened. Cause and effect relationships are mostly clear.
• A clear followable path is when every event weaves into the next and there is no doubt about the flow of time. 

In plot, we are not judging whether the actions that the characters took were reasonable or not, that comes in # 3 Cast. What we are concerned with here is whether the chain of events make sense.

# 3 Cast

Let’s talk about the characters now. Not one of them (unless there was only one of them in the whole story) but every single one of them who made an appearance. Think about whether they were really needed. That’s why this is about the cast.

• Maybe it was clear that one character was always the main thing and the other people were introduced solely for filler purposes.
• Maybe particular characters were more thought out than others and you weren’t quite sure why you needed to remember so many names.
• Maybe every single character that you met had an important role to play in the story.

From my books this year, All that’s Bright and Gone by Ellise Nullems comes to mind. I think every character introduced in that book had a well defined role and the story would not have made sense without them.

# 4 Storytelling

This one comes closest to looking at the writing style in the book and the one category that will be most misunderstood in my opinion. Erynn, in our 2019 in books conversation, asked me whether I liked flowery prose (super descriptive) or utilitarian prose. Where flowery descriptive prose is detailed in every aspect of the story (think classics like Anna Karenina), utilitarian prose only describes what’s necessary (I can think of Atomic Habits and some non-fiction books). One is not better than the other! I believe both have their advantages.

• With minimalistic, utilitarian prose, the reader is able to fill in the gaps in the story, how the room looks, how the protagonist looks, etc. I love being able to use my own imagination to figure out where I am in this particular story land.
• In a balanced setting, the main ideas would be thoroughly described while others will be left to the reader to come up with. 
• Descriptive flowery prose describes everything in detail. Though I never read The Tale of two Cities by Charles Dickens, I have been told that the first chapter is all about a book on a table. That to me is descriptive!

None of these styles are better than the other. Sometimes, all I want is a minimalistic writing style and other times, I can’t do without the descriptive. 

I think storytelling also speaks a lot to movie adaptations of a book. When the prose is minimalist, the reader has ideas about how things play out in their head and might not agree with the movie adaptation as being true to the book. In the same manner, if the story was descriptive and the director changes details of it (thanks, Games of Thrones), the adaptation might not be true to the book again.

What about the feelings a story brings up?

While the above four criteria are important, they don’t really say much about how you experienced a book. But what about the time you cried when someone came back home in a story? Or the time that a parent was separated from a child? For that, we need to talk about 3 other things.

# 5 Immersion

Immersion is a popular word in the video gaming community. It is the state of deep involvement. I think of immersion as describing the overall experience with the book.

• Maybe it was a casual sort of read that did not involve you thinking too much and you could easily switch to another task, or pick it up later. 
• Maybe overall the reading experience was satisfying and you felt ok putting the book down.
• Maybe you didn’t want the story to end at all and you were hooked to your chair from page 1. You desperately want more or reread it!

Some books from 2019 for immersion were:

A note on Immersion, World Building and Storytelling

Immersion, world building and storytelling are all very important ways of describing the reading experience. World building and storytelling would contribute to immersion but would not be able to define immersion in my mind. I have read books this year that I was immersed in and did not have to worry too much about understanding the world or the writing style. There have also been books that had descriptive storylines that I could not immerse myself in, and others that I did immerse myself in.

And that is precisely the reason why these are three separate categories. One cannot tell you exactly about the other, though it might contribute to it.

# 6 Emotional response

Have you ever cried or felt sad while reading a story? Or absolutely hated it? There are many degrees of emotional responses (even lack of response) and again, none of them are better than the other. 

• Sometimes we crave a read which puts no stress on our emotional being, and other times, the roller coaster ride is totally worth it. 
• Other times, a tear here and there would be enough to keep the reader engaged in the story.
• Negative emotions are sometimes quite strong emotions and I’m thinking about Ariel’s experience with Ninth House which elicited a very strong reaction from her, and did not let her continue the book. But positive emotions are strong too. Have you ever walked away from a happy ending, happy? Yes, that’s the one!

Looking back at some of my 2019 books, here is how they did on the emotional response spectrum:

# 7 Thought provoking

All stories aren’t meant to make you take action. 

• Some are just there to take you to another world and experience someone else’s life for a change. 
• Others bring up some new ideas that you might think about as you read but that’s where it ends. Book ends. You move on.
• But what if a book really inspires you to do something? What if you had a wonderful conversation with a friend about it and explore your opinions on new ideas. I’m thinking The Farm and how in depth Ariel and I went in discussing it and coming up with questions for Joanne.

On the thought provoking spectrum, here’s how some of my 2019 reads did:

But we love judging the cover too!

And hence, I give you:

# 8 The Cover

Let’s be honest, we love book covers! They are the first thing we see about a book so they actually have a huge role to play in why you might pick up a book.

I wanted to go a little beyond the aesthetics though and really think about how much that cover was relevant to the story. Did the picture that the publisher/author choose really mean anything? Using our line, there could be three wide ranges.

I know that different regions around the world have different covers that’s why I want to look at Book of M by Peng Shepherd, a book I read this year.

Cover # 1 for Book of M

I love the art on this cover. It speaks to the magical and mystical ideas of the book. However, it doesn’t really tell you what the book is about. So, I would say it is adequate. Would peak my interest to take a look at the book – yes! Tell me the main idea of the story –  no!

Cover # 2 for Book of M

This is the cover I read and though I did not know the significance of the cover originally, as I read the story, I understood that snapshot. When I explained it to Brent, he said it is more ‘technical’, it represents an event in the story. However, it also does not do justice to what the story is really about in my mind. Hence, this would also be just adequate in my mind.

We buy books often based on cover, but we have to be honest sometimes if it really means anything at all or that photo would be just as nice on a calendar. A book whose cover I absolutely loved and would say was true to the story line is Crow Winter. The presence of crows on the cover, the winter storm feel and the mystical elements of the story are well represented in the picture.

Reading is a very personal and if you do not agree with my analysis of the cover, that’s ok. 🙂 I am only trying to be honest with what I read and what I saw. 

Do all of them matter?

I think each of the criteria that I defined above have their place and a way to describe my experience with a book. They have their uses. For example, a book that is relaxing and does not require me to think more (‘easy to switch tasks’ in immersion and ‘only focus on story’ in plot) might be the perfect read for a chill afternoon, when all I want is a break from the rest of the world. I love thought provoking stories and I might gravitate towards such books more. Alone, each of these criteria say something. Together they might be hard to unwrap and I highly encourage you not to use them to make your 5 star rating.

But if you do end up finding a way to make a rating out of this do tell how you came up with that calculation. What’s on the left is not a bad thing for which you would deduct points! What’s on the right isn’t a good thing to get more points for!

To Summarize:

• What I presented above is a way to be honest and concise about how I feel about the book and my reading of it.
• There are 8 criteria with 3 values on the spectrum that I identified.
• Using the spectrums will not give an in depth review of the book itself but would give many ideas to explore if you are just starting out.
• It would be cool to do this before and after reading a book, and if you are buddy reading, some of the criteria might be good to match again the synopsis, when setting up the expectations.
• The criteria are a great way to recommend books to others by saying exactly where the book stood for you.

Visualizing the Book Experience

Time to get a bit mathematical! Note that this is just the way I selected the numbers to help in visualization – you could create your  own method.

Assuming that my 3 values fall on a 0-100 range, I let each value be about 33 units in size (0-33, 34-67,68-100). Based on how strongly I felt about the book in each category, I rated the book for that aspect of reading. It’s a number in the air based on the 3 places in the spectrum. There is a huge debate in education about 85% vs 87% and the same applies here – what is the difference between a book that gets a 60 and one that gets a 65? Same way, how is a 4 different from a 5? Honestly, I don’t care.

What really matters is that you have a clear idea about which of the three categories for reading experience spectrum a book falls in. 

An alternative to the scale-type diagrams, is a radar chart or a spider web diagram, which I think works better for contrasting reading experiences. 

Here are three of my books from 2019 (thank for, Ariel, for selecting them for me) – Little Fires Everywhere, Norse Mythology and The Similars – using both representations. Do you like one more than the other? Do let me know in the comments!

What’s next?

Well I’m going to be rating all my reading experience of books going forward using these criteria! As you saw in the examples, I did go back to some of my 2019 books but that was quite hard considering in some cases, it has been over 6 months since I read them. Going forward, along with my book thoughts, a snapshot of these spectrums will be present as well. If you microblog, the visuals I used would be super handy to post on social media.

Would you like to join me in helping understand the reading experience? For the books you read, put them on the spectrums and submit your results here (your responses will be emailed to you). Together, let’s help our fellow book lovers choose books better, and not just on the 5 star rating scale!

PS: These criteria were built using examples from drama, movies, videogames as well as books. So feel free to use them whenever you feel they apply.