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I spent $30 on a book about writing better dialogue and it ruined my reading for two months
My book club picked a novel by some author everyone loves and I was supposed to lead the discussion. So I bought this guide on dialogue techniques to sound smart at the meeting. Now I can't stop noticing every single clunky conversation in every book I read. The book club ended up fighting about whether the author used too many adverbs instead of talking about plot. Has anyone else had a writing craft book backfire on your enjoyment like that?
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the_jessica1mo ago
You're looking at it all wrong... that book did exactly what it was supposed to do. It taught you to see bad writing, which means you're actually a smarter reader now. Those adverbs and clunky conversations are clues about what makes a book weak, and now you can spot them from a mile away. Your book club fight sounds way more interesting than talking about some boring plot twist for the tenth time.
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kellys781mo ago
Book club fights happen, but getting worked up over one bad book seems like a lot of energy for something you probably won't remember in a year. Most people just move on to the next read instead of turning it into a lesson on craft. At the end of the day it's a book, not a life seminar.
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