Do you like to use brain when reading?

[GDLiZy]

For me, I'm down for complexity and in-depth explanation for world-building and grand schemes. It's a kind of a ride that left you exhausted once you finished it, but also imprinted your mind with an unforgettable mark that would stick in your mind long after the story ended.

I knew that my taste is unique, and so, I asked you, common readers of web novels, if you found an ideal novel for you, how complex would it be?

 

[Amarathia]

The novels I've had the best experience and stick with me with are those where I have to read between the lines, grasp the character's personalities, predict future outcomes. Nothing is completely one-dimensional, villains are real people, not devil incarnates. Complexity is great because it makes me feel more invested in understanding the world. It becomes more immersive.
On the other hand, I don't go as far as reading stuff like "Things Fall Apart" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" in my free time. For more literary works, I enjoy dissecting those in a classroom setting.

...there are also times I read absolute trash that fit my tastes just because I want some entertainment fodder, not to think. Guilty as charged

 

[Moctemma]

I love complex stories with lots of foreshadowing, subversion of expectations, plot twist and that the series connect to each other. Making me wonder what's going to happen next and imagine lots of theories.

Like my favorite series: Wa Yuusha de Aru.

 

[ludagad]

Honestly wish this was multi-choice lol. I love wish-fulfillment and face-slapping, but I hate it when it's written for simpletons. I guess I'm picky. I don't need the author to over-explain and reiterate everything, leave some work for my brain and let me try and guess what happens next, but let me be wrong sometimes. I like it when things always go MC's way, but I also want an MC who can scheme deeply and weave a net of lies and traps for others, or someone who plans ahead and see through the villains' traps. Only perfect example I can give is Sherlock Holmes novels, lol. It always goes his way, he's an intriguing character, but the books let you think along.

 

[YuriDoggo]

I wonder who are the "intellectuals" who are simultaneously on SH, and also wants "divine tales."

 

[Daitengu]

Doesn't matter to me. I actively imagine the scenes written. If I can't, then it's bad and I stop reading. I've read this way for 20 years, and I flex my brain more doing this than any complex plot. The only problem is it causes me to not care about me interacting with a work like a mystery would. I'm experiencing what I read as a movie in my head, just can't be bothered to read between the lines. That comes after I stop reading.

 

[FriendlyDragon]

Give me something to think about. Give me room to create assumptions and pieces to put together. Then put it all together at the end. But not everything. Leave a sense of openness, a world where everything isn't given so that I can explore on my own. Because every readers experience will be a bit different, should be a bit different.

 

[gaylolis]

i use my eyes when reading, so i prefer if the formatting won't abuse it too much.

as for brain power, it doesn't matter. simple and complex, it's just whether the story itself appeals to me.

though i don't like to re-read stuff over and over, so more on the light side, i guess?

 

[Variation]

I love it when an author is able to tell you what's going to happen by leaving subtle queues that you won't piece together unless you've been paying real attention, making you feel a little bit like Sherlock Holmes

 

[Vaerama]

I’ve always had a thing for creative language use. Although I’ve my musical (example) fascination with death metal (with its powerful use of language): simple tricks/word games really go a long ways with me, such as “let the bygones go by bye’, or ‘they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it’s better than drinking alone.’

So it is with books. Do I love to read complex characters housed in increasingly complex language regarding an ever-more complex situation? Yes. But can I pull imagery from them without prompting years later?

Yes, I can recall all the scenes in a perfect clarity... but the lines are near-all forgotten. The powerful circumstances, clever characters, and short instances of knowing how the language once spoke to me; these I remember, and will hopefully never forget.

But unfortunately the simpler stories are remembered with more clarity by far. Smut, for instance, is typically an absolute dearth of a genre for clever language beyond their myriad methods to speak of genitalia. Still, I can remember the scenes with a near perfect clarity, so it’s incredibly easy to simply turn off the part of the brain that’s remotely interested in those clever things, and thus I’m able to enjoy those stories absent of nuance.

Basically, I love using my brain to parse mega complex situations, 4X is my favorite genre of video game after all... but I don’t masturbate to it.

TLDR: ‘Ideas’ will always be the most powerful part of language. Before we had words for them, we knew what trees were, and we knew of our anger, and of our joy.

Spoiler

Case in point: I’m about to spend an entire day adding/padding out to my already released chapters because I want to have the manic affectation be subtler, and to better introduce scenes that are *sorely* lacking because when I wrote them I was focused entirely on the MC’s perspective.... BUT PEOPLE READ THROUGH IT ANYWAYS!? A full quarter of the crazy people who clicked on the first chapter clicked on the last!!!?!? Why?! It’s dreadful!!!

I sometimes feel like an unintentionally smut-quality writer

 

[ChronicleCrawler]

I like reading things that would create some spark in mind. I don't need some mind-twisting developments. I would like something that's operating in the bounds of common sense.

E.g. A transmigrated engineer creates an electric fan but the damn world has its on appliance operated by wind magic. Of course, if the author wants me to believe something it must be believable. Is making an electric fan cheaper? Or is there a lack of magic in the setting? Or is there a current problem that makes them not use magic. And the likes.

 

[Sabruness]

It varies. Sometimes i want simple stuff where i can turn my brain off and enjoy the face slapping. Other times, something that gets me pondering.

In terms of an ideal story, i'd say somewhere between 'intriguing complexity' and 'divine tale'. Something that makes me wonder, think and try to puzzle together foreshadowings and clues while at the end of the story has me going 'ahh, so that's how it all connects together.' All without being meanderingly or melodramatically heavy

 

[BenJepheneT]

"Divine Tale" Whomst the fucketh chose that pretentious ass option? What, you want the Bible? That's what you want? What's next, the ten commandments in Hebrew?

 

[gaylolis]

"Divine Tale" Whomst the fucketh chose that pretentious ass option? What, you want the Bible? That's what you want? What's next, the ten commandments in Hebrew?

The Holy Bible: King James Version

An Award or Presentation Bible in the King James Versio…

www.goodreads.com

i agree with a lot of the reviews that this book is overrated as fuck

 

[NotaNuffian]

In the past I read to gain insights on better writing and sentence structures, while trying to "gain inspiration" from works in order to put them into mine.
But I know myself being an auto pilot, I have the tendency to skip text, even skip forward when politics afoot solely because I am an action fanatic, so I cannot really call anyone here a mentally deficient squirrel on crack.
So no, I am not reading works for their deeply profound ideologies and schemes, but I also hate linearised simpleton writing. I can accept Power Fantasy, Infinite Style or (not really) Fanfictions, but it must at least keep me interested with proper fight scenes, a somewhat human relations and plots that are neither created by someone with a mental capacity of a (VERY HORNY) three year old nor Christopher Nolan's winding mind bending plotline littered with schemes after schemes after schemes. The real world isn't a simple place, but it is also not so complicates like a 7x7 rubik.

 

[Vaerama]

"Divine Tale" Whomst the fucketh chose that pretentious ass option? What, you want the Bible? That's what you want? What's next, the ten commandments in Hebrew?

No, nothing like that terrible work of tedium. The only reason you could possibly 'gain' from a re-read is because you *missed* things entirely because it's a trillion page mess!

Not exactly a subtle book, The Bible. Maybe some psalms? If you simply ignore the duds...?

It's why church-speaking folk gotta tell ya both what to be reading and what ya should ought be gleanin from it! It's because if you set someone to read the bible starting from genesis, and you're wanting them to turn out good and god-fearing: you've made a mistake! Only thing that'll do is make people 'doubt', and while that's great for your priests: it is *not* what you want in a congregation!

No no, *real* 'divine tales' are ones that take on multiple complex concepts at once, such that *despite* being written well: some of the meaning won't be realized until you're on your fourth fascinated read! Flow was that for me, and I should have liked for it to have hit Bible length!

Give me my golden calf heathen work of GL with real substance to it to worship! I shouldn't have to transubstantiate the meaning of anything worth reading! :D Besides, 3/4s of those 10 commandments are a bit silly, about all I'm on board with is 'thou shalt not kill' and something something 'shalt not covet thy neighbor's oxen', and even then those only work as a general rule: sometimes there's darn good reason for vicious murder and theft most vile!

Bible's like, full on anti-revenge about halfway through. Can't stand it. All peaceable and stuff, 'cept for them witches and hell-flowin folk, yknow? We go from 'I ain't my brother's keeper' to 'these guys heckin sinnin, better drown them all'... to 'god so loved the world that he sacrificed his only begotten son' yadayada Mary was 13 yadayada no more sinning so long as you shall believe and never mind the forsaken stuff:

Where's the consistency?! Job exists as a little mini book, and it should come to nobody's surprise that it's my favorite despite having no 'interesting' content besides human suffering. Even Daniel and the Lion's Den ends with the baddies all om nommed! Plagues of killing first born (male) children! There's so much beautiful death and misery in the first half, and in the second half the worst thing that happens is *one* guy gets crucified? AND HE DOESN'T EVEN DIE!? GIVE ME BACK MY DIVINE TRAGEDY!

This is what the damned Iliad is for I suppose, and the Odyssey I suppose, albeit it's ending's still a bit too happy for me. Stupid dog, remembering its old master. Well, I think like, almost everyone else on that journey dies, so it's okay. The Bible ends with that weird section about rapture and angels and hellfire and lakes of fire and fun little things about horsies, and that's fine, but it's kinda out of nowhere considering the second half of the book?

It's like a weird Deus Ex Machina ending, go figure.

 

[YuriDoggo]

I'm assuming that all of you who chose "the Divine Tales" enjoy the Sound and the Fury? That book is pretty much the epitome of:

Divine Tale; Second reading is more meaningful and impactful than the first, so on so forth

Report after back after you'd read it, and be careful what you wish for. And if you did like it, congratulations.

 

[AliceShiki]

I like reading stuff that makes sense and remembers to take Common Sense-chan into account~

But uhn... Well, I'm not one to think too much about what I'm reading tbh. I do enjoy it when a chapter ends and I can speculate about what's gonna happen next, but at the same time I only care for speculating if I really loved the series in the first place... Otherwise I'll just wait for the next chapter~

So... I guess I'm a bit of a simpleton. I just want things to make sense. As long as I can get immersed while reading, I'm good. Just respect Common Sense-chan please~

 

[BenJepheneT]

I'm assuming that all of you who chose "the Divine Tales" enjoy the Sound and the Fury? That book is pretty much the epitome of:

Report after back after you'd read it, and be careful what you wish for. And if you did like it, congratulations.

In hindsight I would include Coraline in the Divine Tales series ngl

 

[Spaizzer]

I like fics that don't treat me like I'm an idiot and I know nothing, but uses simple, clear, basic language that I don't have to use a dictionary every time I read it. But don't get too intellectual about it. I appreciate a newspaper-level or an opinion-piece kind of depth.