I Finally Figured Out My Decade-Long Reading Slump
By Kelsey Allagood | February 6, 2025 |
WU community, I have a confession:
I’ve been in a “reading slump” for the last decade.
By “reading slump,” I mean that the novels I’ve finished belong to a highly exclusive club. I’ve accidentally pivoted toward nonfiction—Wendell Berry and Erich Fromm alongside Masha Gessen and bell hooks. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but sometimes I miss that sneak-a-book-under-the-covers feeling of a good, juicy novel.
So, what happened? Too much screen time killing my attention span (I mean, yes)? I’m getting old and now everything that’s not aligned with my personal preferences is what’s wrong with Kids These Days (…also likely)?
There are lots of possible causes, but only one has really stuck out to me: I don’t like it when books feel too much like a bad tour guide.
A bad tour guide? What?
When I talk to newish writers about how to “show, don’t tell,” I often use the metaphor of a guide taking a group on a nature walk. In this metaphor, the writer is the guide. A good guide will keep the pace of the group moving forward and on track without overexplaining or underexplaining. Every so often, they may stop or slow the pace of the walk to point out points of interest and share their specialized information (“Look at this cool bug!”).
The readers are the tour group, trusting the guide to ferry them responsibly from point A to point B.
When a nature walk breaks down, it might be for a few reasons: the guide used their time irresponsibly, meandering too much in the beginning and rushing the end; the guide lost control of the tour group due to carelessness or simply being boring, leading the group to try to guide themselves through the wilderness; or the tour guide marches the group through the underbrush like a drill instructor, pointing out everything but stopping nowhere.
Increasingly, I’ve been noticing a trend in contemporary novels toward the overly aggressive tour guide.
I pretty much feel like I’m being dragged along by the hair by a book while it yells, “LOOK AT THE PLOT. THIS IS THE PLOT!”
The moment of realization
I came to this conclusion while reading an adult fantasy novel published in 2022 by a Big 5 publisher. I actually finished the book, even though it gave me aggressive tour guide vibes, because the prose was so good I could mostly overlook how I felt like I was being breathlessly yanked along a single track, and that single track was the plot, and no we don’t have time to stop and breathe and briefly explore this fun little thing that maybe doesn’t push the plot forward much but adds some flavor to our journey.
What stuck out most was that that I viewed this book as extremely fast-paced to the detriment of the story. But when I went to record the book in my tracking app, I saw that 68% of people who had rated the book thought it was “medium” or “slow” paced.
I stared at this data for a while, wondering what planet I was living on.
It’s not content, it’s art
To me, this pattern—which, admittedly, I have noticed from a small sample size—feels like the content-ification (this is a word) of novels. Over the last decade or more, art of all forms has been rebranded as “content” to publish on social media. And honestly, it doesn’t feel like our shortened attention spans are to blame here. That may contribute to this pattern, but I don’t think it’s the prime culprit. I also don’t want to blame BookTok—Anything that gets more people reading is a net positive, in my opinion, even if what they’re reading is not 100% to my taste.
So, what gives?
First, I think it’s clear this is a publishing industry-driven trend, not one driven by authors. I don’t have much insight into why big publishers do the things they do, so I can only speculate.
What I’ve noticed about these books that, to me, fall into the “bad tour guide” category is that they seem to have taken the advice that everything must always serve the plot (which is not bad advice in a vacuum) and cranked it up to 11. X happens, and then Y happens, and then Z happens, and there is no pausing to create tension or emphasize how much time is passing because everything must move the plot forward, always, or else we’ll lose the reader.
That’s the kicker, I think: I wish publishers trusted us, the readers, more. Trust us to stay on the path if you’re not always holding our hand. There is still absolutely an audience for (what would by some be considered) “slow” books. If you don’t spend too much time online like I do, you may have missed that Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov has a thriving fandom in 2025, 145 years after it was first published.
But this trend of consume more, consume faster, seems less like a natural evolution of our psyches and more like a trend being pushed from the outside. It takes a while to finish a book like Karamazov, which is less time posting covers on Instagram and pushing others to buy, buy, buy.
There are many novels published within the last decade that I have deeply enjoyed: a few of these include Sparks Fly by Birdie Lynn, Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long, the Broken Earth trilogy N.K. Jemisin, everything Erin Morgenstern has ever written, and A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Perry, among others.
I recognize that a (large) chunk of this is simply personal preference, and that the market as it exists right now may simply not match up with my preferences. Nothing wrong with that. But I would also caution us as writers to be aware of trends like these, and to choose, as much as we can, whether we want to be a part of them.
Have you also noticed a trend toward rushed storytelling, or am I an old woman yelling at a cloud? What are some fast-paced books you think did pacing right without feeling rushed? P.S. By the time you read this, I’ll be on a plane to Iceland, so apologies if I take a while to reply to any comments!
Kelsey Allagood (she/her) is a writer, occasional photographer, and trained political analyst specializing in the causes of war and systemic oppression. This background led her to begin writing fantasy fiction steeped in the anthropology of conflict.
Her writing can be found in literary magazines such as Barrelhouse, GRIFFEL, Menacing Hedge, and Wanderlust. Her photography has been featured in RESURRECTION mag. She has also written on peaceful resistance movements, art as a form of political resistance, and countering violent extremist ideology.
Kelsey has a Bachelor’s Degree in international and cultural studies from the University of Tampa and a Master’s Degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University.
She lives in Maryland with her husband, mother, and a rescue dog named Henry.
[coffee]
Hi Kelsey–Great seeing you back! And, woo-boy, are you playing my tune today. I’ve been talking about this relentless plot-plot-plot, action-action-action issue for a while now. At first I thought it was just a YA thing. And–being the elderly curmudgeon I am, particularly in contrast to YA’s target audience–I will admit to blaming shrinking attention spans, which I mostly blame on screens. But, yes, I’ve been seeing it even in adult fantasy lately.
Being of an age at which the last time I was genuinely enthused with screen gaming, it was with a brand-new Pacman at the arcade at the mall nearest my high school, I’ve been theorizing about the impact of gaming on story. Granted, my age and lack of experience make my theory shaky at best, but I hear folks talking about the great storytelling capacity of gaming these days (including our own Yuvi Zalkow, here on WU). But in a game format, doesn’t “getting to story” require the player to “always be doing”… something? In other words, you’ve got to constantly act in order to find out what happens. Does that correlate at all with this trend in fiction you so aptly describe? Alas, I don’t know, and am likely yelling at clouds alongside you.
Funny you mention being in the clouds, on your way to Iceland. I went in early December. Get ready for lengthy dark spells, but otherwise you’re bound to have a great time. The Icelandic folk have a really strong love of books and all things literary–maybe due to all that darkness they have to get through. What’s funny, though, is that the last book I read in just a couple of days was one I started on the plane on the way to Iceland. The Days I Loved You Most, by Amy Neff. It was sort of relentless, but in such a more relaxed way, hopping around through history, allowing me to slowly fall in love with, first, this couple, and then their children. It sort of unspooled in a way that kept me enthralled. And through a really engaging and interesting trip!
By the way, we had some really wonderful meals while there. Holler if you haven’t booked every meal and want any recs. Also, we had a great walking tour of Reykjavik called Funky Reykjavik, with Lalli. We were the only two on that day’s tour, and he really made it special. Also, highly recommend Sky Lagoon–book at least 3 hours there (bonus: you enter through a hobbit hole).
Thanks for bringing a insightful perspective to an issue I’ve been pondering for a while. Cheers!
Hi Vaughn, couldn’t resist sharing as I’ve flown through Keflavik a number of times on my way to Glasgow and on a Thanksgiving Sunday, flew with a plane full of Iceland Christmas shoppers who’d been in the Twin Cities for the Black Friday sales, returning home with their huge boxes of Christmas gifts.
Iceland has a “book flood,” Jólabókaflód, dating from 1944 when they gained their independence from Denmark. Paper was one of the few commodities not rationed during World War Two. So Iceland’s Christmas Eve tradition is to exchange books and sit together into the evening, each person reading their book. Such a heart-warming image.
Best Christmas tradition ever! Thanks, Lisa!
Hello Kelsey.
“But this trend of consume more, consume faster, seems less like a natural evolution of our psyches and more like a trend being pushed from the outside. It takes a while to finish a book like Karamazov, which is less time posting covers on Instagram and pushing others to buy, buy, buy.”
I hope Iceland doesn’t freeze up your capacity for insight, because you seem to be dead on with this post. The idea of quantitative consumption as a value in the U.S. is nothing new, but it does now seem the driving force behind publishing. Not getting more people to read, but getting the dwindling number of readers to read more, by using the strategies you describe. This marketing approach also applies to the application of “reading” to audiobooks. No, gentle commuter, listening is not reading. It’s radio, which is good for plot-heavy stories, not for, say, Dostoyevsky. But it flatters us to be told we’re reading as we garden or drive. That way, we’re still book people, even if we’re not reading.
Thanks for your thoughtful commentary.
Barry, your comment, like Kelsey’s post, is spot-on. But I offer myself as an exception to your point about Dostoyevsky. I was introduced as a teenager to Dostoyevsky by my English-speaking Russian honorary grandmother, in whose living room I spent many hours listening to her Books for the Blind. I’ve no idea who the translator was, but the cadences and the Russian sensibility clearly reached me, along with the beckoning indications of another time and place. And I will always be a physical book person until (or when) like her, I go blind.
Welcome to late stage capitalism. I feel like that’s why a lot of films are rather lacking lately too – more focus on churning another Marvel film or Star Wars series out, less on making them actually say anything new or interesting.
I understand what you’re saying about audiobooks, but I can’t completely agree. I personally prefer reading paper books, but I have people in my life who literally can’t read that way, so I read to them or recommend audiobooks. I listen to audiobooks when I’m shelving at work, and while it is certainly a different experience to listen to a book than to read it, you are still hearing a story or learning from a nonfiction book. It’s different in format, not in quality, and it counts as reading. The blind, those with dyslexia and similar, and the neurodivergent whose neurology prevent them focusing on the page are not somehow taking a lesser path in listening if that’s what works for them. Also, some people actually process and remember things better when they hear rather than see them.
Plot-only writing is soda pop and sticks in mind about as long.
On the other hand, feelings-feelings-feelings, moment-by-moment…oh, sorry, let’s pause to let the character speak a line…phew, back to the surgical dissection of feelings and, oh, let’s include every stray interior thought, those are SO important, are we feeling it yet—no?—let’s go “deeper”…that kind of writing can be equally wearisome.
Then there are the novels built of Beautiful Sentences, the bells in an abandoned monastery which no one will ever hear, grains of sand on the beach of the universe, every one worthy to be a last line, resonant-resonant, sigh. Oh lord, I get tired of those too.
Then there are the novels that get the balance just right, telling the tale, sinking you into the experience, surprising and delighting with language, not too much of any of it, effortless and absorbing, the novels that make you glad you learned to read.
Appreciate your recommendations!
Hi Kelsey, you are on to something. Variety is still the spice of life. Varying the pace, letting the reader stop, or at least pause, to smell the roses is critical. Another physical analog, if you want to get your heart rate up, HIIT (high intensity interval training) works much better than running at a steady pace no matter how fast that pace. And yes, the industry has been relentless in pushing authors to run flat out. Thanks for highlighting this. Enjoy Iceland!
If books, or a large quantity of them, have changed, is the driver the Big 5? Or gaming? Or is it the sped-up intensity of life?
It breaks my heart to hear such judgment over audiobooks for several reasons: for individuals with a specific learning disability (i.e., dyslexia) audiobooks are their access to a path that unchallenged readers have always been able to ‘walk;’ then, there are those who have struggled to read due to concussions (been there!); there are single parents, people with many jobs, probably people with too much anxiety to even consider a reading break in a world that proclaims only action—Go, GO, GOOOOO!!!—has value.
There are even gardeners who might love their plants just as much as a good story … or at the very least need to cull the weeds to retain neighborly status.
As an author I want any and all persons to read books—however they can manage. We can still trust these readers: I personally have stopped and replayed audiobook portions again and again, just as I would reread a passage in a novel or nonfiction book.
My current WIP screams a bit in its first chapters, but that’s not where it’s going. Trust. Trust. Trust. It’s needed on both sides.
We must trust each other. Trust. That the right message will land. Trust that ideas, philosophies, moods, and lives are still being changed.
Right now I’m reading nonfiction book Likeable Badass by Alison Fragale. It was there on a free library shelf. The title? I (judged) the time was over for the ‘badass’ terminology. I am not in love with its peachy orange cover. But the inside? She gets right to it: how women can influence their status in a world where power is often (my wording:) actively unavailable to them. Snappy, relevant stuff.
Content is for selling. And we are asked to sell ourselves dearly even as authors. The art is always there in the pain, in the triumphs, in the ‘what the heck just happened’ parts of life. I might be even kinder to fast books after reading this post and comments. What I learn might be the story behind the story. Thanks so much for your thoughtful post!
Kelsey, I read all kinds of books–fiction, nonfiction, children’s, poetry–so haven’t really felt that rushed storytelling is a thing. I have a preference for character-driven stories so I tend to pick books that are more reflective. The best stories have it all–a great plot, wonderful characters who stay with you long after you finish the book, food for thought. Thanks for your observations and have a wonderful trip in Iceland.
Thank you for defending the right of authors to establish atmosphere and character along the way!
I think the publishers’ problem is easily explained. They’re not trying to sell more books faster, they’re trying to sell books at all. The enemy of publishing is video.
I think anyone who settles into a good story will tend to stay with it. Consider the enormous sales of Harry Potter and “Song of Ice and Fire” books, even though both series were instantly turned into screen productions, which also were huge. I suspect, however, that both of those series were successful in large part because of Boomer and Gen X readers. And as one of those people (I am very old, very old), I can tell you I am far more likely to look for something on screen that my wife and I can enjoy at the same time than I am to stroll the aisles of my local bookstore, as I once did.
I don’t watch many movies–may one or two a year. Give me a book any day. And you are right–a good book will draw people in–like the Eragon series or the Hunger Games. You don’t need to movies will good books in hand.
Hi Kelsey, love the analogy of an author as a tour guide.
I am now at a point where I’m doing a bit of revising before sending off to readers and as I read my story as a whole…I’ve hit a few places where I was sure I’d mentioned a phrase before or made a plot point before, and how many times do I need to hit the reader over the head with it. So I’ve taken on some extra search and destroy missions in my revising too.
Enjoy your time in Iceland.
Kelsey, I love your reaction to THIS IS THE PLOT…you better get it right now. As living beings during conversations, we often: wait for it. Life is about human reactions, many of them. A child can cry and change to a laughter in a matter of seconds. An adult can be tender and then get really angry. Those emotions are engines for the PLOT. Those emotions make us turn pages. Reading is about experience and experience can be about wandering, waiting and coming to conclusions. NOT IN ONE SECOND, but over time.
Be safe on your journey and thank you.
George Eliot’s Middlemarch is also having a moment, on Substack at least. I, too, am easily exhausted by plot-plot-plot books–I’m glad to hear I’m not alone! Benjamin has it right: balance.
I like slower books that I can savor. The plot will be revealed as I go along the gorgeous path that I’m enjoying. I don’t need to race through a story. Enjoying the journey is key from start to finish is key. I like Fiction like Tom Lake, or Middlemarch, or the Di Vinci Code, or Rebecca, or any book that shows me the scenery and pulls me into the life of the characters.
I’ve read a couple of those books that are plot driven with minimal side trips. Sorry, but not sorry, I like those side trips and the all the scenery and relationships, etc. Slowly peel back that onion instead of chopping it up and dropping it in chunks. I’ll take the trolley, not the race car when reading.
It’s taken me way too long to start appreciating the beauty of prose and the details of story. I think I’ve always jumped ahead and looked for the idea underneath the words, because I tend to feel overwhelmed by the number of books there are to read. One friend of mine, now a lawyer, tells me that the words on the page actually disappear for him as he takes in text, which may have started for him during law school where the amount of required reading is both notorious and alarming. Another friend of mine, also with a very busy schedule, tends not to remember character names or details of grammar or style because he’s mining the books he reads for details and events he can use his organizationally-wired mind to simulate. Yet another friend focuses wholly on relationships and emotions—Those last two have both read, and had entirely different experiences of Temeraire!
Paying attention to the way they all describe their experience of story has shown me how many different wavelengths story can take place on. An oil painting can be large or small, it can be a portrait or a landscape piece, but from the little I know, it seems to me the time taken in creating the piece shows. This is teaching me to spend more hours with my work as I grow it, and in discovering the beauty that can be in the details of story, I’ve found myself reading both new books and my old favorites with new eyes.