Do You Skip Parts of a Book?

The latest topic for this group is another interesting one. What is your saturation point? What is not enough? How do you decide what to include and when to hold back to allow the reader to fill in the blanks? Do you ever skim description when reading a book? If so, what description are you most likely to skip? 

I don’t know about you, but yes, I do skim through parts of some books. My saturation point depends on the book. JD Robb grips me with the plot, the characters, even the setting. She holds my interest, switches scenes and I’m willing to read it all. Some books dwell on setting and go on and on about the room and the furniture, or the rolling hills. Does it contribute to the story? Is the information important in moving the story along? If it is I read it and write it. If not and I read the first or second description and I realize it’s just filling space – I skip them.

If it’s a sex scene, and once again I read JD Robb’s, but if it’s written purely to write a sex scene I’ll skip it. Or if it goes on and on, page after page, for me it becomes slot A into slot B and I skip it. If it’s written to add a dimension to a relationship and help move the relationship along, or to add a few bumps to the relationship, I’ll read it. And I use the same relationship basis if I’m writing it. I can see this could be different when writing erotica.

I’m looking forward to reading what other people think about the topic. Check out these authors and add your comments.

Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Dr. Bob Rich  https://bobrich18.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/description
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com