A new writer friend and I went out to lunch yesterday. We started talking about our favorite authors…and those that drove us nuts. We both agreed that because we both write ourselves, it gets harder and harder to turn off our ‘internal editors’ when it comes to reading. Which really sucks, to tell you the truth.

It’s harder for me to get lost in a book from the very first page, because if I read what I consider to be ‘mistakes’ or amateur writing, that’s all I can see. The book ends up on my nightstand gathering dust or gets returned to the library. I never get past the first pages.

My friend brought up a very well known and well respected author. She had started to read one of her books with an eye toward figuring out how she manages to suck her into the story every single time. What did this writer do differently than everyone else?

Her conclusion? She couldn’t figure it out. Her sentence structure and vocabulary was no different from any number of authors, but somehow she managed to rise above the ordinary and make her writing extraordinary.

My friend then gave me a signed copy of a fantasy romance that she really enjoyed. Telling me how great this book was and how fabulous the series (so far) was. That I should try it.

I was hesitant because I just don’t read fantasy books. I don’t like to figure out detailed worlds that authors build with funky sounding names, places, etc. I think it’s because I don’t find myself lost in that kind of book right away, so I become very aware that I am reading. However, because of her enthusiastic encouragement, I decided to try reading it yesterday.

If I had picked up this book in the bookstore and just read the first page, I wouldn’t have bought it. Not my thing. And it did start out like fantasy books do…with references to a history I don’t know and weird names and odd groups of ‘creatures’ and such. But I stuck it out. Determined to at least try reading the first chapter and giving my friend’s opinion the benefit of the doubt.

And guess what? 2 1/2 pages in, I was hooked. I was a little annoyed with the weird naming conventions, but the moment she described a point of change in the main character’s life I couldn’t stop. It was so compelling. And even though I didn’t completely understand what was going on and why this scene was so important to this person, I wanted to read more.

I wish I understood, too, how some authors manage to do that…suck you in. Make you care. If there were a magic writing formula that I could copy, how nice that would be. Because I don’t think it’s about how you construct a sentence. It’s something else. Something magical. Something in a writer’s voice that makes you want to keep reading.

And you just can’t ‘learn’ how to find that voice.