Small Praise for Fiction and Becoming an Active Reader
You close the folds of your book, setting it down beside you. You ponder over the final words and let them marinate in your head for a few moments longer, savoring them in all their glory. Perhaps you flip through the book and derive a “big picture” that you can put in your back pocket and save for later. Maybe you pat yourself on the back, wish yourself a job well done, and move on with your life.
Here are other common feelings you get when you finish a good fiction book:
- “I’m a smarter and better person now.”
- “That was a darn good book!”
- “I can’t wait to recommend this to all my friends and family whether or not they care!”
- “I can’t wait to write a review on Amazon!”
Positive feelings are easily associated with reading fiction. According to recent studies, it makes you more empathetic and better in social situations because you can see the world from different perspectives (1). Let’s call this a passive ability we can strengthen by reading more fiction books.
Fiction exposes your mind to unique characters and gives you a Shakespearian insight into their motives, fears, desires, and goals. Not only does it allow you to see the world through different perspectives. Fiction takes your mind to places you’ve never been, whether it’s Azeroth, Middle Earth, or another dimension of our own reality, your mind is forced to imagine a world very different from our own. The bottomline is reading, especially fiction, is pretty darn cool and can open your mind to a whole new world of possibilities.
The problem is that like dreams, our mental faculties that control our memory, are not very forgiving when it comes to reading. Perhaps you’re one of those people who claim to have a memory like a steel trap and you have the uncanny ability to remember 90% of everything you’ve read. That’s great for you, but for the rest of us, after a few days or weeks time, we’ve forgotten about 90% of a book.
What can we do to A) Remember elements that are important to us and B) Incorporate them into our thought process?
Below is a short list of easy and fast ways that you can accomplish both!
- Highlight or underline your fiction book. Whoa new concept!
- Write your thoughts in the margin.
- Ask or answer questions on Quora related to your book.
- Write a review of your book on Goodreads or Amazon.
- Email the author!
Conclusion:
Employing any of the above strategies makes you an active reader. You will remember more of what you read and more specifically the elements of the book that you found important. The next step would be to take these thoughts or ideas and put them into action. Let’s call this the active ability we can get from reading.
I’m just starting to read actively and am interested in how you’re getting more out of reading!
