There are four reading modes: oral reading to an audience, oral reading to oneself, silent reading, silent reading while listening. There are many studies about which one of these modes is better for reading comprehension. It seems like oral reading to oneself or silent reading are tied.
Maybe that’s why I prefer reading silently to myself when doing it for pleasure. But for work, after the first revision, I like to read my WIP out loud to myself. It helps me catch silly mistakes, and it allows me to feel the cadence of sentences and paragraphs. It’s at that stage that I adjust the length of both.
Shorter sentences and paragraphs speed the reading by allowing for more breathing opportunities. With that, the flow of the story gains momentum. But too many short sentences and/or paragraphs in a row can turn the reading experience monotonous. So, variation is important.
In Artemis, an action packed, fast paced, hard science fiction, Andy Weir does a great job at using the length of the sentences to add dramatic weight to the story. When explaining how Kenya’s minister of finance managed to create the country’s space industry out of its geographic advantage, the protagonist, Jazz Bashara says, “God only knows how she convinced fifty corporations from thirty-four countries to dump billions of dollars into creating KSC, but she did it. And she made sure Kenya enacted special laws just for the new megacorporations.” The first sentence in this paragraph is relatively long. It goes on without pauses before the one comma. It demands attention. The second sentence, although not as lengthy, still goes on without pauses. In contrast, the paragraph that follows is a sequence of short sentences, which helps expose the main character’s ironic, quick-witted attitude. “What’s that, you say? Favoring a single company with special laws isn’t fair. Tell that to the East India Company. This is global economics, not kindergarten.” (Artemis, First Paperback Edition, 36) These two paragraphs are very close in length, but the variation in sentences makes their flow completely different from each other.
Finding the right balance for a particular work helps create a rhythm that will advance the story. Accelerating generates anxiety, excitement, or manifests specific emotional traits. For example, while lying, a character might speak faster than usual, which a sequence of short sentences can highlight. On the opposite spectrum, slowing down can help create suspense, a sense of anticipation, or it can add weight to a relevant point.
The more I write, the more I learn to spot those tools when I read.
Once I made the jump from reader, who wrote on occasion, to committed writer, my reading for pleasure was compromised. Don’t get me wrong, I still love reading. But it’s nearly impossible for me to read without paying attention to chapter sizes, vocabulary choices, sentence structures, even the font of a book catches my eye these days. Going back to Artemis by Andy Weir, I love how the name of the book has a unique font on the heading of my paperback copy. It’s a little thing, but to me, it shows care and intention.