Here is another excerpt from a work in progress- I’d love some feedback on it to help me with developing the next stages. I have have quite a bit more in scribbled notebooks, but everything is at first draft stage, so lots could change. If you want to read the previous excerpts that I have posted they are Word Count, The King James Bible, Brave New World, The Spoken Word, and The Gutenberg Printing Press
Today I had a book stolen. It was a book about a computer game. It had twenty-one thousand nine hundred and two words. I have never had a book stolen.
The world record for most words read per minute was set by Stephen Berg and stands at twenty-five thousand words per minute.
Stephen Berg would have read the stolen book in fifty-three seconds.
I saw the boy put the book under his jumper. I told him to stop, but he didn’t.
On rare occasions, I have read up to seven hundred and ten words per minute. Factors which may affect the speed at which I read my include typeface, punctuation, font size, page layout, paper quality and thickness, time of day and light quality. Style and subject matter rarely cause issue.
When the boy stole the book, I was two hundred and twenty-one thousand four hundred and eighteen words into a fantasy novel.
I am a fast reader, but I fail to understand how anyone can read twenty-five thousands words per minute and take it in.
There is a possibility that they look at a page and scan for keywords. Or, maybe they don’t see anything.
I don’t phone the police. I don’t phone Patrick.
I have been asked if I take in the words I read. I calculate the ratio of text I take in to be ninety-eight percent. I calculate that thirty-seven percent is committed to memory verbatim and can be recited several years later. A further nineteen percent could be paraphrased as required. Twenty-two percent can be synopsis-ed. The remaining twelve percent is forgotten. This is usually down to poor writing.
I remember every word of the stolen book. If I were to play the video game, I believe I would demonstrate sufficient mastery.
I don’t phone Patrick. I don’t phone the police.
It took me thirty-eight minutes to read the stolen book. I read it on a tuesday afternoon in March. I began at three nineteen.
The boy just laughed, but I do not understand why. The boy just laughed as he pushed twenty-one thousand nine hundred and two words up his jumper.
I don’t phone the police. I don’t phone Patrick.
When someone is caught stealing, they should stop stealing. This boys did not.
Twenty-one thousand nine hundred and two words up his jumper.
He laughed as they ran down the street.
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