on Writers in the Storm:

A hard-to-read book is a book that doesn’t get read.

My mother was a voracious reader, reading one or two books a day. We were talking about books once and she mentioned she’d stopped reading one because it was “Just too much work.” It wasn’t a bad book, in fact, she said it was a great idea and well written, but it did some things that made reading it a chore, not a joy, and she’d decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Ouch.

Not worth the trouble? That’s a hard blow for a well-written book.

But it happens. I’ve also read books that fell into that “too much work to read” area. Series I loved early on that faltered, books by authors I admired, books with fantastic premises I really want to explore. The only thing “wrong” with them was something they’d done that made reading them more work than the story benefit of doing so.

Is Your Novel “Too Much Work” to Read?

Before I go on, it’s important to note that there’s nothing inherently wrong with a complex or complicated novel, or one that does any of the things I’m about to talk about. Tastes vary and what one reader thinks is wonderfully layered another might find tedious to get through. It’s all very subjective, and it’s up to the writer to decide if the story is working or if it’s becoming unwieldy.

If you’re getting negative feedback, though, and readers are saying they’re having trouble getting into the novel, or they skimmed a lot of it, or they never finished it, then “being too much work to read” could be a reason why.

Here are five red flags your story might be pushing the limits and scaring away your readers: