What do I really want from a book? I'm not looking to carry every line of every book around in my head forever. What I'm after is that ONE fabulous bit in a book, the bit that stays with you. The one bit that you always remember and tell other people about or judge other similar situations against in other books. That crystal clear sentence/paragraph (that Dialyn mentioned) is the one that takes the book from being a 'one night stand' to a brief but intense affair, still memorable years later. If theres more than one of these truly amazing bits, then I'll even consider a place on my special bookshelf :-) The one for my long term books. Just because you wrote the whole book trying to achieve it, doesn't mean you always succeed. Those are the lines everyone wants to write, surely? The ones that get remembered? The ones that really engage the reader. All the rest is just window dressing, it still needs to be good, but really, who's going to remember it all ten years later? Even if it's got no words lol As for the vocab hurdles some authors like to scatter throughout their work. In my opinion it just depends. Leave them all out in a story about a forensic scientist and you will be insulting your reader (never mind struggling to write the thing) Put them all in and he'll probably leave by page 10. It's just a matter of striking the right balance. If I have to reach for a dictionary more than once a chapter, I will either feel stupid or annoyed. If it's page by page I'll stop reading, unless it's a textbook. Shanna :-)