Why Speed Reading Will Destroy Your Soul

And voice will save it

Listen to the podcast version with me here ↑

Years ago, while in a doctoral program in literature at The University of Iowa, I took a speed reading course that almost destroyed my soul. (More on why this statement isn’t hyperbolic below.)

At the time, I risked failing my comprehensive exams and out of the PhD program. We were expected to read fifteen hundred to two thousand pages a week, much of it literary theory (of the impenetrable Kant variety, not just the delightful Barthes) and the rest eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, i.e., really, really long novels.

I loved all of it, but I subvocalize when I read, and that was slowing me down.

Subvocalization is the sensation that we’re hearing words in our minds as we read. Studies show that the larynx is actually imperceptibly activated, contracting as if we’re speaking the words, though we aren’t. Subvocalization is a good thing. It leads to greater comprehension, less cognitive load, and the sense that there’s a presence behind the words.

It creates a more intimate reading experience, giving us the sense that the writer is talking to us, particularly in nonfiction.

The writer-reader relationship makes us buy every book an author publishes; subscribe to their Substack; pay to subscribe to their Substack; and like, comment on, and restack every post and Note they write. Why? Because there’s someone behind the words, and we feel like we know them.

But subvocalization also causes us to read more slowly and will make Samuel Richardson’s 950,000 word eighteenth-century novel Clarissa feel like two million. (Don’t read it. I spent enough time reading it for the both of us.)

With comps looming, I had to do something to speed up. I’m blessed with a condition called “rapid visual processing” and can take in large amounts of textual information all at once—on a screen or a page. But my mother taught me to read and encouraged me to subvocalize, and I couldn’t turn it off.

Unlike scanning and skimming, which don’t pretend to be anything other than a cursory glance at what’s written, speed reading boasts about being better than reading. It’s fast. It’s efficient. It’s optimized.

It’s the kind of thing a podcast bro would tell you to do and you might just do it.

The speed reading course I took definitely wasn’t offered through the university; I must have seen a flyer for it at the co-op or somewhere.

The first night of class, I sat in a crowded, stuffy room, wearing a wool turtleneck sweater amidst mostly teenagers preparing to take the SATs or ACTs. Maybe they were old enough to be studying for the GREs or MCATs, but they seemed young to me and gave off that cram-for-the-test vibe.

Speed reading is stressful—very, very stressful. There’s a timer, for one thing. And a ruler you use to guide your eyes down the page. And you’re “chunking” words, not absorbing them. Words become obstacles to conquer. And when you’re done, you’re tested on how much you remember, which may be a fair amount, but it’s tenuous and shallow.

One text assigned in my speed reading course was an excerpt of Jack London’s Call of the Wild. I hadn’t read it before (strange, I know, but it had fallen off my radar). When the buzzer went off and I answered the reading comprehension questions correctly, I felt empty and alone. I comprehended but didn’t experience the book.

But I was training to be a scholar. Time was running out.

Speed reading your way through books isn’t indulgent; it’s unpleasantly frenetic. “Chunking” words as fast as you can, bulldozing letters, paving over lines annihilates the written word and our relationship to it. It kills the soul-filling work of reading and writing, of strangers communicating via marks on paper.

Reading and writing are primal; they’re the most ancient-man-ish things we can do besides cracking open a coconut on a rock, rubbing sticks together to make fire, or spearing a boar for dinner. Communication in non-figurative markings like the pipe (|) and the dot (.) goes back 40,000 years.

I had to decide: Turn off the voice and let my soul wither a bit or risk being asked to leave the program?

I was fully funded and being a doctoral student was my sole income source and (I thought) my future. My mother was so proud that I, like her, would have a PhD. She always said, No one can take those three letters away from you, which it turns out is true.

But she also taught me to read. Teaching me to read by subvocalizing was part of her dissertation.

I dropped out of the speed reading course and didn’t sleep for about a month to prepare for comps. I passed maybe because I didn’t separate myself from the authors’ words.

Why would anyone want to turn off the author’s voice? Wasn’t that the point of reading?

It’s certainly the point of writing: voice. You can be a master researcher or plotter or be able to draw characters in a single brush stroke, but if you don’t have voice, your readers won’t connect with your writing because no relationship exists between you and them.

Voice is one of the hardest craft skills to teach and learn. If more Substack writers and authors had it, a lot more of them would be earning an income.

The most profound subvocalization-causing effects—your authentic voice, i.e., you—are rendered during the messy middle of the writing process. Past brainstorming and drafting, we get into revision and editing, where you render your voice into silent words.

• Revision = determining whom you’re speaking to, where you’re speaking from, and what you’re really saying

• Editing = choosing words and rendering sentences and paragraphs that speak directly to your reader

When you know how to instill your writing with your voice, you are a writer and you will speed your growth on Substack and beyond.

In my Voice Mastery Course, I break down exactly how this works.

Voice and subvocalization are the result of a writer diving deep into the messy middle of the writing process—revision and editing. (They’re not the same thing. Revision is macro—what we’ve said. Editing is micro—how we’ve said it.) This is where real writing happens, which is why Papa Hemingway said writing is revising.

• Revision (macro edits)

  • Content and structure, where we ask, Am I communicating what I want to communicate? Are my ideas in the right place? Is my logic sound? Am I being clear? Do my descriptions paint a picture or set a scene?

  • Determine whom you’re speaking to, where you’re speaking from, and what you’re really saying (sans b.s.)

• Editing (or micro edits)

  • Where diction and style emerge—where your voice truly comes alive through word choice, sentence structure, and punctuation

  • Choose words and render sentences and paragraphs that speak directly to your reader (also sans b.s.)

Take punctuation, for example. Punctuation isn’t just about correctness—it’s about communication and voice. How you use commas, dashes, parentheses, semicolons, colons, and ellipses can dramatically change how readers hear your voice in their heads.

Compare these three versions of the same sentence:

• I went to the store, which is always crowded, to buy milk. (Commas act like speed bumps)

• I went to the store—which is always crowded—to buy milk. (Dashes whisk the reader through)

• I went to the store (which is always crowded) to buy milk. (Parentheses create a secret aside)

Same information, completely different voice.

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