The Importance of Re-engaging a Story

Last week we went over good and bad reading habits, and one of the points was that a good reader will re-read a story while a bad reader will engage a story only once. So I figured I would talk more about the importance of engaging a story multiple times, specifically when it comes to movies since I’m a film major.

When it comes to re-watching movies, I say it’s always best to watch a movie a second time, unless the movie was just really bad. I always try to watch most movies multiple times so I can pick up on things I missed last time around. As someone who is a bit of a movie critic, I’ve always felt that a movie needs to be watched twice before a person can really critique or review it, since after the first watch you’re really just going off first impressions. I think that if you only watch a movie once, there will be interesting and important stuff you miss that could only really be seen on a second viewing. As for reading, I would say the same rule applies. While it may be harder and take more work to re-read a story because you have to put more time into it, engaging a book multiple times will allow you to understand it in ways you weren’t able to on the first read.