I start three or four books a week. I finish one to two of those books that I start. There are a few “habits,” or let’s just say aspects of books, that I don’t care for, and if I see too many of them, I’ll abandon the book.
Reading a book requires time, and I don’t have time to waste. Recently, I broke my ankle, and during recovery have given a few new books a chance. This week, one book didn’t make the cut.
This is why
If your main character is named Ty, write about Ty, a lot. Don’t introduce Ty in the first chapter, and then expect readers to wait around 17 chapters until you bring him up again.
If your world has many characters, stay with them (write about them) enough. Don’t switch to new characters with every chapter. The reader won’t know what’s important and the story line will lack necessary development.
Action and conflict sell novels. True -got it- but don’t rely exclusively on prolonged action sequences and never ending conflict twists. At some point you need (should) write the other parts of the story.
Where is the character development? When do I learn about what’s important? When do I make an emotional connection to a lie?
Yes a lie. An author writing a novel must be able to convince me that their lie is possible.
The reader isn’t a yo-yo. Don’t treat them as such.
When a reader starts a new book, a new and fragile relationship also starts.
I get it. Everyone has seen that awesome video by Kurt Vonnegut when he graphs the plot of every story.
Authors know characters must be tested through conflict and in the end the story graph will look like a sine wave.
However, there is such a thing as too much and too little. Perhaps this is a symptom of self-publishing, and bypassing the normal publication process. I don’t know. Hopefully if that is the case, it will be temporary.
Personally, I’m a big fan of self-publishing. I fully support allowing anyone to put their work out there.
Over time, the quality of literature will only get better, as long as there is a mechanism for feedback.
So here’s mine.
I’m not a yo-yo. Encapture me, enrapture me, shock me, scare me, and inspire me, but please don’t F with me.
Photo by Tim Rebkavets on Unsplash
