Dear Author of Otherwise Mostly Enjoyable Book

[marydell]

When your characters sit around on couches for an entire chapter discussing what kind of people they are, and what kind of person or archetype each of your other main characters is, and what their life paths have been and are meant to be, while your main character continually bemoans his lack of a clear sense of identity, this reader feels that she has ceased to read a novel and is instead reading the author's notes about a novel.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

avenue q has this problem. the main character wants to find [music swells] PURPOSE. and it's spelled out. like on the video monitors, they say "PURPOSE". so i was glad for their selfawareness but a little tired of the same story again.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Ha. A lot of my edit notes on my current manuscript are basically, "This whole section where the protagonist contemplates in detail his available options and which he should pursue? Cut it down to a straightforward 'So I decided to do X.'" Because even if it was useful for me to write it out that way, I don't expect readers to find "The author tries to figure out where the hell this plot is going" interesting.

[sanguinity]

Ha. I refer to that kind of writing as scaffolding. Something necessary or useful to the process of creating the building, but something which you then remove before declaring the building done and opening it to the public.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Me too! My manuscripts tend to be verrrry scaffolding-heavy, which I'm okay with, because, damn, I am not the kind of writer who can hold up a story on an outline and forethought.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have this problem with Snakes and Ladders.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

... That sounds so tedious.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

You're not going to have (or did not have) much fun reading War and Peace. Certainly not when you get to the end.