A few weeks ago I read a book I didn’t like. I didn’t like it so much I threw it away. From a distance. Quite hard. The next day, I fished it out from its corner, and because I was due on the road, I bought Kindle and audio copies to complement my battered print edition.
Why buy multiple copies of a book I hated? It seemed to me that by working out what provoked such a strong negative reaction in me, I might distil some positive rules of thumb for writing.
In this two part post, I present my findings.
1.Define rules for preposterousness, and then use them well.
Readers will happily accept all sorts of crazy and impossible premises, so long as you establish the rules of the game upfront, and then retain internal consistency. So if you make it clear that your story is set in a future without modern transport, you can get away with plot devices that rely on it being hard to get about fast. On the other hand, if you don’t properly establish this facet of your future world, you will irritate many readers when you apparently forget that your protagonist could probably solve a crucial problem by simply calling a cab.
Even if you flag and explain a piece of nonsense properly, it should probably be interesting nonsense, and nonsense that is worth exploring in its own right—not just a transparent bit of plot convenience. Otherwise your reader will see you’re manipulating the universe for your own ends, and she’ll resent it.
2.Make your characters distinct from one another
Characters with similar names, similar verbal ticks, similar jobs, or similar.. er characters, can all make for confusing or uninteresting fiction. It’s not always possible to make characters so distinct in their voices and concerns that you can do away with speech attribution altogether, but it is a good idea at least to avoid making them interchangeable.
3.Check facts and idioms
I believe story matters more than detail, but factual errors can puncture the illusion you’re trying to construct, and then become disproportionately annoying to some readers. If your story is set in a foreign country, include at least one native in your team of beta readers if you can. Misused idioms or glaring errors of geography and culture might not matter much to a domestic audience, but it’s an international market, and reviews travel. If the book is set in a particular historical period see if you can get access to an expert on the era.
Charles Stross posted on this subject (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/09/why-wikipedia-is-the-writers-f.html) in 2010.
4.Have your characters’ stories differ in significant but complementary ways
If your story has multiple threads, either because it is a multi-protagonist novel or because it weaves subplots around the main character’s journey, try to make the threads differ. Have peaks and troughs at different times, illustrate different facets of the same theme, have one thread complicate another. If your stories all rise and fall in the same ways, at the same time, with characters facing similar challenges in identical fashions, your readers may find your novel repetitive.
5.Make something happen
Sounds obvious, right? But it’s easy to get lost in the fantastic detail of your world and your premise, and forget that your readers really stopped by for a story. If your prose is brilliant, they may forgive five chapters of scene setting. Or they may not. Best not risk it. Hit them with story early on, and keep them reading.
Part two next week.
