On Thin Lines and Reader Engagement
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniI just gave up on the book I was reading less than a hundred pages from the end. This is not necessarily the book's fault; it could well be that this week I'm too worn out to tolerate a lot of horror in my fantasy, and the set-up for the Thrilling Conclusion is looking to include two -- possibly four -- Terrible Deaths that I just don't want to see.
Hmm...She can probably get away with the two deaths; I'm thinking the kids may live, with "only" a Tragic Loss to sober them. But it doesn't really matter; those two other characters are certainly going to die, and badly, and -- no. Just. No.
These deaths probably wouldn't be so much of a problem for me as a reader if I'd managed to bond with the Leads -- which I haven't done. I like them better than I did at first, but I'm not. . .compelled by their lives. This lack of bonding where I ought directly led me to inappropriately bond with Doomed Characters, and now I'm paying the price. And, since I'm certain that Our Heroes are Perfectly Capable of dispatching the broken godling eventually, once they achieve the correct brainstorm and/or Clue, I don't even feel compelled to keep reading to learn How it All Comes Out.
Sigh, sigh.
I've read another book by this author, which I liked perfectly well, but then, I bonded with the Leads, as I was supposed to have done. Still, in that book, and moreso in this one, I find that she has a tendency to telegraph her moves 'way, 'way out. The first book, I thought it was just the Writer Brain, but this one convinces me that, no; she plots so strongly that the bones show through. That's kind of too bad, because she has some nifty ideas and a good sense of what makes a good twist, but she needs to learn a little more about hiding the evidence.
. . .which she may have done by the third book, but. . .I'm not at the moment inclined to pick up the third book. Readers are so fickle, no wonder writers go gray so young. . .
Hmm...She can probably get away with the two deaths; I'm thinking the kids may live, with "only" a Tragic Loss to sober them. But it doesn't really matter; those two other characters are certainly going to die, and badly, and -- no. Just. No.
These deaths probably wouldn't be so much of a problem for me as a reader if I'd managed to bond with the Leads -- which I haven't done. I like them better than I did at first, but I'm not. . .compelled by their lives. This lack of bonding where I ought directly led me to inappropriately bond with Doomed Characters, and now I'm paying the price. And, since I'm certain that Our Heroes are Perfectly Capable of dispatching the broken godling eventually, once they achieve the correct brainstorm and/or Clue, I don't even feel compelled to keep reading to learn How it All Comes Out.
Sigh, sigh.
I've read another book by this author, which I liked perfectly well, but then, I bonded with the Leads, as I was supposed to have done. Still, in that book, and moreso in this one, I find that she has a tendency to telegraph her moves 'way, 'way out. The first book, I thought it was just the Writer Brain, but this one convinces me that, no; she plots so strongly that the bones show through. That's kind of too bad, because she has some nifty ideas and a good sense of what makes a good twist, but she needs to learn a little more about hiding the evidence.
. . .which she may have done by the third book, but. . .I'm not at the moment inclined to pick up the third book. Readers are so fickle, no wonder writers go gray so young. . .
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Abandoning a book
Date: 2009-07-02 09:59 pm (UTC)The death of a character, even a villain can be distressing even if it makes sense from the point of view of the story. If you could see it coming that far ahead it probably didn't make sense.
These days senseless death, especially those done on stage by the mad, sadistic bastard of a villain, just to show what a SOB the villain is a sure turn off. I can cope a little better with it off stage in small doses.
This by the way is why the true crime tales of serial killers have no interest for me.
Often the death of a likable character can move the story along. In your own work, for instance, the death of the young child protege of Pat Rin was an important turning point. It wasn't easy to read, or I'm sure, write. But it wasn't senseless in terms of the plot.