I’ve read other authors talking about this, and I have to agree it’s true. When you don’t know the rules of grammar and tight editing, there’s a lot of garbage out there that you like just fine.
Once you start tightening up your own writing, forget it. You’ll start to see all of that hanging out where it shouldn’t. I can’t even go back and re-read any of my favorites from when I was a kid.
Obvious plot give-aways. Unbelievable characters. Too many words used to say simple things. Or one of my personal favorites, rape scenes thinly veiled as romantic sex scenes. Ugh.
My husband gave me a book to read when we first started dating, one of his very favorite authors. I got half-way through before I gave it back to him. “I know how it’s going to end,” I told him. “What do you mean you know how it’s going to end?” he demanded. “The series isn’t even finished yet!” “Wait, I know how this is going to end, and this author has dragged it out into a series? How many books?” “There are six so far,” my then-boyfriend said. “There’s no way you could know how it’s going to end!” All I could do was groan. I had seen the ending after chapter one. And this author had milked this plot for six books, no end in sight? In fact, this particular author died before the series ended. My husband quit reading long before then. “I realized you were right,” he told me when I asked. “I could tell how it was going to end, and the guy wasn’t letting it go. It was just a cash cow.”
Now, I doubt the author in question viewed his baby as a cash cow. He was probably just having too much fun with his world and his people to let the story arc grow and close naturally. I’ve seen that a lot, actually. But that’s a problem. And it’s a problem for people like me — writers, I mean — who love to read and now have even less to choose from. Part of how I choose a book is how many characterization problems there are, how many plot flaws, how many stops at the thesaurus for big, sparkly words that no one actually knows or uses. The fewer of these issues that I spot right away, the better. I have been fooled, and I feel a deep betrayal when I get several chapters into a book only to realize the author got bored partway through and finished it off as quickly as possible, or that they couldn’t just let the story unfold at its own pace, unnaturally dragging it out with some obvious and trite plot device.
If you love to read, for your own sanity, don’t ever study what makes a good story. You’ll only ruin it for yourself.
The flip side of that, of course, is the intense, breath-takingly satisfying experience of finding a book that follows the rules, drags you in, and keeps you enthralled until the last word leaves you gasping and desperately wishing for more. The kind of book you go back and re-read over and over, spotting a different little trick or plot device every time. The kind of book that you forget to study because you’re having so damn much fun with it. They may come fewer and further between once you start getting the knack for good writing, but when you find them, they are that much more wonderful.
True. Nowadays, for some novels, I tell myself to forget about my writer-self!
I’ve gotten very emotional about books that I do and don’t choose to read — perhaps too emotional — because of this. If I open a book, I am handing over my trust to the author. If they betray it, I feel taken advantage of. Other people just set it aside and say, “meh, I didn’t like it.” I have to throw a little snit. 😉
I am certainly more critical now that I write. And a lot less forgiving. I do sometimes wonder how much a ‘life’ a world truly has left vs how many books they are asked to pump out. But I guess, in the end, as long as people are still enjoying it that’s okay. You hope they wrap it up before the readers have had enough, though. Sometimes a good story is all it takes 🙂
Good point. I may not enjoy a series that drags on forever, but obviously someone was, as the series in question hit the New York Times bestseller list on every title. Sometimes I get a little snooty. Then I figure, that’s probably okay, as long as I judge my own work as carefully!