Will your readers enjoy the journey?
The other weekend, I started reading two novels. I’d not meant to begin the second so soon, but after several attempts to engage with the first, I gave up.
They were both mass paperback international thrillers. Despite my interest in plot of the first, its prose reminded me of a bad gravel road.
I’d recently encountered such a washboard road in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. The view was gorgeous, but I was so concerned with negotiating the ruts, I couldn’t enjoy it. If Zapata Falls hadn’t come highly recommended, I’d have turned around.
I thought of that road as I tried to read the first story. Page after page I was distracted by the things I advise people to delete. The author did okay with avoiding narrative summary, but his dialogue was crammed with telling. And his characters seldom said anything. They’d grin or laugh their words — or, in a more serious moment, demand or insist them.
If you can write this way and get published by a New York house, why bother to polish your prose? Or so I wondered for a few more pages — until I had to put the book down. The writer’s faulty technique kept pulling me out of the story.
So I picked up the other novel—and quickly found myself seventy-five pages in, enjoying the characters, the setting, and the action. That experience reminded me of driving to La Veta, Colorado, to catch a ride on the Rio Grande Scenic Railway. Smooth pavement, no steep grades, the curves and intersections well marked. Just as it should be.
Later this summer, we’re considering a return trip. Meanwhile, I’ve picked up another novel by the same writer.
