Why Do You Read?

I found myself typing a comment on a blog saying I don't really read to be entertained. Is this true? Or is what entertains me different from what entertains you? I'm not sure. But books I enjoy share certain attributes. And I bet your favorites do too.

For instance, right now I am reading a novel about a woman with Alzheimer's who's losing her memory day by day. Not entertaining in the usual sense, but the writing is so good and her experience so relevant and poignant, I don't mind being sad about it. But is this entertainment? I don't know.

What entertains me is good writing.

Books have to be well-written for me to enjoy them. And by well-written I mean that they must pretty much adhere to new writing/speaking norms. I can't get past writing that uses words other than "said" for attribution. I can't take too many adverbs or adjectives. Exclamation points must be almost non-existent. I hate puns. Even the most clever, takes away from the story.
I don't want to find too many obscure words when simple ones will do.

I can't take long descriptions of what a character is wearing or looks like. Descriptions (IMHO) must serve a purpose other than filling a page. As a reader, I like to create my own mental picture of what characters look like unless there is a reason for the writer to tell me more-for instance, the dragon tattoo on Salander's back was a necessary fact. That Jack Reacher is a giant is a necessary fact to understand why he can't be physically overcome by his adversaries. ( I don't however need to go shopping with him).

And this might be annoying to many of you. How do you feel about the use of complete sentences in stories? People don't always speak in complete sentences so why do characters in novels? I picked up a copy of a popular crime fiction magazine at Bouchercon and nearly every character seemed like the same person. Not just in one story but in many of them.

I have a lot more characteristics that make a book good for me really, but what are some of yours? What do you insist on finding in books you read?

Writing Male/Writng Female

I was reviewing my published stories yesterday and saw that 75% of them are told from a male POV. Phil refuses to let me analyze this with him and I am not sure I want to analyze it at all, but it got me thinking about what writers have done a good job of seeing the world through the eyes of the opposite sex.

A lot of female crime writers write credible male detectives. Ruth Rendell does an especially good job with Wexford although he doesn't exactly grow or change much. In other words, he is not a fully fleshed-out subject. Very few male crime writers write female protagonists--at this point I can only think of short story writer, Al Tucher's Diana.

But if we go to non-crime novels, we get a lot more of this. My favorite would be Emily Alone, written by Stewart O'Nan. I never once doubt Emily is a woman. And Tom Rachman has some convincing stories of women in THE IMPERFECTIONISTS. Evan O'Connell's MRS. BRIDGE also comes to mind.

Sunday Writer's Forum

Kevin watching (and being) Batman.



Do you send your stories out immediately or let them sit for a while?





A bad answer for me. By the time I am done with a story (which often takes some weeks) I send it out and often regret it. A few weeks down the line I can detect problems I didn't see at once. Sometimes small ones but sometimes large ones.



Michael Bracken does the same thing but he is often writing to a deadline or for a specific publication.



Although I have two novels I have hardly sent out at all. Go figure. What about you?

Sunday Writer's Forum

Do you have someone read your story before sending it out if so do you take suggestions seriously or are you your own best critic?



(Michael said no, that he is his own best critic)



I always have my husband read my stories--although he is way too easy on me, but that's okay because I factor that in. I also run most stories by my writing group and they are good at picking up troublesome factoid things. Like is that amount of money feasible. Would that be enough time.



But since they don't have much time to digest it, in the end I have to be my own critic.

Sisters in Crime-Blogging Challenge from Barbara Fister

And the challenge is: blog about books or stories written by women. If you'd like to join in, Barbara Fister is here.



BLACK SECONDS is the second book by Karen Fossum I've read. And the ending really caught me up. An unexpected ending is not a prerequisite for me so I am always amazed when someone pulls it off. And pull it off, she did in a most satisfying way. It all made sense, the clues were there, and yet I didn't see it coming.



Fossum takes elements of the police procedural and mixes them with psychological drama in BLACK SECONDS. Women writers seem more interested in doing this. Less concerned with action and more concerned with motivation and character, which makes for a good read for me. The great exemplar of this sort of writing was Margaret Millar and I think Fossum is a worthy successor.



Inspector Sejer is the series detective in the two Fossum books I have read and it is he who doggedly follows the few threads he is able to find in the story. BLACK SECONDS concerns the disappearance of a ten year old girl on a yellow bike.



A secondary plot deals with a cousin of the girl--a teenager who crashes his car. This plot gradually dominates the novel. But the two strands come together in the end.



Karin Fossum is very adept at both keeping you reading and in putting depth and complexity in her plot. I am anxious to read a third book by Ms. Fossum.



Anyone else read Karin Fossum?

Magic Words

(Traverse City, MI)

A feature on NPR today on Wendy Wasserstein solved the mystery of who raised her child. Her brother took the child, but died a few years later. His ex-wife is raising the child today. A new book out, THE WENDY CHRONICLES, tells her story.

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I have been thinking a lot about what makes me pick a book up and what makes me put it back down. Not blurbs but plot descriptions on the jacket.



If I see a word like elves, military, or astrology, there is very little chance I will go any further. I suppose there are some terrific books with elves in the plot but I don't know of them. War is not something I like to read about either. So a description like this would not win me over:



A group of woodland elves prepare to arm themselves when the Reader of the Stars indicates a growing threat from the River folks.



If I see a word like amnesia, a disappearance, or time travel in the description, I will likely give it a longer look. I don't know why these concepts fascinate me, but they do. I like the idea of a character finding him/herself in a new pair of shoes and trying to find the old ones.

This would make me consider:



When John wakes up and can't remember who or where he is, he must travel back and forth in time to determine what brought him to this hospital bed.



Now that I look at it, they're not so different, are they?



What turns you on when you read that jacket? What turns you off?

Sunday Forum

4. Do most of your story ideas come from your own life, stories you read about, a flash of an idea? What?



Michael Bracken:

They come from everywhere. Lately I've been writing for a lot of anthologies so calls for submission are sparking many of my new story ideas.



P.A. I would say an overheard sentence or two. The more closely my story follows a real incident, the more trouble I have slipping into it. I try hard to find a way to make it mine when I can't pass something true up.