Another Bookless Friday
16 October 2009
This is getting embarrassing.
Okay, the thing is, I actually HAVE been reading this week. I’ve read quite a bit, actually. I just really don’t like the book I’m reading, nor have I finished it, so it seems wrong to talk specifics. Especially because he’s a very well-respected author, and as a person who’s new to this business, I really don’t want to write a blog post blasting someone who started his career back when I was in elementary school.
So I’ll do another Friday Five, and I’ll make it a theme today. Here are five things that I think every good book must have, and five things I feel the book I’m reading lacks.
1. A main character I can root for.
2. A strong opening. If a first chapter is so-so, what’s my motivation to keep reading?
3. Creative, intelligent dialogue. Every sentence doesn’t need to be a zinger, certainly, but I think dialogue makes or breaks a book. Two of my favorite movies for studying dialogue are As Good As It Gets and A Few Good Men. I can’t say, “This is how you write good dialogue,” but I can certainly tell the difference between great and lousy.
4. A pace that reflects the needs of the story and the personality of the narrator. If it’s a novel about a poet, the pacing’s going to be different than if it’s about a homicide detective. I’m cool with that, so long as it fits the story and there’s no info dumping. I really don’t need five pages of intense argument about our public school system. Not when I’m reading a novel, anyway.
5. A specific theme or purpose. And these should be subtle. As a reader, little annoys me more than reading a scene or chapter and then being like, “Okay … that had no point.” The only thing that’s worse is feeling that way at the end of a book.
Any thoughts on these? Did I miss something obvious?
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