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I am suffering muchly from a book that ought to be a quick read: entertaining, good characterisation, nice plot complications, just the right amount of humour. Except.... someone's been too clever. Could be the editor. Could be the author. Could be whoever did the continuity checks. Could be any or all. No-one's called the author on it and the author has gone into print and so I'm reading in short bursts. I keep stopping for break when I'm thrown out of the world-of-the-book.
There is the plot and there are the characters and they pull in one direction. There are the genre assumptions: they pull in another. Instead of the author sitting down and working out what his/her genre assumptions are and how they affect the created world, both of them have been let go. What I am reading in fits and starts is a book full of tiny contradictions that niggle. The world of that novel falls to pieces in my brain whenever I get one of these contradictions.
They read as continuity errors, but they're more than that.
I've thought for a long time that whenever we build a world for writing, we draw on our assumed knowledge for bits we haven't taken time to think out. This is why the Middle Ages so often becomes the Fantasy Middle Ages - it's the gap between understanding and assumption.
What I'm seeing in this novel is that there are sub-genre assumptions (things that usually happen in this way in this kind of novel) and the specific needs of the novel (things that must happen in this particular novel and that fit the specific created universe of the novel). Ten more minutes thinking it through would have resolved that two statements contradict each other and that the problem is that the writer has created his/her own variants (cool!) but has filled in gaps in the narrative with assumptions based on the standard ones (not so cool).
Creation of the world for a novel or series isn't just a matter of what colour a character likes or if their eyes are green. It's also how the particular universe operates. If gravity doesn't exist, then having gravity suddenly appearing needs an explanation. I've heard this said time and again. What I haven’t heard said is that stuff we know about a kind of novel will creep in slyly. It didn't creep in during the first novel in this series, because the first novel is where the writer defined the world and it was all fresh and present. But now the writer's more relaxed and well into the series, the writer's own world shares the stage with the writer's assumptions drawn from a deep love of the sub-genre.
It's an awareness issue as much as a continuity issue. If a writer were writing a carefully learned Middle Ages and had built it up beautifully, then they might lapse into having a serving girl walk into a room and for that serving girl to be a default Fantasy Middle Ages serving girl, with Full Wenchness to prove it. In a novel of fantasy piracy, a pirate might be learned and subtle and then suddenly emerge with an unexplained "Aaargh, me 'earties." Full wenchness and piratespeak both fit some novels, but not the ones that have carefully stated "We are not following those rules - *these* are our rules."
Which is why, my ought-to-be-delightful morning's reading has a bit of a grindstone feel about it. It's moments like this that I know that what I do is work as well as fun.
I guess the moral of the story is: know your sub-genre and don't assume that instinct will carry you through to a perfect novel. Also, don't annoy the Gillian, for she will blog her annoyance.
There is the plot and there are the characters and they pull in one direction. There are the genre assumptions: they pull in another. Instead of the author sitting down and working out what his/her genre assumptions are and how they affect the created world, both of them have been let go. What I am reading in fits and starts is a book full of tiny contradictions that niggle. The world of that novel falls to pieces in my brain whenever I get one of these contradictions.
They read as continuity errors, but they're more than that.
I've thought for a long time that whenever we build a world for writing, we draw on our assumed knowledge for bits we haven't taken time to think out. This is why the Middle Ages so often becomes the Fantasy Middle Ages - it's the gap between understanding and assumption.
What I'm seeing in this novel is that there are sub-genre assumptions (things that usually happen in this way in this kind of novel) and the specific needs of the novel (things that must happen in this particular novel and that fit the specific created universe of the novel). Ten more minutes thinking it through would have resolved that two statements contradict each other and that the problem is that the writer has created his/her own variants (cool!) but has filled in gaps in the narrative with assumptions based on the standard ones (not so cool).
Creation of the world for a novel or series isn't just a matter of what colour a character likes or if their eyes are green. It's also how the particular universe operates. If gravity doesn't exist, then having gravity suddenly appearing needs an explanation. I've heard this said time and again. What I haven’t heard said is that stuff we know about a kind of novel will creep in slyly. It didn't creep in during the first novel in this series, because the first novel is where the writer defined the world and it was all fresh and present. But now the writer's more relaxed and well into the series, the writer's own world shares the stage with the writer's assumptions drawn from a deep love of the sub-genre.
It's an awareness issue as much as a continuity issue. If a writer were writing a carefully learned Middle Ages and had built it up beautifully, then they might lapse into having a serving girl walk into a room and for that serving girl to be a default Fantasy Middle Ages serving girl, with Full Wenchness to prove it. In a novel of fantasy piracy, a pirate might be learned and subtle and then suddenly emerge with an unexplained "Aaargh, me 'earties." Full wenchness and piratespeak both fit some novels, but not the ones that have carefully stated "We are not following those rules - *these* are our rules."
Which is why, my ought-to-be-delightful morning's reading has a bit of a grindstone feel about it. It's moments like this that I know that what I do is work as well as fun.
I guess the moral of the story is: know your sub-genre and don't assume that instinct will carry you through to a perfect novel. Also, don't annoy the Gillian, for she will blog her annoyance.