rivers_bend (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rivers_bend) wrote2007-02-21 06:26 pm
rivers_bend) wrote2007-02-21 06:26 pm
how novel
I've been reading a book today. A year ago this would be like me saying, 'I've been breathing today.' I'm not at work, therefore it is a given. But then this whole internet/fanfic/writing thing happened and I went from reading 5 books a week to 5 books a year. So anyway. I'm reading a book.
I've never read a Marian Keys book that I didn't like. Bar one, which was that level of melancholy I didn't need at the time I was reading it, I've never read one I didn't love. But Anybody Out There I love on all sorts of other levels even. Probably it's the writing I've been doing. And obsession with plotting and planning. I've been reading about structure. Not in the novel, I've been reading about it in a very dry and boring book about how to write, in which the author uses various tellings of Beauty and the Beast to attempt to get his point across. But he'd be better off using this book.
I've just got to the end of Part I. 213 pages in to this 600 page book. And I love the characters, and the humour and the relationships, but I also love how this book is structured. First person narrative, unselfconsciously telling us a story. Best use of flashback I've ever read, I think, and this, just after reading a section in said boring book about how it's almost impossible to make flashback work for you. But it so works. And all the time she's not telling the reader something. Something that seems important, seems big, seems HUGE, and you think you know and then you're sure you're wrong and then you think you know something else and then, just when you think, I can't do this any more, I have to know NOW, she tells you. Perfect pacing.
In fact, I wonder if Marian ever came across this how to write book I've been reading. If she read it and thought, 'You smug bastard. With your 'don't do this, and don't do that, it's too hard, it won't work...' I'll feckin well show you' (she's Irish, she's allowed to say feckin')
So now I've parts two and three to read, but I'm going to pause a while because a) I've just read 213 pages and b) I want to savour them for a bit.
I've never read a Marian Keys book that I didn't like. Bar one, which was that level of melancholy I didn't need at the time I was reading it, I've never read one I didn't love. But Anybody Out There I love on all sorts of other levels even. Probably it's the writing I've been doing. And obsession with plotting and planning. I've been reading about structure. Not in the novel, I've been reading about it in a very dry and boring book about how to write, in which the author uses various tellings of Beauty and the Beast to attempt to get his point across. But he'd be better off using this book.
I've just got to the end of Part I. 213 pages in to this 600 page book. And I love the characters, and the humour and the relationships, but I also love how this book is structured. First person narrative, unselfconsciously telling us a story. Best use of flashback I've ever read, I think, and this, just after reading a section in said boring book about how it's almost impossible to make flashback work for you. But it so works. And all the time she's not telling the reader something. Something that seems important, seems big, seems HUGE, and you think you know and then you're sure you're wrong and then you think you know something else and then, just when you think, I can't do this any more, I have to know NOW, she tells you. Perfect pacing.
In fact, I wonder if Marian ever came across this how to write book I've been reading. If she read it and thought, 'You smug bastard. With your 'don't do this, and don't do that, it's too hard, it won't work...' I'll feckin well show you' (she's Irish, she's allowed to say feckin')
So now I've parts two and three to read, but I'm going to pause a while because a) I've just read 213 pages and b) I want to savour them for a bit.
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Good on Marian!! I love writers that turn the 'rules' upside down and in the process, create memorable and clever work.