Today I read about sixty pages of an ARC that shall remain nameless. Fifty pages is usually my limit and about the time I started seriously contemplating quitting, I looked down and saw I was on page 50. I finished the chapter anyway and closed the book.
Here’s the deal, as a writer you generally don’t want to lay all your cards on the table in the first chapter. Maybe not even in the second or the third. In fact, probably not until the end. But you have to give your readers something. You really can’t expect them to read on and on to find out “what horrible thing happened to your character over the summer” or why they “hate their step-dad” or whatever if you don’t give them a hint or even a downright fact once in a while.
I think this book’s biggest problem is that it’s told from four points of view and the chapters are way too long. By the time I hit page 50, I was only partway into the fourth person’s POV chapter. Yeah…each character was given around 15 pages, consecutively. They each had some big mystery, but seriously, by the time I got to the third character, I couldn’t even remember who the first one was, let alone the hints of trouble I’d been given in Chapter One.
You can totally tell a book from four points of view. An excellent example is 6X. I sometimes wonder how a book like this makes it through all the steps to become a published book without someone, a friend, a spouse, a critique group member, an editor saying, “Hey, if you break these chapters up and mix them together more, this will work better.” The writing was fine, the characters interesting…but if I can’t keep track of who is who…well, I’m just not going to work that hard. I’m here for the entertainment! If I want to work, I’ll do my own writing.
Can any of you think of any four points of view books that work well?
P.S. If I sound a little snarky, I think it’s a combination of cabin fever (16 days of snow) and the fact that I’ve struck out on several books in a row and really need something fabulous to keep me from going bonkers! I know what Alix would say, “Get a TV! There’s all kinds of good stuff on TV!” Trust me, Alix, I’ve been thinking about it!
Hi Joelle,
I just finished Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi.” It’s adult fiction, but if you haven’t read it, I suggest it as a good beat-the-blues book (actually, it’s more like a read-about-somebody-else’s-blues-that-are-way-bluer-than-mine-even-though-too-many-days-of-snow-really-stinks book). I hear ya on the snow thing. If they’d only plow in Moscow, things would be so much better. As it is…let me know if you find something great to read. I’m thinking of trying a cute MG series that I keep seeing (first book: “Dragon Princess”). Wishing you happy snow days!
Cabin fever after a mere 16 days of snow?? Try 30-some days, Joelle! And then two days of a severe low pressure front that brought 24 hours of rain, and a houseful of men who think the ideal holiday movie is that upbeat romantic comedy “The Dark Knight” and by the end of the day Saturday, I was feeling downright hostile.
However, some of the rain turned to snow when the jet stream finally reasserted itself and topped off the gray and it looks pretty again outside!
But this doesn’t answer your multiple point of view story, does it? I read a best-seller last winter that was told from multiple points of view but I didn’t think it worked very well…the four volume The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell is the only one that comes to mind, and that’s not exactly contemporary and, as I said, it’s four interconnected books, each of which stands alone but also completes the story of the others. Only one, as I recall, has linear narration. So it’s definitely a Project, not a recreational read, a it’s definitely A, not YA.
But still, since it’s set on the Mediterannean coast, it would be a nice antidote to the drifts outside…like watching Lawrence of Arabia, but w/o Peter O’Toole’s icy blue eyes.
Yes, get a TV!!! Battlestar Galactica returns in January – so good!
The only book I can think of is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Which I think has about 6 narrators and is told in alternating chapters. It is gripping though, one of my favourite books.