You ever have the experience of reading a book everyone’s raved about and thinking: Wuh? Am I missing something? This happens to me all the time. Sometimes I know it’s because I just don’t like the book, period. Other times, it’s that I wish I’d written the book. Like, crap, wish I’d thought of that. But, mostly, I’m genuinely mystified. Sometimes I’ll force myself to give the book another chance. Most often, I pitch it and move on. Really, life is too short and the nice thing about books (or anything else that depends on personal taste): there are a ton of choices out there.
There are other times, though, when perseverence pays dividends you don’t expect.
Way back in my misspent youth, I used to spend a lot of time thinking and writing about television and film. Looking back, I think I primarily wanted to understand why I loved Star Trek so much (and, no, despite the information provided by this fabulously fun and funny site, my love had NOTHING to do with Shatner’s toupee), but I studied all sorts of films and genres. The fun part–for me, anyway–was taking that film or television show apart and figuring out how it worked: what shots did what; how did the music work; which parts of the plots really propelled the narrative; which unconscious fantasies or developmental levels the narrative was addressing . . . all that stuff. I did it with books and stories, too, but not so much and now that I write fiction, I tend not to think about it at all because I don’t want to mess up my head, if that makes sense. There’s the critrical eye you need to write and, especially, edit and know which words deserve to die; but there’s the creative part of your head that you just got to let go and see where it takes you. So I never get under the hood with my own books unless I’m addressing editor’s comments or CEs.
A few weeks ago, though, I was challenged to do just that: get under the hood. A very nice group, The Oasis Readers, invited me to Skype on in for a discussion of a bestselling novel. Now, this was the first time I’d ever been asked to do anything like this, and I was INCREDIBLY nervous. The person who organized this–a truly sweet woman named Laurie, who’s just the nicest advocate a writer could ever ask for–circulated questions and tried to convince me that I would have a great time. (She was right.) But the problem was . . . I didn’t like the book. It was one of those bestsellers that was a true head-scratcher for me. Like . . . wuh? So I thought, oh boy, I’m sunk.
Then I remembered I used to study stuff like this all the time. So what if I didn’t like the book? Okay, yeah, I saw what bugged me about it; so file that away under stuff I won’t do with my own work. But millions of people LOVED this book. So I figured, okay, be a pro and tease apart what the narrative’s doing. Get under the hood and see what makes this baby run. Try to understand how the book’s structured so that the main protag ends up being someone you root for.
So I did that, and I think I figured out why people like the book. Forget why it didn’t work for me; I could see the appeal. The nice thing was that I think my comments helped the folks in this group consider a few twists they might not have thought about if I hadn’t been challenged to find something in this book to talk about. I had a great time, too, and I hope they did as well. (Here’s hoping they ask me back sometime.)
The moral of the story? Well, it’s similar to something Dean Wesley Smith, a very fine writer and mentor, once challenged me to do: try something new that you’ve never done before with every book (or story, for that matter). Here, it would be that there’s always something new to learn from just about any book. Sometimes that’s how NOT to do something. Often, though, you really can gain a new appreciation for someone else’s work by understanding the skill and craft involved–because there’s a reason bestsellers are bestsellers. Effective marketing aside, it’s the story that sells and a story told well enough to grab a lot of people by the throat is worth understanding.
So, thanks to the Oasis Readers for reminding me that the best writers are students, too. I owe you one.
