10,000 monkeys could do better
May. 10th, 2004 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msluluI just finished reading a book. It's a modern romance, one of the many that have flooded the shelves in the wake of Bridget Jones's Diary. It leaves me with one question though. How horrid of a writer do you have to be in order to actually get a book rejected? Oh My God! I mean, the storyline itself was okay, nothing terribly unique, lacking a bit in the drama side. The leading character is completely unlikeable. I'm not sure if I was supposed to feel sympathetic to her or not.
Worst of all, is the POV problem. The book seemed to alternate between 3rd person limited and 3rd person omniscient. Now, while I'm not going to say you should never, ever do that, I'm going to at least say that you should never do that in the same paragraph! To make matters worse, the omniscient view was an active narrarator, talking directly to the reader. So, in one paragraph, it takes the reader from the position of the unknown voyeur, watching quietly while Amy frets about whether or not Orlando is interested in her, to suddenly turning to the reader and asking something like, "Ah, but what will our Amy do next? Come along, let's see."
I don't mind stories that are told as though someone is actually talking to me as reader, but the constant switching was confusing, and jarring, and just downright annoying.
It's just sloppy writing.
And, it makes me even more determined to finish the rewrites on In Dreams.
Worst of all, is the POV problem. The book seemed to alternate between 3rd person limited and 3rd person omniscient. Now, while I'm not going to say you should never, ever do that, I'm going to at least say that you should never do that in the same paragraph! To make matters worse, the omniscient view was an active narrarator, talking directly to the reader. So, in one paragraph, it takes the reader from the position of the unknown voyeur, watching quietly while Amy frets about whether or not Orlando is interested in her, to suddenly turning to the reader and asking something like, "Ah, but what will our Amy do next? Come along, let's see."
I don't mind stories that are told as though someone is actually talking to me as reader, but the constant switching was confusing, and jarring, and just downright annoying.
It's just sloppy writing.
And, it makes me even more determined to finish the rewrites on In Dreams.
