Crime and Punishment
I have a thing for crime novels, especially those that delve into gritty, gruesome, grimy detail. I couldn’t begin to tell you why. Maybe a trained psychologist could, but I can’t. Since I myself am not trained in any type of law enforcement, nor in criminal or psychological arts, I appreciate it when crime novelists give me a little bit of background information about things like prison life and luminol and psychosexual perversions, as they pertain to the story at hand.
Recently I’ve been reading such a novel, and the author has been very thorough about giving me all of the background information I need to follow the story. I’m not equipped to go out and apprehend an actual serial killer myself, obviously, but I’m knowledgeable enough right now to hang out with these fictional crime solvers as they track down their fictional psychopath. I’m even enjoying the journey. But I was blown right out of the story late last night when the author committed what I personally think is the greatest writing crime of all. Here’s the setup:
Character A, a female forensic scientist, and her lover, Character B – an FBI profiler – have just had an argument over the phone about a personal matter. After they hang up, Character B immediately goes back to examining the series of disgusting crime scene photos he’d been examining before the argument took place, without stopping to digest what the argument had been about or what he might do to patch things up with the love of his life. So far so good. But that’s when the author committed the crime I alluded to earlier. She felt the need to tell me that the guy went right back to work so he wouldn’t have to think about the argument.
DUH.
I’m quite aware that human beings don’t like to face up to their problems. I realize that they frequently bury them by focusing on something else until they’re ready to deal with them. How do I know this? Because, although I’m not a trained psychologist, I am a human being. I’ve had arguments with the love of my life before. Bad’uns. And afterwards I’ve buried myself in a book or a television program, or a bottle or two too many, so I wouldn’t have to think about the argument until I was ready to do so. Just like you have. Just like every other human being who’s ever been in love before has. So although I appreciate it when an author goes through the trouble of explaining odd criminal behavior to me, I don’t appreciate it when she feels the need to do the same with common human behavior.
I don’t appreciate being treated like a dummy.
As you work your way through your novels, whatever the genre, don’t commit the crime of treating your readers like dummies. Trust yourself. Trust your talent. Trust your reader.
zoewinters
Moriah Jovan
R.J. Keller
robinaltman
Evangeline Holland
alanbaxter
That’s an awesome point. Sometimes I’m reading a book where the narrator states the obvious, and I literally say out loud, “Oh, shut the f- up.” This makes my husband nuts, and causes me to sound nuts. It’s nice to hear why it is so jarring stated so coherently. I’m going to print out this post and hand it to him next time.
Perhaps you could come to PA and do a consult, where you coherently state for me why my children are so incredibly annoying.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
This is good advice, and I’ll admit that I often have to remind myself of it. When I revise a piece of my writing, I’ll often find statements of the obvious, or redundant information, or stuff that just isn’t necessary. Revising my latest novel meant cutting at least 30 pages of this sort of stuff from my text.
J.M., the reason I feel so strongly about this is because the books I’ve loved the most have left some of my questions unanswered and let me deduce the answers.
And/or they’ve left little “easter eggs” for me (Tom Wolfe does this in his chapter titles). If I don’t get it, it doesn’t matter, but if I do, it’s like this squee moment.
My editor made several comments in the text like, “The reader will want to know why” or “this is an interesting detail, but you never follow up.”
Those were areas where A) the reader would just have to wait a little while for the answer and B) if the reader couldn’t deduce from the text what was going on, it wasn’t important.
I did also use the chapter titles to make points, but again, if no one gets it, it’s not important. It doesn’t TAKE AWAY from the story if you don’t get it, but it ADDS TO the story if you do.
Robin, if I hurry I can be there for supper. Set a plate.
JMR, yep…that’s what editing is for.
MoJo, You’re welcome, you’re welcome, you’re welcome…etc…
That’s one of the reasons I love Tom Wolfe. Personally, I think there’s a vast shortage of re-readable books nowadays, and it’s because too many authors reveal too much too soon. Novels, like onions and ogres, should have layers. You were absolutely right to stick to your guns with The Proviso.
MoJo:
I like to sprinkle little “easter eggs” into my novels, too — little rewards for attentive and loyal readers. One thing that I do is make little passing references to characters and events from my other stories. In other words, a couple of characters in The Spring are mentioned/appear in Leah. The narrator doesn’t call any special attention to them (and most readers will probably miss the references), but the careful reader will notice them and think, “Hey! That’s that character from the other book!”
Those kinds of details are always fun.
J.M., I love those, too. And yes, they ARE rewards and I love them.
One thing I did was this: One character always drinks orange juice. That’s almost all he drinks. Since he identifies with a religion that doesn’t drink, the reader could infer that he’s loading his juice with vodka. I knew this when I wrote it. Or the reader could have a semi-passing knowledge of how a certain disease process works… Or the reader could remember that this character’s father had a disease… Or the reader could completely miss it and it wouldn’t matter.
My editor wanted me to explain and explore that part of that character. I chose not to. All the reader REALLY needs to know is that he drinks a lot of orange juice.
Hey Kel, I’m a big fan of easter eggs too. At this point, all my paranormal romances are going to be in some way interconnected. Old characters make cameos. Little references get mentioned that fans who have read the other stuff will “get” but those who haven’t, they don’t lose any of the story, they just don’t get the reference.
I feel like it adds extra layers and continuity, plus it’s fun. It was one of the things I loved so much about Buffy. On a lot of television programs, things will happen in an episode, and then you never hear about it again, like it might as well not have happened.
But on Buffy, in season seven, you’d still get some random reference about Xander’s Hyena possession from season one. It was great!