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Here are the seven things that have annoyed me the most about books I have read recently.
1) The foul language. I get it. Kids in rough neighborhoods use the f-word a lot. It's "realistic." But, let's be honest: you're writing a supernatural urban fantasy with werewolves and vampires and telepathy and who knows what else. Where is this sense of "realism" you're aiming for? If you must, use it in moments of duress. But when it's used as a verb, a noun, an adjective and an adverb all in the same sentence, you just end up looking pathetically unoriginal. Find a new word. Like James Daschner did in The Maze Runner.
The man invented all his own swear words. It got the point across without offending my sensibilities. 2) The formula. Let me be perfectly clear: if you do not have enough original material- characters, story, jokes, tension, action scenes- to write a new book, then you cannot write a new book. Writing a new-ish story with the exact same characters (except their names have changed) is an insult to your readers. Sure, you get paid gobs of money, but we all shelled out twenty five bucks to read the exact same book we read last year. Not cool.
3) The generic-genre rules-followers. Urban romantic fantasy goes like this: cute, shy, book-ish girl meets a fabulously handsome, paranormal creature who is absolutely devoted to her in tension-filled chaste kind of way. I get it. Book nerds are the ones buying these books, and they want to see themselves in the characters. Gag. Find a new cliche to beat to death, please.
4) The overdone sequels. Your first book is awesome. It's tense without being annoying, romantic without being sappy, funny without going overboard. The story is intricate and detailed and well-managed. The characters are well-developed and interesting and real. You sell fifty gazillion copies and are an instant superstar of book-nerd variety. So what do you do next? You out do yourself, of course! You stretch your characters to their limits and you make them jump through hoop after hoop of improbability. You create more and more fantastic stories and more and more ridiculous love triangles/ coincidences/ conspiracies. And you hurt my head.
5) The straight up rip-off. I'll give you a few hints about a story, you guess what story it is. A young man leaves his comfortable home with an old wizard and a few other companions. Their mission is to save the world from a dark, menacing evil. As they travel, they find more companions. They encounter troublesome creatures and magic. They learn the history of this round object that they are dealing with. Eventually the young man breaks off from the group and goes to face the evil alone. If you said Lord of the Rings
you'd be wrong. 6) The misplaced politics. I didn't pick up Bridget Jones
or The Devil Wear Prada
to get lectured about the liberal political point of view. If I wanted politics and economics, I would have gone to the crusty-old-guy section of the library. Not the shallow-women's-lit section (that's not a slam, I really did read both of those books these past few months)
This one is semi-related.
7) You don't even have the book? Seriously? I've searched my library's website for a book; a book which also was made into a movie at some point. They have the movie but not the book. When I search Amazon for this book, the movie in all its different editions makes up the first 40 pages of search results. What happened? Nobody reads the book anymore? Shame on us.
OK. That was long and ranting and I'm a little bit sorry. No, I'm not actually. I stand by this post with all my little, judgmental heart. Thanks again to Cole, I love his blog. You should read it. It's funny. And he's better at following rules than I am.
