Stupidities and irritations in novels

Who are you UQD? I too am out of the loop.

kickassangel, the "one good suit" rings nasty bells... if it's the same book I'm thinking of, I feel your pain.

Nancysgarden, Anita shreve does that present tense thing and it's torture.

UQD, I'm going to say I LOVE that you've mentioned who you are in rl, not like other bloody teases on this board who tantalise us with their 'I'm somebody famous doncha know?' and then they lose their nerve, so bravo hombre.

There IS room for another few SAHM writers though because NONE of your books are on the shelf in my local big book shop, and that leaves room for several more yummy mummy writers doesn't it?

SO I think you need to go on a World tour, or if your publishers won't fund that, snog Rachel Johnston, in Starbucks in HOlland Park!???

Then you'll be too busy coining it to think about what you hate about other writers! It's an interesting subject though. But we'll keep the griping threads going while you deal with the ker-ching.

pp, Love Alice Munro

I don't mean difficulties as in getting published or paid. It's just you seem a bit miffed about other types of writing - mums lit I think it's called. A genre that seems to attract high advances.

Can I add the Minette Walters crime novels - which I do enjoy but have become intensly irritated by the constant repetition of character archetypes. The poor working class rough types who are foul mouthed but honest and honourable, the middle class protagonist, grumpy, alienated from society and with a past and a terrible secret who acts in a completely bizarre and suspicious manner throughout the novel until they are completely exonerated of any part in the crime/s.

Who ever said crime fiction was formulaic?!!

UQD I have a feeling Lee Child may occassionally mention Jack Reacher's vital stats (Probably for the female readership, however).

If only Dickens had thought that a character's top hat size was an important part of the character description, tee hee. Or if modern writers listed everyone's income like Austen.

UQD - rude, I know, but who are you!? .I always feel that everyone else on threads with you know who you are but that I'm out of the loop.

Ignore question if you want to though!

On the pause in front of a mirror thing though - as a family, we still roar with laughter remembering a friend of my sister's who used to pause in front of evrey mirrored surface (including the oven) to flick her long blonde locks. I was about 9 and found it endlessly entertaining!

(if you price it up by the hour you would be better off working in a bar)

UQD - are you a writer having difficulties? This is all a bit sour isn't it?

you get about 2k for writing a black lace novel

That's so funny, UD.

I'm basically a SAHM who does a bit of thesis-work as a hobby (well, that's how it seems). At parties I have been known to corner people at parties and question them about what it is like to , you know, go to work. For me, it has the allure of the truly exotic.

how I must ruin their night.

Lovely to think of it as a writer's problem too.

Yy very excellent writers use physicality in a wonderful way. Alice Munro's heroine's often have broad faces, Pessoa with the uncomfortable and irritating fatness and sweat on a man, who has a liking for omlettes.

I love Martina Cole books and often wonder if she really is involved (or has been at some point) in ganglabd stuff. She knows waaayyyyy too much, but its very good in fairness to her

I read 'have baby will travel' by Sarah Tucker and it was nonsense. If I'd been thick as a plank it would have given me totally unrealistic expecations. So potentially a v. dangerous book!!

I hate when the character's name is really improbable. Such as a 30 yr old called Dulcie or Esme.

People who use their hero's musical taste as a very lazy shorthand way of describing their personality. Ian Rankin does this all the time and it makes me want to slap him. Hard.

I agree with you UQD.

You are probably being a bit oversensitive about this though.

The only new writers who can afford to write novels for a living are people who are supported by other people. Or the state. A generalisation I know, but there is quite a lot of truth in it.

So people write a bit to dignify sahping or just sahing. And sometimes they get published. And almost invariably the result is boaksome.

I truly hate how real jobs are portrayed in modern novels. It really brings it home how far removed any of the writers are from reality. Take Nick Hornby and Joanna Trollope. Both bestselling writers of unliterary novels. They both have trouble drawing distinct characters from real life. Their writing is clunky too.

I don't think I've ever read a novel where a woman's dress size is revealed.

I do remember, though, that Dorothea in Middlemarch has the kind of thin wrists that make cheap dresses look rather fine, a trait I have always coveted.

Anyone ever read Linda Fairstein's novels about a high-ranking woman who works with the NYPD? Her close friend and colleague (a man) calls her 'blondie'. Aaaargh!! It's like nails on a blackboard. I can barely bring myself to avidly read each new book as it comes out.

And don't get me started on Patricia Cornwell's one-dimensional heroine. It's like groundhog day in there. I mean TWO lovers who die horribly and BOTH amazingly return from the dead?? Come ON!

You visit all the shops until you find one where you can just about get a garment two sizes below your normal one done up - you then buy it and tell everyone that that is your real size .