Absolutely ridiculous things in books

[Daphnesmate04]

Thread running in AIBU - Absolutely ridiculous things in books. I haven't had a laugh all day - until I began reading this thread and honestly, this has made me feel a whole lot better and reassured about my writing (still to self publish so who knows what the reviews might turn up).

I'm getting a lot of pointers from it actually for my next book (as well as some good laughs).

I just finished reading this thread and cried with laughter at some of the posts. It's true though. It's been hard recently finding well written page turners with a great plot. There seem to be a lot of pockets of boring stuff you have to wade through to get to the end or the plot is decent but the writing is bloody awful. Two standout books for me last year after the fifty books I read were Hamnet and Ask Again Yes. I tried reading Don DeLillo's The Silence after reading fawning reviews and I thought it was crap. But I'm prepared to be told I'm missing something. I just wish I knew what it was.

Vanta...yes, I needed to read that thread today. It's left me feeling fairly good about my (agent declined) book.

Don't be disheartened. Authors who get published aren't necessarily the best writers. It's very often about filling a niche. I am baffled about Redhead At The Side Of The Road being Booker shortlisted while Hamnet was not. Maggie OFarrell must be chewing the carpet.

Vanta - I realised that was a bit of a dig after I'd written it - I'm not bitter (honestly).

But that thread is an absolute howl. You do wonder how some stuff gets published or what the agent/publisher was thinking.

I feel your frustration though and I share it! I have been submitting for years. It's been a long, slow learning curve. I've gone from getting straight formulaic rejections to full MS requests with more detailed reasons as to why an agent can't take the work. I've rewritten manuscripts several times and been on a course. Learned to share my work with other writers and respond to criticism. I'm now in a serious conversation with a great agent who has asked me to tweak a manuscript with a view to taking me on. I'm still not holding my breath that she's actually going to do it but I have come to understand it's not always about the book, it's about marketing, their current list and what is selling already. Good luck with submitting - and don't give up!

Hi Vanta. I have given up and decided to self publish.

I feel better for it. I have no-one I need to tweak my book for. I have decided that I don't need anyone else to say "this is great," and will sell loads. I've not written it to make money. I like being in control of the process. I don't need the marketing clout because the end game is not commercialism. If I'm honest, I would have liked it to have been recognised especially as the theme of the book seems to have growing interest - it might have even been a missed opportunity on the agents part.

It sounds as if you're getting close to publishing now and I wish you all the luck with it. It is an achievement, an amazing one.

Do you have a link? I could do with a laugh!

Sorry, realised I'd name changed in the last post.

Can't seem to copy the link at the moment, sorry. But I think there's been another post recently, so you should be able to find it in the AIBU forum.

Thanks I'll have a look :)

I think what I'd say, looking at the thread, the majority are books are authors who churn out goodness knows how many books and really only have a couple of plots, so naturally they do get pretty silly.
They're the adult version of Rainbow Fairies (or Sweet Valley High if you prefer); easy to read, popular and the same plot with variations.

The other complaint can be solved by research.
On that one I remember a Hardy Boys* where they get sent undercover to Oxford Uni for some reason. The author had obviously heard of Oxford, but that was as far as their research went. If I just start with Oxford was suddenly a campus university, and the students talked about semesters and sororities. I think two minutes of research would have improved it!

So if you aren't aiming to churn out a book every 3 months and do your research carefully you'll avoid a fair number of the potholes people are complaining about.

*Yes, I know Hardy Boys isn't high literature, and it's written by a consortium, so really that isn't anything unexpected.

I think part of the problem is if you are lucky enough to sell work to a publisher they sometimes offer a two book deal and the timeframe is short - you end up editing one novel with the publisher while trying to write a second on top of doing your day job. This happened to a person on the course I did and they said they would never sign a two book deal again because they haven't had any time to write the second novel. I think I read the same thing somewhere about Jesse Burton. She was trying to write her second novel in random hotel rooms while touring to promote The Impressionist. Not ideal.