To make Scott happy
Scott wanted there to be more blog posts today. Since I think Scott's a pretty nice guy, this post is my graduation present to him.
The problem is that I really don't want to think too much about my novel, and blogging about it, without thinking about it, presents a challenge. I could write about the process of writing... but don't feel like it. I could tell you all about the delicious (no, you don't understand, it was AMAZING) dinner I had tonight, here in DC, or I could tell you about how much I enjoyed the company of my friends from NYC, San Diego, Pisa, LA, and Madison. Don't feel like doing that either.
Maybe I'll tell you about the book I just read, Bandbox, by Thomas Mallon. It's a 21st century book, but set in the 1920's. I didn't actually care too much for the plot, the characters, or the writing. It was all right, but really not memorable. The most memorable thing about it was that it had way too many main characters. After the first 20 pages I started to take notes so I could remember them all. I ended up writing down at least 40 characters, and of those, probably 20 were main characters that were involved in a very complicated plot. It made the whole thing very difficult to follow and in the end, I didn't feel it was worth it. I guess the plot couldn't have been handled with fewer characters, but I basically didn't end up caring about any of them. So the happy ending that came together didn't really interest me.
I wonder if I had too many characters in my novel... I think right at the beginning I introduced a whole bunch, and gave backstories to them, and then didn't end up really using them all. When you're writing a novel with no plan, you never can tell who might come in handy. One of the characters who appeared really briefly in the first chapter played a crucial role in the climax of my book, so I guess there's no harm in throwing a bunch of unnecessary characters around in a novel-in-a-month.
The problem is that I really don't want to think too much about my novel, and blogging about it, without thinking about it, presents a challenge. I could write about the process of writing... but don't feel like it. I could tell you all about the delicious (no, you don't understand, it was AMAZING) dinner I had tonight, here in DC, or I could tell you about how much I enjoyed the company of my friends from NYC, San Diego, Pisa, LA, and Madison. Don't feel like doing that either.
Maybe I'll tell you about the book I just read, Bandbox, by Thomas Mallon. It's a 21st century book, but set in the 1920's. I didn't actually care too much for the plot, the characters, or the writing. It was all right, but really not memorable. The most memorable thing about it was that it had way too many main characters. After the first 20 pages I started to take notes so I could remember them all. I ended up writing down at least 40 characters, and of those, probably 20 were main characters that were involved in a very complicated plot. It made the whole thing very difficult to follow and in the end, I didn't feel it was worth it. I guess the plot couldn't have been handled with fewer characters, but I basically didn't end up caring about any of them. So the happy ending that came together didn't really interest me.
I wonder if I had too many characters in my novel... I think right at the beginning I introduced a whole bunch, and gave backstories to them, and then didn't end up really using them all. When you're writing a novel with no plan, you never can tell who might come in handy. One of the characters who appeared really briefly in the first chapter played a crucial role in the climax of my book, so I guess there's no harm in throwing a bunch of unnecessary characters around in a novel-in-a-month.
Thanks for the post Indigo! Its always exciting to hear book reviews and about travels to the US. Sounds like a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure! It wasn't much of a book review because the thought of writing in detail about that book bored me too much.
ReplyDelete