Hi, friends. I hope you are well, that spring is whispering all kinds of possibilities in your ear. Over the last month or so, I’ve DNF’ed two novels for similar reasons. Both were bogged down with backstory. (I swear, I read close to 100 pages in one without any conflict or action.) Both were too focused on being clever (both the writers themselves and their narrators). Both had interesting premises, but were overwritten. This cleverness kept their characters distant and unknown. Both of them were first person narratives and in both cases, the focus was outside the narrator - which can be done and done well. Ultimately, it was this insistence on cleverness — artifice and language that tried too hard — that made me abandon them.
The Problem with Cleverness
The Problem with Cleverness
The Problem with Cleverness
Hi, friends. I hope you are well, that spring is whispering all kinds of possibilities in your ear. Over the last month or so, I’ve DNF’ed two novels for similar reasons. Both were bogged down with backstory. (I swear, I read close to 100 pages in one without any conflict or action.) Both were too focused on being clever (both the writers themselves and their narrators). Both had interesting premises, but were overwritten. This cleverness kept their characters distant and unknown. Both of them were first person narratives and in both cases, the focus was outside the narrator - which can be done and done well. Ultimately, it was this insistence on cleverness — artifice and language that tried too hard — that made me abandon them.