I read a book the other week and it's been haunting me ever since. Not in the can't-get-it-out-it-was-so-great kind of way, either. No, it was more something the author did.
Halfway through the book after the MC makes a terrible mistake (almost killing the boy she's in love with) she starts talking about her supernatural abilities, how all the popular kids at school and her parents are like her too. She explains everything and her abilities become a natural part of her thought process for the second half.
I think the author was going for suspense and intrigue, a sort of mystery of why the school was so strange. But the entire first half I was wondering if the MC could seriously be that oblivious. Then surprise she isn't an idiot she's just kept her thoughts empty of the situation so the reader wouldn't know what was happening.
Seriously, what the hell?
If you're writing a first person novel and there's something huge like: I'm a fairy; I'm a wizard; I'm a werewolf (you get the idea) how can the MC never think about it?
I felt like I'd been cheated. Like, the author couldn't create real suspense on her own without her cheap manipulation of the MC's thoughts.
There's a difference between shocking your reader but offering them chances to figure it out through subtle hints and foreshadowing and intentionally lying to them in order to shock them. At least, I think there is.
So I'm curious, how much surprise do you think is okay? Where do you draw the line when keeping facts to create suspense? As a reader, as a writer?
I think that book would've pissed me off. It really irritates me as well when the character knows something, but it's hidden just to create a false sense of suspense.
ReplyDeleteI can kinda handle it when a character figures something out and then I have to wait a chapter to learn what they figured out, but that irritates me too.
Bottom line, if the book's in first person and it's something they would be thinking about, we should know it too.
I think you need to decide where the suspense and mystery should really be. With the MC being written in first person I don't think suspense about who she is or what she believes in is something you would do, you're distracting the reader with the fact that the MC doesn't even know her own thoughts or herself.
ReplyDeleteI would have felt cheated as well!
Ooh, that would definitely annoy me. There are better ways to build suspense and tension without confusing your reader so much. And it seem like it would be really hard to connect with that MC, which is always one of my primary focuses while writing.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I would have been annoyed. I've read books where the author has thrown something ridiculous in halfway through and yes, I definitely felt cheated.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, those books still get published!
That would really annoy me, too. I think you need to make the surprise in a way that makes sense to the MC, as seen through her eyes, not as something that's deliberately kept from the readers!
ReplyDeletewow. really? I mean, I think about having a hangnail all day long until I can fix it. How can you NOT think about something that huge about yourself, being supernatural? No. Not believable.
ReplyDeleteDef. a cheat.
I am so glad you told me as I don't want to read the book. Personally, I would not read anything from that author again. Fool me once sort of thing.......Those are the authors that are the one hit wonders- or should be
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of surprised a first person novel could have done that. Isn't the point of having first person is having complete access to another's thoughts?
ReplyDeleteThat would annoy me as well. I think that would be a difficult secret to keep, especially from a first person point of view.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what book you're talking about!!! (I'm pretty sure it includes a boarding school, vampires, hunters...) Mostly because I had that exact same reaction for that exact same reason. I was so startled, and not a little ticked off, that I even sent a long-winded email to a friend venting about this very thing! So frusrating!
ReplyDeleteI like it when you dont know anything the entire story, and then everything is revealed on the last page. heheheheh! only kidding. I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteI only like surprises when I can go back and point to the clues I'd missed -- otherwise it's too fake and cheap.
ReplyDeleteLooks like everyone agrees that the author made a big mistake here. With the difficulty in getting a novel published I sometimes wonder how some books I read made it. Often they're by a well-known author who is probably riding on their reputation. Sad, but true..:)
ReplyDeleteI hate being cheated like that. I need to trust the author to enjoy their book. That would make me crazy.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to be surprised along with the main character--especially if the story is told from a first-person perspective. Otherwise, I feel a bit duped. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI think when writing in first person the reader should know what the narrator should know. So keeping such details would totally irk me. They do that in movies all the time, which is annoying. Thanks for sharing! :D
ReplyDeleteThat's terrible... I would have felt seriously jipped!
ReplyDeleteI normally love the element of surprise, particularly in books. I like it when they keep you guessing and then suddenly it's something completely opposite of what you thought... that feeling that leaves you breathless and eager to know more?
But like you said, it has to be real, otherwise it loses the authenticity.
The way you described it, it sounds like a cheap trick to me.
ReplyDeleteNow you've pointed it out, though, it's effectively what goes on all the time in mysteries. How often does Poirot finger the murderer at the end of the story, only then to reveal how he'd worked it out many scenes previously (sometimes from clues or knowledge not shared earlier with the reader/viewer)? I know that's not quite the same, but there seems to be a tradition of deliberately witholding information which is acceptable in some genres.
Maybe writers trying to create suspense fall into the trap of taking their cues from other genres, where the ground rules and expectations might be entirely different.
OMG, I think I know exactly what book you're talking about it. When the character owned up to supernatural abilites half way through the book (after almost killing the guy), I felt like I'd been slapped in the face. Not okay.
ReplyDeleteI just find that weird. And annoying. It's like somebody with telepathic powers not able to see something coming. And saying it.
ReplyDeleteHow the hell did a first-person-POV story that pulled something like that get published???
ReplyDeletePlease email me and let me know which book i issue I don't read it. (and please don't tell me it's a best seller.)
Eck, that totally would have pissed me off. I guess it's sort of that whole "unreliable narrator" business, and I don't know how I feel about that. I read a mystery novel my friend rec'd to me, and I totally trust her when it comes to things like that. The plot was interesting, the mystery intriguing, but then BAM same thing! Turns out the narrator in the end was totally in on everything, and THAT was the big surprise! I was SO ANNOYED because I was like, well, there was NO WAY I had any chance of figuring out the answer to the mystery for myself because the whole story was from this guy's POV, and HE was behind everything the WHOLE time.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I don't know.