Nov 13 2008
Beware These Writing Pitfalls
I finished reading Heather Rose’s novel White Heart (Anchor, 1999) last night, and all day I’ve been mulling over my mixed feelings about it.
The protagonist, Farley Willow, experiences various family joys and losses in her childhood home of Tasmania. Her brother, Ambrose, becomes a woodsman exploring for the last of the supposedly-extinct Tasmanian tigers, and Farley spends most of her adult life travelling to America, involving herself in ritualistic Native American sun dancing.
Heather Rose’s vivid and beautiful descriptive passages form the basis of my recommending this novel to other readers. I also liked the surprise ending, and the overall story was unique and interesting.
However, here are some of the things I disliked about the book:
1. There are no quotation marks in the dialogue. I found this annoying. Sometimes it took a second look to distinguish between words spoken and not. I’m still unsure whether this was a stylistic choice or if the reasons are linked to the ending.
2. I couldn’t help feeling as if Rose had a hidden agenda. In her bio blurb, it seems the author’s experiences with Native American spirituality bear a striking resemblance to her protagonist. Parts of the book almost read like an autobiography. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if it had been one.
3. There was a gratuitous sex scene near the end of the book. Perhaps I’m just not understanding why Heather Rose decided to make this scene so explicit, but I felt like she suddenly lapsed from literary fiction to Harlequin romance. The graphic details seemed out of place and could have been handled in a style more consistent with the rest of the writing.
4. The last third of the novel dragged. Farley attends four sundances in America, and we get to read about each of them. To me, it started to sound like the same old stuff. At this point, I decided I was ready for the book to be over.
In spite of these little annoyances (which really only amount to one woman’s opinion), White Heart does contain some superbly beautiful writing.
Reading is essential to becoming a good writer, and we can learn valuable lessons from identifying the pitfalls we find in other novels. In this case:
- Avoid potentially irritating stylistic choices
- Beware of your personal biases warping your narrator’s voice
- Be consistent in your tone and style
- Ensure your reader will be left wanting more
What pitfalls have you encountered in your reading?
Overly adjective-laden prose. One of my favorite bloggers writes about adjectives and adverbs as being like “Those little kids who, when you tell them you’re making hot dogs, invite their friends, and then their friends invite more friends….”
Sentences that interrupt themselves to add exposition. For some reason, “The X, which [had detail that is probably relevant], did Y” and its ilk drive me up the wall.
I’m with you on the unnecessary sex scenes, and would like to add unnecessary fight scenes as well. In my opinion, the only reason to add either is if there’s something about it that makes it different from the norm, it pushes character development, and/or the outcome is in doubt. Not because the writer is fond of that kind of action.
Ravyn:
Validation at last! I’m glad someone agrees with me.
Adjectives can be a writer’s best friend and worst enemy. And I agree with you on sex and fight scenes often being unnecessary. I find it much more compelling when things are left up to the reader’s imagination. Thanks for commenting.
I smiled when I read the bit about the unnecessary sex scene. Maybe her publisher felt it needed a bit of “sizzle”. However I think there’s a big difference between “graphic” meaning “detailed factual”, and the overblown Romance style (the “his throbbing manhood” stuff). Given the nature of the rest of the story, I’d have thought a detailed, tender sex scene could work if it was meant to show the culmination of the love story - but if she went for the whole purple prose thing, it would have sounded ridiculous!
Marisa:
Here’s a direct quotation from “White Heart” so you can judge for yourself (I won’t choose one of the nastier bits):
“My body climaxed in a wrenching, joyful, delirious, delicious contraction that went on and on to a point of exquisite fulfilment,” (p. 289, Anchor,1999).
To me, this sounds a little ridiculous, especially when contrasted with the rest of the book’s style. There are enough adjectives in that sentence to choke a horse. But hey, I guess some people like reading that stuff. Besides this wasn’t the ‘culmination of a love story,’ it was more “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” territory.