Something Annalee Blysse mentioned in her blog got me thinking about what makes a great book.
She said that a book she’d read made her feel tight in the chest, on the verge of tears. I’ve been looking for words to describe that feeling I get when I’m completely caught up in the trials and tribulations of a great character. Mind you, I hate sad, depressing books, but there’s a difference between the kind of ‘tight in the chest’ tears that Annalee describes and the ‘gee, I think I’ll go step in front of a bus now’ kind of maudlin feelings some writers evoke with their tales of human misery.
That teary feeling is what makes a good book, or rather a great book, for me. Not that I don’t enjoy a light-hearted comedy or a simple, sweet love story, or even a spicy erotic tale [since I write those!] but those books where I’m in the heroine’s head, and I’m crying with her [not for her-there’s a difference] those are the books I want more of. Crying with a character means I’ve transcended the edge of the page and I’m IN the book. The heroine’s problems are my problems, I’m her to a certain extent. She touches something in me that makes me completely understand her life. Thus the writer has made her into a real person for me and that is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Crying FOR a character is different and not anywhere near fun at all. I don’t want to feel bad for a character, I want to feel AS the character.
Am I making sense?
It’s a hard concept to get into words, and even harder to apply to my writing, but I hope that someday I’ll write a book that my readers can say this about, that they feel FOR my characters and step inside them for a little while. That, to me, is the measure of a great writer.
1 comment:
Absolutely making sense for me. I like being able to tell the characters... no, don't do that, that would be a mistake! And then when they make the mistake I'm thinking... oh, no, now how are you going to fix that? Makes for really good conflict when their mistakes bring up a range of emotions.
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