Comments on: Friday Free-for-All: Book Trends

By: Sharla

Sharla — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:07:12 +0000

Love first person, myself. Very personal, puts me in the story right away! I’ve found that I have to write that way now as well. It’s what comes natural.

By: Lucy

Lucy — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:02:30 +0000

If a story is engagingly written, I can forgive a lot in terms of style. I don’t care for florid Victorian prose so much, but I love Ellis Peters, Georgette Heyer, etc. Somehow Heyer managed to get away with writing paragraphs that were a page long, literally. And her books are still fun.

I question sometimes whether writing trends, such as banning adverbs or “thats,” should be taken very seriously. At some point, these too will go out of fashion, but a beautifully crafted story remains timeless.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:31:01 +0000

I love contemporary stories and don’t mind omniscient if it’s done well. (I used it for the beginning of one of my novels gradually morphing into third person, but it was written like a fictional biography.)
And I love sagas, but contemporary sagas in CBA don’t exist. They’re these short, staccato series novels where the first one seems like just a setup for the next to follow. Really don’t appreciate that.
I like authors who aren’t afraid to break “the rules”. I like all different kinds of voices and styles. Robotic novels lack passion and rarely move me. It is possible to know and understand “the rules” and simply not like them. The current rules seem like trends more than hard and fast producers of good writing. JMO.

By: LeAnne Hardy

LeAnne Hardy — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:40:49 +0000

I expect Twain and Dickens would both write differently today. They were in touch with readers of their times. I usually find that classics are worth the read even if it takes a while to get into them. The one exception I have found is “Last of the Mohicans.” I couldn’t stomach the racism, and the writing wasn’t worth it.

By: jane g meyer

jane g meyer — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:45:11 +0000

“If the story is good, does it really matter?”

I think good words matter. I struggle, no matter what the time period the book is written in, with books that are solely plot driven. If there is no fun with the language then my play time is over. I’m sure there were some plot driven books written way back–but I’d bet that they’ve simply been cast aside over time–gone out of print… I love reading Homer, or Dante, or Twain, or Dickens, because of the word usage… And I love many of today’s books for the same reason. Have you read the Penderwicks? One of my favorite middle grades. The author has such fun with voice and description.

But one of the Twilight books almost had me in tears it was centered so desperately on the plot, and same with the popular DaVinci Code. I read it because of the controversy and it was dreadful.

We won’t publish a Twain, or Dickens, though, these days. Wow, we won’t even publish a picture book that’s more than 1,000 words! (And as an editor for children, I would never take on a picture book project that is much more than that…) I look at it two ways: we have found the necessity to tell our story or point briefly–maybe even more poetically, which is wonderful, because our attention spans are… pathetic. But we still have the old classics on our shelves, so delicious when read aloud; we are fortunate indeed to have so much material to inspire and entertain us!

By: Janet Ann Collins

Janet Ann Collins — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:35:01 +0000

Most of the classics would never get published today because they don’t jump into the story, but they’re still fun to read. Well, most of them, anyway. I tried re-reading Ben Hur last year and when I got to page 60 and nothing had happened except a man crossing the desert I gave it up. And some newer books are obviously churned out and not very good. I used to enjoy reading Piers Anthony’s books but after he’d written a lot of them they were all the same and boring. If a story is exciting and the characters are believable it doesn’t matter to me if the books are new or old. A good book is a good book, whatever the style.

By: Teri Dawn Smith

Teri Dawn Smith — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:01:17 +0000

Thanks for the insight.

By: Lynn Rush

Lynn Rush — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:56:49 +0000

I notice less omniscient as well. I actually love first person. .. seeing that a lot in the books i’m reading (YA paranormal). The younger language is my fav. . . like that found in the YA novels. It’s snarky and fresh. Just what I like.

Hapyp Friday, everyone. Great post.

By: Bill Giovannetti

Bill Giovannetti — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:53:30 +0000

I agree with the comments here about the decline of editing. Multiply that a hundredfold for self-published books. I’ve read a few, and they hurt. I know I’m sounding snooty; so be it.

So I’m scratching my head… If publishers no longer a) edit; b) distribute (it’s electronic now); c) market; d) print hardcopy, what’s left? Where’s the value proposition?

Bring back scrolls, I say!

By: Sharon Mayhew

Sharon Mayhew — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:08:29 +0000

I agree, it is frustrating when you read a book and find editing errors.

I love today’s books, but I adore Enid Blyton’s chapter books. They are still on the shelves (reprints) in bookstores in England. They were orginally published in the 1950′s. I like how the characters, mostly children, think, speak and act like children.