I've read three books so far. Taken, Watchers and another earlier book that I have temporaily forgotten the title to. Yeah, my cone headedness is back. I have suffered this ailment all my life.
If you want to learn to write well, read Koontz. I am not kidding here. He handles back story with great skill, he isn't prone to over using cliches, and he doesn't switch POV often. When he does it is usually after a page break or in a new chapter.
I've recently read a New York Times best selling author who did switch POV's in the middle of a paragraph and did depend too much on cliche's and had way to many look, looking, and other similiar words. I'm not naming names. I will make a suggestion. You can buy a computer program that will hightlight in color all similar words in your manuscript. Let's face it, we writer's are human and rely on simple words when talking with people outside our writerly universe.
So, that's my two cents.
Any thughts?.
Nancy
6 comments:
I've learned to use that feature in Word. And Preston and Child are similar - as much suspense and thriller as horror.
Hi Nancy! I adore Dean Koontz. He keeps me on the edge of my seat with his suspense, and his bit of horror. The Koontz-type authors know how to keep you guessing and reading - like James Patterson et al. Love 'em.
I'm with you there with the NYT best sellers. I'm the hugest Nora Roberts fan, but now that I'm so critical when I read, i see she is a great POV changer, even within a paragraph at times. I'm currently reading her 'Black Hills' from 2009 and I'm forcing myself to finish it. Many plot holes, structure messy, and characters I couldn't give too hoots about. Well, if Nora misses problems, maybe we can too, lol!
Hope all goes well, dear friend.
Denise
I find POV changes in adult novels is starting to irritate me. I've been reading too much kid-lit...
As for those over-used words. I had to make a list. And as there didn't seem to be a fairly complete one available on the net I put it up on my blog. Now I'm slowly going through that list and listing all the synonyms I can find for each of those words.
I've never read Koontz either. I'm not big on horror, but suspense on the other hand, I might be able to handle. ;)
Hi Alex
That must be a new feature for Word that I don't have.
Hi Denise
I agree about Nora Roberts. I think one of the major problems that popular writers have is enough time to really polish their manuscripts.
Hi Bish
If POV isn't handled right, it really irritates me.
Hi Carolyn
I think you'd love Koontz.
Thank you everyone for remaining my faithful followers in my on-going saga of internet and blogging troubles.
Nancy
If it's good and it keeps me pleasantly engaged, I don't really care about the POV.
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