Story Vs. Writing Quality

I really wanted to like it. I really did.  Those are the words I find myself saying through a lot of books these days.

The word is out that publishers are becoming more picky.  They don’t want to take on new authors as often. Breaking into the writing world has become harder.  So…

I find myself stumped.  I found a book that was a freebee.  Oh the ploys of publishers and writers. Get me hooked to buy the rest in a series. I get it.  So I did.  The problem is that the story was a great idea, but it wasn’t well executed.  Can we say repeat?  I found myself skimming over entire pages of repeated information – or whining in this case.

How did this book get popular?  Well, it breaks down to the age old question. Story or quality of writing?  Twilight was a mainstream book that baffled many.  I truly have a hard time re-reading those books, but the first time through I was obsessed.  This book isn’t quite to the obsession level, but sucked me in all the same.

I am scratching my head.  The book in question is a small publisher that also dabbles in self-publication assistance.  People complained of editing, as in punctuation, but for me it was the story.  I can’t tell if she is self published or not.  Either way, she is a success and rightfully so – great story, but getting past the info that should have been cut can be daunting.

Lesson learned from this book – don’t repeat, repeat, repeat. We get it. We read it the first time. Reiteration can be useful as a reminder, but DO NOT REPEAT.  If I can skip pages and miss nothing there is a problem.

I know authors who have awesome editing skills and their stories don’t seem to be half as successful. Long story short.  What matters the most. Story or writing?

 

Related links:

Editing

Editor

Editor 2

Don’t Annoy the Reader

Fun Fact Friday -2013 Trends

Welcome to the new year.  What does a new year mean?  New beginnings, new resolutions, and new stories of course.  I don’t really believe in resolutions any more – that’s coming out of the mouth of someone who generally forgets I made a resolution and therefore I suppose I fail.  What I do believe in though, is escaping into stories.

So what trends will continue from 2012 or start up?  Hard to say. But here are some trends that will probably continue.

1. Established authors using 3,4, and even 5 POV’s.  Why is this?  Maybe to write the longer story?  I can’t really decide.  I am questioning whether the books would read better  if they stayed with the traditional 2 or 3 heads.  The push to continue cranking out books for less money might have something to do with branching out and trying to create filler with additional character POV.
2. Billionaires – Thank you Fifty Shades of Grey and the numerous other billionaires seeking love in  books.  This is most defiantly going to get worse.  Any why now.  Who wants to be poor.
3. Apparently Bikers are up and coming due to the TV drama of Sons of Anarchy. I don’t watch this but it’s predicted that more and more romances will be set in bike shops and in the works of bikers.
4. Thanks to bikers, apparently ink will become a new subset trend? The erotic book publisher, Ellora’s Cave, apparently has a line that caters to this already.
5. New Adult – translation – younger main characters.  YA age with more sex or sexual energy.  What isn’t to love about this? I think this has been long and coming.
6. Short Stories and Novella’s?  A few more independent publishers are popping up.  Even large publishers are using Novella’s to promote new and up-and-coming authors.

A few trends we can do without might be the Fifty Shades of Gray Halloween costumes come October and the naysayers who don’t like New Adult.  Some people just can’t be happy.

What trends do you see or have you read about coming up?

References and related articles:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2012/12/21/three-predictions-for-book-publishing-in-2013/

http://www.arecafe.com/cafe-news/romance-novel-trends-for-2013-and-beyond/

Fad Books

Every year or so a book, well actually a series normally, comes out and becomes the next big thing.  What makes these books The Books to follow?  I got into all of them, but there have been other books that I have been chomping at the bit to get the next installment or find another book by the same author.

The largest, I think, of the fad book series have been:

                             Harry Potter

 Twilight

 The Hunger Games

 Fifty Shades of Grey

 Stephanie Plum novels

Did you read them what did you think?  Most of the series that people go nuts for are all YA also.  Fifty Shades was one of the only adult books that I have heard this much hype on.

Other series that have a following but nothing like the above and probably have better writing are:

 The Darkest Powers books – I actually liked these almost more than Twilight. Better writing but not as much of a love story.

A series I think that has been undiscovered is The Need series.  Loved it about as much as Harry Potter – although Harry Potter’s Characters were a little more realistic and not as needy.  Still loved it.

Adult series are harder.  Actually there aren’t as many.

The Black Dagger Brotherhood series – frankly I’d read these over Fifty any day.

The Chinooks Hockey Series – traditional romance, or well contemporary.  I would also have picked this over Fifty.

Then there is a list of books that are not a series that I loved and have stayed in my mind forever.  The question is, what makes some a fad or a craze over others that a better story?

I suppose if we knew the answers we wouldn’t be unpublished or waiting to appear on the NY Times best sellers lists.

What do you think on the books that start a craze? Is the reason because of the characters or the plots?

There are lots of authors I follow.  Who knows maybe one of them will be the next big thing?

(I’ve only posted a few authors book covers.  )

Fan lit

I hate to admit that ever since i had my daughter i appear to live under a rock. There is a new fad, or well, new to me. Its called fan lit.

Fan lit, to me seens to be more of a way for people to make a story go the way they wanted or to write a story that they couldnt come up with on their own. This is fine, it means your story inspires or drives people batty enough to take it in a new direction. The issues i have is that some of these stories make it to publication. Why?

Ill go out on a limb and assume that if a story gets noticed for publicatuon it had some qualities that made it noticeable…or i hope.

With all the unique stories out there we can all pray that the fan lit books didn’t make it so someone unique didn’t get published. I guess in the end we all get inspired by something, normally a book that we’ve read. The difference is we did what struggling writers do and write in our own home instead of riding the success of other books in the Internet. Who’s to say what is right and what is wrong.