25 Reasons Why I Stopped Reading Your Book

There's strong views on pace, and the story progressing too slowly.

The absolute best author I've read at telling a slow story, is John le Carre. I can't quite put my finger on it, but to me, the extremely slow pace is addictive, the almost complete lack of action. It's slightly genre defying, in a 'spies standing around in the rain with umbrella's' as opposed to shooting each other, kind of way. I would say, that this is polarising and I've certainly talked to people who didn't like it, because it was too slow though.
 
I read this all the way to the end; though he almost lost me with the long sentence thing, because a writer who does it well can write long paragraphs that fill a page and never lose the reader. Those authors might be few and far between; but I could name one that captured me.

That much said: he did mention that this is his opinion.
Still I've only read one of his books and by his criteria I probably should not have finished it; but I did.
And that's all I have to add.
 
Actually, I immediately started losing this guy from the point where he identified himself as reader and author of comics. Which elicits, in my mind the number one reason he couldn't finish a novel:

His attention span has atrophied to Tweet level.
 
Alex The G and T said:
Actually, I immediately started losing this guy from the point where he identified himself as reader and author of comics. Which elicits, in my mind the number one reason he couldn't finish a novel:

His attention span has atrophied to Tweet level.
Click to expand...
I wasn't aware comics were only for those with ADHD. Are short stories in the same category?
 
Alex The G and T said:
Where did I say anything about ADHD?

No, I mean picture books require less attention span than immersion in and parsing of prose.

He wasn't talking about short stories; nor was I.
Click to expand...
"Picture books" with good prose take just as much parsing. The best comics take considerably more attention to understand and integrate than popular, fast reading novels. Gaiman, Gibson, Moore, Miller, etc are not authoring Garfield comic strips.
 
I am completely, totally at a loss as to how making and reading comics indicates a lower attention span. Clearly Alan Moore is a very incredible individual to have created so many comics, some of them works spanning five or more years, and then go on to write a six hundred thousand word book. Although he is far from the only comic writer to find the attention span to pursue the same story for that sort of time period and certainly not the only one to write some really big books.
 
Alex The G and T said:
His attention span has atrophied to Tweet level.
Click to expand...

Ironically, he tweeted his desire to write a Star Wars novel a couple of years ago, and got the attention of Lucasfilm / Disney / whoever publishes the new Star Wars canon. Obviously they must have liked his other work, because they picked him up and he's writing Star Wars novels now.

Not really relevant to anything, the tweet thing just dislodged that half forgotten factoid.
 
Yeah:
Let's not denigrate comics, their readers and their authors all at once for no good purpose.

He could have lost me, though he didn't, because I've read his books and wonder if he takes all his own advice; which begs the question of how much tongue-in-cheekiness was behind all of that post.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
M The pitfalls of DNA testing whether for medical or ancestry reasons Science & Nature 0
Stuart Suffel Choose 3 top reasons from this list that give YOU the most satisfaction from reading FICTION novels? Book Discussion 31
Stuart Suffel What are the 3 main reasons that cause you to CONTINUE READING a NEW (fiction) author? Book Discussion 46
Brian G Turner 5 Reasons New Films are Bad General Film Discussion 20
T A Choice of Treasons by J.L. Doty Book Discussion 2

Similar threads


Back
Top