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shalannaI wanted to add to yesterday's semi-screed about flaws in published work by citing a couple of other semi-new releases (at least they're new to me) and their comparative lack of plothole-style flaws. It didn't seem fair to me that I seemingly "attacked" (and that isn't MY term, but one I imagine that the other author would use if she were to recognize her work mentioned in my screed) a first-timer and didn't analyze any other works.
Last night, I finished Dave Barry's Big Trouble and read Donald E. Westlake's Put a Lid On It after that, finishing up earlier today. Those books are as good as any to "pick on" so far as showing good structure of a novel. And this is Barry's first novel (though some could argue that it's not fair to compare him to the lady I spoke of earlier, since he has made his living writing columns--and even teleplays for "Dave's World"--and books for years.)
The following contains some spoilers for those of you who read for plot and plot surprises, so if you plan to read these thrillers, you probably won't want to read this. But I thought it only fair to take apart a couple of old hands' books, since I criticized a first-time novelist's effort in my previous entry.
Yew Haf Bihn Wahrnd.
As you might expect, Barry's book is funny and contains many witticisms. But he surprised me as well, because (although he changes point of view often and hops between plot threads and characters about every few paragraphs, it seemed to me) he has great control of a novel-length plot. His characters are hilarious. (Not hysterical, by the way--that refers to someone whose emotions are out of conrol in general. But dat's anuddah rant.) Although much of the action is outlandish, Barry can pull it off in much the same way he does in his column (which he has suspended for a while, alas) because his tone starts out being wry/sarcastic. The only times I balked at going along with him were near the end of the book, when the teenage girl who is taken as hostage has several opportunities (as I see it) to escape her captors at the airport. When they're getting their tickets and making up fake names, she should've looked right at the reservations clerk and shouted (embarrassingly loud), "I need the little girls' room RIGHT NOW. I started my [sorry, guys--this is how she'd say it] period JUST NOW and I'm flooding and I need to get cleaned up!!!" The clerk and/or other people would be looking, and the bad guy would surely not shoot her with the gun that's concealed under the sweatshirt where he's holding her arm, because if he did that there, his escape is over--it becomes a chasedown and he has lost his chance. She could have gotten away a few other times. I didn't even think the crook would have taken her, in fact--he already had the suitcase he wanted and she was just an added burden, as he had everyone else tied up. Why would he take the girl and give more people a reason to chase after him? Because the script says so, I think. After all, the crook could have gotten other good-looking young girls once he made his getaway.
I also had a slight problem of disbelief when the plane takes off with the stairway still attached and door open--he could have done a bit more with it by having the stairs taken off or automatically go off and the door be closed, and then one of the gunshots could have blown open the emergency door and the other criminal (when he decides to betray the baddie and throw out the suitcase) could have thrown the thing out THAT door. Of course, the open door thing brings up the problems of the "Airport" films and so forth, depressurization, but he has this being a prop plane and therefore avoids talking about going waay up there. I just thought that was a bit tough to swallow, though you can see what's coming to wrap things up, and you're rooting for it to happen.
The only *big* plot prob I see is at the heart of the maguffin: these guys have stolen a suitcase warhead. Okay, radiation. The way radiation works is that *this thing would be hot*, and these guys are keeping it in the back room of their bar. SOMEbody is going to start having some symptoms of radiation exposure. The people exposed to this are going to be affected sooner or later. I would have liked to see some words about the radiation shielding and/or about how there isn't any. Yet I suppose part of the point Barry was making is that there isn't really that much more radiation to worry about (taking into consideration background radiation), and/or how easy it might be to take such an item onto a plane, because they don't really check for it (though maybe some do--isn't there any kind of check for radiation? This item didn't even go through an x-ray like a carry-on does, though, because of the way the incompetents at airport security were portrayed, and possibly that was part of the problem that Barry was highlighting. I wouldn't know, as I don't fly.) The whole idea was kind of disturbing because I can see Barry's point.
Barry has the teenage boy and the "good" police officer put their money where their mouths are when they clamber on the plane to save the girl and defeat the hijacker. They save themselves through sacrifice. (The officer is also shot, meaning she "pays" a high price. This is another convention of fiction that sometimes is needed--showing what is worth what price.) Some other characters also do this kind of thing. The entire BOOK is basically confrontations or the setup of the next confrontation, so Barry didn't cheat us on that score. If you want to read a fast-paced blam-blam novel that's funny, this is a good choice.
Okay, so that was a book I didn't argue with so far as plot/wrap-up. Bear in mind that it was satirical in tone from the get-go, and so I didn't require as much factcheckable reality from Barry as I do from books that have a level tone.
On to Westlake. He's a master. I first started reading Don Westlake when my friend and I went to the local movie theater (in the 1970s, when we were teenagers who could walk to a neighborhood large-screen old-fashioned theater!) to see The Hot Rock, based on one of Westlake's Dortmunder novels. These novels are from the POV of the crooks, bumbling types, and you root for the antihero all the way through. The film had George Segal and Robert Redford, which is probably why Ann and I wanted to see it. Anyhow, we both read the book (from the library) after seeing it, and went on to read much of his work. The great Harlan Ellison and I agreed one time (by phone--long story, tell ya sometime if I can avoid sounding smug and bragging) that Westlake's Trust Me On This is our favorite comic novel and possibly the best example of a novel that you could read if you want to write a funny one. That's sayin' something. Anyway . . .
Westlake's book didn't have a flaw. He never cheated the reader. We never were at a point where we said we could not believe everything that was happening. The character had a point at which he took a chance to protect himself (as the last quarter of the book opened), and this had been set up in such a way that you kind of knew (but weren't hit on the head with it) that this would be his "insurance" against these guys double-crossing him. When he is double-crossed at the end, he pulls out his hole card and bests them. This is an example of the character overcoming the situation and the challenge using his own wits and abilities, though it wasn't a gun battle but a battle of wits. The only thing I can point to is that the ending was perhaps too easy--there was no threatening with a gun or whatever, and the guy just walked away without worrying about future threats, and the very last confrontation might have been made just a bit tougher--but it REALLY didn't matter, as by this time everything was wrapped up and we were rooting for this guy to win. He doesn't experience character change in the sense of conversion to a "straight" guy instead of a criminal, at least not overtly, until the last couple of pages, when the lawyer with whom he has fallen in love lets him know that she'd be interested in him (and he decides to try it her way for a change.) Other than that . . . what can I say? Westlake has been at it a HECK of a lot longer (and under other pen names) than the others I mentioned. He delivers, and that's exactly what I expected.
Not to mention his way with metaphors and witticisms and pop culture references that aren't stale. (And don't go stale over the years, either.) One of my "first readers" says that I use metaphor too often and it's too unusual. But that's because she is simply not that well read. **GRIN** I don't agree with her assessment (and I suspect she is calling other figures of speech "metaphor" in a blanket accusation), but I now realize that Westlake is one of the writers from whom I GOT that "stylistic quirk." He and Herman Wouk and Herman Raucher. (Raucher wrote Summer of '42 and its sequel, Class of '44, which we as teens were very impressed by, AND also the screenplay and story for another film that I love, the original 1968 Sweet November, the REAL version. My eyes bugged out when I realized that last bit, just a few months ago reading the film's credits on a re-watching. Wow.) The two Hermans share part of the blame as to why I am so loquacious, talky, long-winded, and always tend to default to the "thirty-minute answer" (as Arlen Specter puts it.) (I also had an Uncle Herman, but he was a man of few words, so blame cannot be laid at his size-14 feet.)
I'm sure you are ready for me to try another LJ cut, but when I click on those, it takes me out of the Friends page, so I don't tend to click on them . . . and I wanted everyone to see that it's not just this one writer I'm picking on. I saw that these other two books did not have the same flaws, and wanted to point out how I think it should be done. That's all.
For now.
Last night, I finished Dave Barry's Big Trouble and read Donald E. Westlake's Put a Lid On It after that, finishing up earlier today. Those books are as good as any to "pick on" so far as showing good structure of a novel. And this is Barry's first novel (though some could argue that it's not fair to compare him to the lady I spoke of earlier, since he has made his living writing columns--and even teleplays for "Dave's World"--and books for years.)
The following contains some spoilers for those of you who read for plot and plot surprises, so if you plan to read these thrillers, you probably won't want to read this. But I thought it only fair to take apart a couple of old hands' books, since I criticized a first-time novelist's effort in my previous entry.
Yew Haf Bihn Wahrnd.
As you might expect, Barry's book is funny and contains many witticisms. But he surprised me as well, because (although he changes point of view often and hops between plot threads and characters about every few paragraphs, it seemed to me) he has great control of a novel-length plot. His characters are hilarious. (Not hysterical, by the way--that refers to someone whose emotions are out of conrol in general. But dat's anuddah rant.) Although much of the action is outlandish, Barry can pull it off in much the same way he does in his column (which he has suspended for a while, alas) because his tone starts out being wry/sarcastic. The only times I balked at going along with him were near the end of the book, when the teenage girl who is taken as hostage has several opportunities (as I see it) to escape her captors at the airport. When they're getting their tickets and making up fake names, she should've looked right at the reservations clerk and shouted (embarrassingly loud), "I need the little girls' room RIGHT NOW. I started my [sorry, guys--this is how she'd say it] period JUST NOW and I'm flooding and I need to get cleaned up!!!" The clerk and/or other people would be looking, and the bad guy would surely not shoot her with the gun that's concealed under the sweatshirt where he's holding her arm, because if he did that there, his escape is over--it becomes a chasedown and he has lost his chance. She could have gotten away a few other times. I didn't even think the crook would have taken her, in fact--he already had the suitcase he wanted and she was just an added burden, as he had everyone else tied up. Why would he take the girl and give more people a reason to chase after him? Because the script says so, I think. After all, the crook could have gotten other good-looking young girls once he made his getaway.
I also had a slight problem of disbelief when the plane takes off with the stairway still attached and door open--he could have done a bit more with it by having the stairs taken off or automatically go off and the door be closed, and then one of the gunshots could have blown open the emergency door and the other criminal (when he decides to betray the baddie and throw out the suitcase) could have thrown the thing out THAT door. Of course, the open door thing brings up the problems of the "Airport" films and so forth, depressurization, but he has this being a prop plane and therefore avoids talking about going waay up there. I just thought that was a bit tough to swallow, though you can see what's coming to wrap things up, and you're rooting for it to happen.
The only *big* plot prob I see is at the heart of the maguffin: these guys have stolen a suitcase warhead. Okay, radiation. The way radiation works is that *this thing would be hot*, and these guys are keeping it in the back room of their bar. SOMEbody is going to start having some symptoms of radiation exposure. The people exposed to this are going to be affected sooner or later. I would have liked to see some words about the radiation shielding and/or about how there isn't any. Yet I suppose part of the point Barry was making is that there isn't really that much more radiation to worry about (taking into consideration background radiation), and/or how easy it might be to take such an item onto a plane, because they don't really check for it (though maybe some do--isn't there any kind of check for radiation? This item didn't even go through an x-ray like a carry-on does, though, because of the way the incompetents at airport security were portrayed, and possibly that was part of the problem that Barry was highlighting. I wouldn't know, as I don't fly.) The whole idea was kind of disturbing because I can see Barry's point.
Barry has the teenage boy and the "good" police officer put their money where their mouths are when they clamber on the plane to save the girl and defeat the hijacker. They save themselves through sacrifice. (The officer is also shot, meaning she "pays" a high price. This is another convention of fiction that sometimes is needed--showing what is worth what price.) Some other characters also do this kind of thing. The entire BOOK is basically confrontations or the setup of the next confrontation, so Barry didn't cheat us on that score. If you want to read a fast-paced blam-blam novel that's funny, this is a good choice.
Okay, so that was a book I didn't argue with so far as plot/wrap-up. Bear in mind that it was satirical in tone from the get-go, and so I didn't require as much factcheckable reality from Barry as I do from books that have a level tone.
On to Westlake. He's a master. I first started reading Don Westlake when my friend and I went to the local movie theater (in the 1970s, when we were teenagers who could walk to a neighborhood large-screen old-fashioned theater!) to see The Hot Rock, based on one of Westlake's Dortmunder novels. These novels are from the POV of the crooks, bumbling types, and you root for the antihero all the way through. The film had George Segal and Robert Redford, which is probably why Ann and I wanted to see it. Anyhow, we both read the book (from the library) after seeing it, and went on to read much of his work. The great Harlan Ellison and I agreed one time (by phone--long story, tell ya sometime if I can avoid sounding smug and bragging) that Westlake's Trust Me On This is our favorite comic novel and possibly the best example of a novel that you could read if you want to write a funny one. That's sayin' something. Anyway . . .
Westlake's book didn't have a flaw. He never cheated the reader. We never were at a point where we said we could not believe everything that was happening. The character had a point at which he took a chance to protect himself (as the last quarter of the book opened), and this had been set up in such a way that you kind of knew (but weren't hit on the head with it) that this would be his "insurance" against these guys double-crossing him. When he is double-crossed at the end, he pulls out his hole card and bests them. This is an example of the character overcoming the situation and the challenge using his own wits and abilities, though it wasn't a gun battle but a battle of wits. The only thing I can point to is that the ending was perhaps too easy--there was no threatening with a gun or whatever, and the guy just walked away without worrying about future threats, and the very last confrontation might have been made just a bit tougher--but it REALLY didn't matter, as by this time everything was wrapped up and we were rooting for this guy to win. He doesn't experience character change in the sense of conversion to a "straight" guy instead of a criminal, at least not overtly, until the last couple of pages, when the lawyer with whom he has fallen in love lets him know that she'd be interested in him (and he decides to try it her way for a change.) Other than that . . . what can I say? Westlake has been at it a HECK of a lot longer (and under other pen names) than the others I mentioned. He delivers, and that's exactly what I expected.
Not to mention his way with metaphors and witticisms and pop culture references that aren't stale. (And don't go stale over the years, either.) One of my "first readers" says that I use metaphor too often and it's too unusual. But that's because she is simply not that well read. **GRIN** I don't agree with her assessment (and I suspect she is calling other figures of speech "metaphor" in a blanket accusation), but I now realize that Westlake is one of the writers from whom I GOT that "stylistic quirk." He and Herman Wouk and Herman Raucher. (Raucher wrote Summer of '42 and its sequel, Class of '44, which we as teens were very impressed by, AND also the screenplay and story for another film that I love, the original 1968 Sweet November, the REAL version. My eyes bugged out when I realized that last bit, just a few months ago reading the film's credits on a re-watching. Wow.) The two Hermans share part of the blame as to why I am so loquacious, talky, long-winded, and always tend to default to the "thirty-minute answer" (as Arlen Specter puts it.) (I also had an Uncle Herman, but he was a man of few words, so blame cannot be laid at his size-14 feet.)
I'm sure you are ready for me to try another LJ cut, but when I click on those, it takes me out of the Friends page, so I don't tend to click on them . . . and I wanted everyone to see that it's not just this one writer I'm picking on. I saw that these other two books did not have the same flaws, and wanted to point out how I think it should be done. That's all.
For now.
