What makes us, as readers, care about the characters in a book? What is it about one book over another? I
recently took a chance on a couple of new authors (to me) and was pretty disappointed. The books were like eating a slice of Wonder White Bread, with nothing on it; not even butter. Bland, tasteless and of little interest.
Sophie was listless, I’m sorry to say with long run-on sentences. Beachcomber Motel was not interesting for a different and ‘deadly’ reason; the characters were not well drawn. They could have been more interesting; instead all three had been ‘done wrong’ by life. And quite frankly, I didn’t care about them. The love story of Jules didn’t develop until the last few pages and was more like: ‘Oh! I forgot to finish up Jules and Nick’s story.’ But, I misspoke, it wasn’t finished up but left the reader dangling mid-relationship with those two. Probably in the author’s hope that readers would be enticed to read a sequel. Both of these are going to be a series, which I cannot recommend.
1 out of 5 stars
This is beginning to sound more like a book review but hang in there….I will get to my point about writing.
So I gave up on those two and cracked another new one; The Stationmaster’s Daughter. I was instantly engaged and worried about Tilly and her dad, Ken, Ted and Annie. Of course, the setting didn’t hurt; a discarded railway station out in the wilds of Dorset. (UK) Through no fault of her own, Tilly’s been kicked pretty hard by life. We find that out (artfully written) pretty soon after page one but with no feeling of being rushed. Then there are flashbacks to 1935 when the trains were running in rural counties.
So no surprise, the difference is simple. It’s all about the writing. That something that a writer has in their storytelling that weaves a charming, enticing, well-drawn and interesting tale. This one’s about trains; I don’t care about trains except if they are on time and relatively clean. But the writer based the back story on trains in their heyday; the steam locomotion. And it was just enough that a reader like me didn’t grow weary with the history of trains. It was well balanced with beautifully drawn characters. And the dialogue was excellent; I could hear their voices.
It’s all in the writing. Full stop!
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BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK
Very perceptive piece. The good writers make the characters real and make us care what happens to them.
Thanks, Carol, for your comments.