In this week's Books with Hooks, our hosts discuss a children's picture book and a literary fiction query. Bianca interviews debut author, Sara Koffi, and we ask for your input in our quick poll!
I just finished reading Sara Koffi’s novel within 24 hours. I couldn’t put it down. Such a great mystery, well-paced, and an interesting study of POV. I read it as both and reader and a writer, thinking about the authorial choices we make and how they land with an audience who trusts the writer to guide them along.
I’ve been grappling a lot lately with the stories I’m reading and watching on serial tv shows that have what I’ll call ‘holes.’ These aren’t missing things so much as deliberate choices made by the storytellers to include and exclude certain details. For example, in The Three Body Problem tv series, the first episode starts off with science and physics not working properly. But smart phones and the internet, not to mention electricity, keep on working until about episode 5, where they all blip temporarily. In another science fiction novella I read an idiom that was distinctly human but narrated as if a non-human character was using it. Writers must balance the needs of the audience (to connect, invest, and suspend disbelief all at once) with the needs of the story, characters, and setting.
Why I’m grappling with it is because as I am finishing the draft of my second space opera novel, I am looking for that balance in my story. And without the right mix, I believe, the fourth wall becomes too thin or broken. It was broken for me in these two examples above. I find myself constantly thinking that every little decision has to be justifiable within the story. It has to be logical. To keep the holes from becoming too glaring and distracting. Interested in other peoples’ take on this.
Ah, the "novel query". We're endlessly told to work on this, but does it really make any difference? What self-respecting agent says, "the sample was gorgeous but the query needs tweaking, so hard pass." Come on!
I just finished reading Sara Koffi’s novel within 24 hours. I couldn’t put it down. Such a great mystery, well-paced, and an interesting study of POV. I read it as both and reader and a writer, thinking about the authorial choices we make and how they land with an audience who trusts the writer to guide them along.
I’ve been grappling a lot lately with the stories I’m reading and watching on serial tv shows that have what I’ll call ‘holes.’ These aren’t missing things so much as deliberate choices made by the storytellers to include and exclude certain details. For example, in The Three Body Problem tv series, the first episode starts off with science and physics not working properly. But smart phones and the internet, not to mention electricity, keep on working until about episode 5, where they all blip temporarily. In another science fiction novella I read an idiom that was distinctly human but narrated as if a non-human character was using it. Writers must balance the needs of the audience (to connect, invest, and suspend disbelief all at once) with the needs of the story, characters, and setting.
Why I’m grappling with it is because as I am finishing the draft of my second space opera novel, I am looking for that balance in my story. And without the right mix, I believe, the fourth wall becomes too thin or broken. It was broken for me in these two examples above. I find myself constantly thinking that every little decision has to be justifiable within the story. It has to be logical. To keep the holes from becoming too glaring and distracting. Interested in other peoples’ take on this.
Ah, the "novel query". We're endlessly told to work on this, but does it really make any difference? What self-respecting agent says, "the sample was gorgeous but the query needs tweaking, so hard pass." Come on!