What Makes A Story ���Stick��� With You?

What Makes A Story ���Stick��� With You?

 

I read a lot, and I have an excellent memory.  The books I tend to remember best are the ones I enjoy.  Yet there are a lot of mediocre books out there, and in some ways, there are some books that fail in a different way from the truly awful.  The worst books haunt my memory with how terrible they are.  The truly forgettable books are utter nonentities in my mind.

 

How bland does a book have to be to fade from your mind moments after reading it?  Some books are so vapid I have to keep doubling back and rereading the last five pages because even though I read closely, I can���t recall what happened.  It���s like some authors have an amnesia curse placed upon their prose��� they���re so forgettable.

 

There are a bunch of reasons for this.  Cookie-cutter plots.  Generic characters.  One clich�� after another.  Meandering plots.  Often, a major problem is the prose style��� some writers are utterly flat, others are trying to be artistic and have merely pur��ed their words into pap.  No humor.  No suspense.  Nobody who���s likeable or hateable.  Dialogue that neither resonates nor entertains.  In any event, these books aren���t really bad, just��� zeroes.

 

It���s frustrating to finish a book and realize it had no impact on me whatsoever.  And it happens way more often than I���d like when I try a book from an author with whom I���m not previously familiar.  Has this happened to you?

 

 

 

���Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan���s first novel, Sherlock���s Secretary, was released on November 3rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind ���A Scandal in Bohemia��� is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.