Virgin BloggerPosted on 2:38am Friday 1st Oct 2010 OK, bear with me here. I've decided that I'm going to dive into the blogging pool. So why another? One, I've met and made so many online friends who share their advice on writing, so I figure, what's one more - you can never have too much of a good thing, right? Two, I'm an avid reader, the pile TBR next to my bed is always in danger of toppling over Jenga style. My favourite genre is Romance, historical, contemporary, time-travel, paranormal, I love them all, although I do enjoy a good thriller too. One of the things writers are constantly told is read, read and read more. With every book I read I learn something useful about the craft of writing. So I thought I'd share and review books from a would-be writer's perspective. So that's the boring bit out of the way, now down to business. I've made a start on the third mighty tome of the Millenium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornest Nest.  The whole series is an epic story, especially when you realise that this book picks up straight from the end of number two. Sadly when you're full of cold and your brain is turning to mush, its just too exhausting to keep up with all those Swedish names and soooo many characters (how did he do it?), so I'll come back to that one later. In the meantime I read Lucy in the Sky by Paige Toon. 
On a writing course last year a best selling author re-iterated the adage that there are only some many plots and so many ideas but its how you tell 'em that makes all the difference. So it was fascinating to see, a perfect demonstration of this in I Love Lucy. The plot is very simple, girl falls in love with new boy while unsure about current boy and has to chose. Heard it all before? Aha but maybe not. What makes this a great read, is how the author keeps the reader guessing all the way through. She hooks us in at the start with two slightly imperfect male characters, so the reader just has to keep reading to find out just who the heroine is going to end up with. What made this book for me was the skillful character arcs that developed as the story unfolded. As one character grew, the other's flaws were gradually revealed. Even though the heroine was smitten with both men, it took me quite some time to finally decided which of the two men was going to triumph in her affections (and I had to resist the temptation to flick to the back of the book to find out who it was going to be). The resolution of the book however is the sweeter when as a reader you finally realised which of the men is the real hero because you've had to work for it. So although perhaps the basic plot isn't the most original what makes it an original read was the characterisation and the masterly display of character development. I |
Archive |
