I have a problem with my books and writing style, one I'm increasingly aware of: As much as I do m best to start with entertainment, there is very little tension early on. The sense of threat and plot can take as long as halfway through the book to appear. I work on it, but I never seem to solve the problem.
And now I've figured out why. My characters are proactive. Think about it. That's rare. In most books, things happen to the main character and they struggle to get out. Monsters invade, a woman in a red dress shows up and hires them to investigate her own murder, some hairy guy breaks down the door and announces they're a wizard - the main character or the hairy guy, either way - and so on.
I like main characters with strong personalities, and aspirational characters. They go looking for trouble. They act. That means there has to be build up time, especially if I'm going to get a relatable teenager into exotic trouble like super powers or angry AIs.
For now, I think I'm stuck with this problem, but I'm trying to learn to compensate and introduce some early tension to keep things running until the real trouble begins. I'm happy with how I pulled that off with Vanity Rose, at least.
Personally, I like your proactive characters, the stories wouldn't be half as good without that aspect of them.
ReplyDeleteI have to chime in here and absolutely agree with NatCh.
DeleteSpeaking as a reader (that is, I've read & enjoyed such stories), the most successful solution is to tell your story the way you want to, then move the beginning, to some more audience-grabbing action spot. "Here I am, in the middle of this hot mess full of fascinating snippets which I herein describe without explaining! How did I get here? It all started innocently enough..." Waaaaaitaminute, that IS how your Penny stories begin, it's what hooked me instantly in the first place!. Uhmm, my understanding of your complaint falls short? [embarassment] Sorry, sorry, what am I missing?
ReplyDeleteThe solution may be to simply cut the first few chapters and start with the main character allready in the thick of things then go back and show how they got themselves into this mess.
ReplyDeleteStart in the middle does not work, alas! It's a standard tool, but it runs face-first into my weird and complex worldbuilding. Making what's going on understandable is already a challenge, and something I am dinged on by editors and alpha readers frequently, so I have to go back and bulk things out with more prep work.
ReplyDeleteOne way to do it to create a small confrontation at the beginning of the story, like the character getting mugged or bullied and having them deal with it. It doesn't really move the plot along but it allows the reader to get a good look at the character in a bad situation and how they deal with it.
ReplyDeleteOn an unrelated note, I got an e-mail from Amazon about You Can Be a Cyborg When You're Older (excited to read it as I enjoyed your Penny series). I'm Canadian and the price was $6.57 Canadian which looks odd. If you are self-publishing, on KDP there is an option under pricing to set pricing for different countries, I'd suggest going and making $6.99 CDN. If it is this way for Canada it is probably the same for the UK, Germany, and other countries outside the US, go in and round the price up to x.99.
Personally I dont think lack of tension to start with is necessarily a weakness. Your books are interesting and attention grabbing enough that the lack of tension doesnt bore and establishing a baseline of good times and low stakes fun makes the characters mean more. A stronger character bond means the impact is more visceral when things do hit the fan. If anything I would say the wind up is PART of the worldbuilding. If anything that's one of my favorite parts about your books.
ReplyDeleteProbably late for me to chime in but one way might be to have the smaller up front problems to deal with but letting the audience catch on that the X and Y happening in the background is a problem but just set up so that the main character doesn't catch on immediately or comes to the wrong conclusions.
ReplyDeleteSee the long running thread with Penny's power and how Goodnight missed that she led The Bad Doctor to Bluejay
Or have the problem already be in the background from the start and affecting things but the main character only finding out about it or realizing that they know of a way to try and fix it later.