I just read the most sappy, saccharine, and derivative book I think I have ever picked up. No author or title mentioned, but here are my pet peeves about this one and many others I have read:
Plot is important, but let’s not get carried away. A twist here and there is necessary, but changing identities, having relatives show up out of nowhere, and having every last character have a deep secret is exhausting.
I have to say this, also: there is only one Anne of Green Gables. So featuring a child character whose eyes shine with joy, who has a large vocabulary, and whose imagination is generated at the drop of a pine cone is just too much. It has been done already, and nobody else writing a book has ever come close to L. M. Montgomery’s Anne. So when I read about a child who names the trees in her yard, I want to get out a Sharpie and start redacting.
Oh, my gosh. Teeth. They are either gnashing, chattering, clenched, or gritted.
And what about eyes? Do they have to be kind, troubled, anguished, or filled with tears? And by the way, I have never noticed whether or not somebody’s eyes seem troubled. And as far as I can tell, there are blue eyes, brown eyes, hazel eyes, and gray ones. Eyes the color of sea water are blue. Caramel eyes are brown, for heaven’s sake. Light brown, then. But who on earth would answer “Caramel,” when asked what color their son/daughter/wife/husband/mother’s eyes are?
In this particular book, the heroine got an inkling that she was falling in love when warmth “crept into her limbs.” This could describe getting the measles (we will talk about vaccination rates some other time), needing to open some windows, or simply wearing a wool cardigan. She also, when the object of her desires left town, felt as if her heart had “stopped beating.” Really. And when he came back, she knew he was coming toward her in the yard because there was “a whisper of grass.”
Food. Too much of it is buttery, creamy, glistening, steaming, tart, herby, or rich. And this is a real peeve: characters never seem to be able to eat the food. Instead, they nibble, munch, crunch, crumble, or taste. And they never seem to finish, because somebody rings the doorbell, has a fainting spell, is poisoned, sees a lover coming down the lane, or has a shocking thought. My God, if the book describes a buttery anything, I really want them to eat it and tell us how it was.
The biggest advice they give authors is to “show, don’t tell.” This means that if a character opens a door, he can’t just “open” it. He has to put his hand upon the tarnished brass doorknob and feel the indentations made by generations who opened that same door before he did. It is important to “show”, but I think some authors take this way too far, and show you to death.
I have written a few novels, and I am certain that I have never overdone the “showing,” because I find “showing” so difficult. For instance, I would so rather write that “the man walked out the door,” rather than struggling to describe the man’s hair, whether or not he was limping, what sort of material the door was made of, was it a heavy door or a regular door, did it open easily or did it need to be oiled, and did the man hesitate before leaving.
Ok, I’ll give it a go:
Gerald, his hands trembling from emotion, approached the heavy steel door. Without hesitation, Gerald reached for the knob. It felt cold to the touch. Gerald struggled, for the knob was greasy from the pizza his brother Ronny ate before he left the warehouse. Ronny was stupid; he never used napkins. Gerald lurched into the parking lot, his thick, ginger hair falling into his emerald eyes. Gerald laughed to himself. Ronny was such a waste. Just last week, Ronny kicked his brother in the nuts, and Gerald fell down, spraining his ankle. Gerald still had a noticeable limp. But today he got his revenge; he punched Ronny so hard his nose began to bleed, dripping on to the filthy red and brown checked flannel shirt that Ronny always wore. Today was a good day. Gerald gimped over to his 2021 Ford Fiesta, silver with black leather interior. Gerald wrenched open the door, stepped in to the hot car, banged his forehead on the top of the open door, and slumped behind the steering wheel. He honked the horn at his disgusting brother as he wheeled out of the lot to head home.
I hate both Gerald and Ronny. Instead:
Gerald punched Ronny in the nose and left.
The end.
