Too Much of a Good Thing

An enthusiastic reviewer led me to Divergent, Veronica Roth’s young adult novel of a girl coming of age in a tightly controlled society.  I loved the premise—at age 16, youth must choose their future culture or caste (overtones here of declaring a major, finding one's niche or lifestyle).  In Divergent, the cultures are called factions, and they resemble personal orientations we recognize:  Abnegation, Erudite, Candor, Amity, and Dauntless.  Beatrice is born into Abnegation, but her tests show aptitude for three factions instead of one.  She’s “divergent,” a dangerous quality she must not reveal.  At her choosing ceremony, she leaves her family and joins “Dauntless,” the reckless faction.  You can see where this is going.

I was bothered throughout by the fact that the faction names aren’t all noun forms.  But I can live with that.  More serious, about halfway the story changes its focus from the girl’s progress in her new society to her tentative romantic explorations.  For me, this emphasis was TOO MUCH.

Like the best science fiction, Divergent offers a view of contemporary society, and until it turns into a teen-age romance, the novel comes close to the effectiveness of The Hunger Games.  No doubt the repeated scenes of touching and feeling work for thousands of genre readers (maybe hundreds of thousands), but I think it causes the novel to lose appeal for a crossover audience.  A little bit would have been fine.

The second example of TOO MUCH in this story is the fighting.  Once the story shifts from training to actual conflict, the fight sequences seem repetitive and boring--blow by blow, like directions for the movie actors.  I started skimming.  Yeah, I skimmed the entire last half, so I allow that my judgment may be unfair. 

My point is emphasis and balance.  I doubt that any writer knows when enough is enough--we need astute editors and critics.  Critiquers have said to me, “You can cut this.  We get it.”  I’ve given the same critique when I think a sequence goes on too long, when I’m bored by silliness or banter or exposition or gratuitous anything. 

I suspect Divergent is a good seller.  I think it missed an opportunity to be a better novel.

Write Better: Get Another View

Another view.  We must have other eyes on our manuscripts no matter how painful the corrections and comments.  It's too easy to write alone, get lost in our own words, not see ambiguity, sentence weaknesses, lack of clarity.  We have to seek constructive criticism.  Without it, we can't possibly get better.

I hope someone reading this post is a high school or college student who's angry or disillusioned by a harsh review of a beloved composition.  Maybe even a middle-aged new writer who has submitted a story to a publisher or a writing group like CritiqueCircle.com and been disappointed by a lack of enthusiastic response.  It's always a shock to discover our words did not reach a reader as we intended.

Get help.  Like other people devoted to their craft, writers all over the world willingly help each other. CritiqueCircle.com is a terrific (and free) mutual-help community.  Members can also learn by seeing mistakes and problems in the writing of others.

Don't accept every critique as golden.  There are as many different reading tastes as food preferences and varieties of dogs.  Take a look at the writing style and reading habits of the person critiquing you (found on the site in CC member profiles).  See what that person said about stories you also critiqued.  Critiques on a story often vary widely--many readers sense something wrong but don't know what it is or how to fix it.  Realize that the best they've told you may be that something doesn't quite work. Occasionally someone does not know how to give opinions in a kind or helpful manner, but I think those instances on Critique Circle are rare. Members on the site gain experience in critiquing.  In most cases writers can find the reactions they need (though not always what they want), often by knowledgeable people.  

Before you show your manuscript to someone else, give yourself a different perspective.   Look at it in a different format. Widen the margins so the page looks like the page of a book. Don't rely on the grammar and spelling checker--PRINT a proof copy. Mistakes jump out--typos, unnecessary repetitions, poor transitions, and so on. To save paper, look at the document in your word processor's two-page view. This view allows you to see across paragraphs and pages and spot all kinds of weaknesses. (After I edit in normal screen view, I go to the two-page view and spend time tweaking.  I love the two-page view.)

Finally, if you're going to show the manuscript to anyone--a friend or someone online--never say "I haven't had time to edit this but I just wanted to get your opinion."  I hope you see the problem in that.