DNF Discussion

Today my post at Crime Fiction Collective is about those books we Do Not Finish. I'd like to know why you put a book down or if you're like my husband and insist that once you make a commitment by reading the first page, you read through to the last. Stop by and join the conversation.

It's all better with friends.

Tiny Transgressions?

What makes you give up on a book? Or do you?

Somehow, I needed to be over 50 before I realized life was short. I can now pass on a book I've begun reading if it doesn't grab me. Before, I'd slog through the entire thing, probably turning into a major grump to everyone around me. Now, life is better when I can agree to allow myself a DNF when necessary. (Did Not Finish.)

Beyond writing and plot, there isn't a lot that will make me close the covers of a book. If the facts presented cause me to stretch my believability a bit, I can usually remind myself that this is fiction. As long as the story and characters are believable and intriguing, I can let a little tampering with facts slide.

But many readers can't. Or at least, think they shouldn't.

Recently, I read a very well written debut novel I agreed to review for Armchair Interviews. Dream House was a challenge to pigeon-hole to a genre—definitely not suspense, or mystery, or even crime (though a crime was committed). It was a book much more general in scope. I recommended it personally to a friend of mine who I know appreciates more general, even literary, fiction.

Was she expecting suspense since that's my usual fare? Maybe. To be truthful, I was too. So maybe, when in the very beginning, she had trouble with the way the crime scene is handled by the police and cleanup crew (believe me, this has very little to do with the story) she stopped reading. Period. And I think she missed out on a book she would have otherwise loved.

Whose loss was it?

Research is important. As a writer, I want to do my best to make sure a little thing like a bungled not-that-important scene to the story doesn't stop a reader cold. I even wrote about it here. But as a reader, who is looking for a compelling story, I can forgive the occasional flub.

Probably.

"I'm always looking for the author who can lift me out of myself."

~HENRY MILLER

CR: In For the Kill by John Lutz.

It's all better with friends.

DNF, anyone?

Have you ever finished reading a book to um . . . finish reading the book?

I recently read my first book by an author who I had high hopes for. After all, he's mentioned in a very positive way in Donald Maass's, Writing the Breakout Novel. I expected to be wowed. 

I wasn't.

There are some interesting characters, I'll give it that. And I've read enough from fabulous authors to know you can't hit a home run for every reader every time you're up at bat. 

But still.

The middle-ish part of his book made me think I must've missed something. Or I'm not a clever enough person to follow a plot that's not entirely straight forward. Or maybe . . . just maybe . . . he flipped and fudged and kerfloogled things around to make his plot stretch out a bit.

Could that happen?

I have, in the last year or so, developed the skill of closing the pages of a book that simply wasn't doing the job for me. I'm proud that at the ripe age of 54, I now have about . . . um . . . 5 books that I've elected to take a pass on after reading a few pages. Those are my DNFs. "Did Not Finish" books that have passed all of the publishing hurdles are undoubtedly loved by someone--just not me.

I finished reading the book in question--if nothing else, I'd invested a little bit of time and wanted to see the resolution. That part wasn't bad. 

Will I read this author again? I will look at checking something out of the library some time. After all, he was in Maass's book and who am I to diss a successful novelist? I will, truly, give him another chance.

CR: Still reading Dream House. It's interesting and I'm wondering if it's going to go somewhere. I'm trusting that it will.

It's all better with friends.