  You really need to read this book. | So I stayed up all Friday night/Saturday morning reading—and it wasn’t even a terrific book. Kind of a crummy book, in many respects: HMS Ulysses, by Alistair Maclean. According to Wikipedia, it was his first novel, and it reads that way, like the work of an inexperienced writer, with lots of grating POV-switching, clumsy subplots, and leaded dialog. But! I read it. In one sitting—because it was a successful page turner. HMS Ulysses is the story of some guys on a British warship during WWII escorting a convoy through the Arctic to Murmansk, and they have to deal with weather, submarines, cruisers, aircraft, mutinies—the old Ulysses was a tough place to be. Enough stuff happened that, despite the clumsy writing, I was compelled to read on and find out what was going to happen next. (Spoiler: just about everyone dies). A “colleague” once contemptuously said to me, “Your writing has a lot of action in it,” like that was something to be ashamed of. And, as offensive as he was as an alleged human, he was correct—I do have things happen in my books (though no sea battles or mutinies—yet). Action for me is a way to demonstrate the emotions of the characters without weighing everything down with boring “feeling-writing.” Literary writers can learn a lot from the writers of thrillers—Megan Abbot, for example, in her wonderful superb terrific Dare Me is a writer who demonstrates high literary qualities while also having things happen--things like tension and suspense. We all need to find a way to keep the pages turning…or keep the readers turning pages.... |
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