whee~

Books
11:43 PM February 27, 2007

Hmm... it's just my luck that the book i randomly chose to squeeze into my rare free time is a rather sucky one. :( It's also too bad that I have a problem with leaving books unfinished and thus, i find myself subjected to the task of seeing this lousy book through. X(

Don't worry though, none of you have probably heard of the book, so the chances that this entry is dissing a Favorite of any of the blog readers out there is pretty slim. (Especially sig, from whom I just borrowed a couple of books from, since I started this before I borrowed the said books, which I'm sure i'll like. ^_^)

Anyway, why I dislike the book and possible points you should avoid when writing your own book?

1) Really, avoid overly worshipping your lead character, who (though attempting to seem the opposite, i.e. humble and down-to-earth) obviously also worships himself. -_- Eck. The author obviously loves the character too much that the dialogue contains ill concealed praises to the said character, thus turning the dialogue into mush. Take this example:
Random Char: Do you always turn things into jokes?
Worshipped Character: Only when i've just escaped from trouble blahblah...
Random Char: you know (*now this is where it gets dumb*) I noticed that you don't really joke. (then why'd you ask? duh.)
Worshipped Char: Hmm? (obviously asking the other to elaborate..)
Random Char: Most of the time you speak simply... (the ill-concealed praises)... it's interesting.
Worshipped Char feels his face go warm. *gag*

See what I mean? And these lines immediately follow one another, so there are no lines of dialogue in between that trace such illogical trails of thought.

2) Develop your characters. Don't keep working on JUST ONE character, going on and on about how wonderful, humble, skilled, etc. he is, when you have a group of other important characters leading the story. How successful would J.R.R. Tolkien be if he developed only Frodo and left the rest of the Fellowship a big blur in the background to such an overblown character? It's just wrong.

3) Characters, especially the lead character, should not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, fall for anybody only because this person looks nice. -_- Gawd. Especially if it seems obvious that the person is a weakling and bad-natured, etc. -_-

4) Be consistent. A perfect example comes to mind, but not from this book. Remember Robert Langdon? He, obviously feeling all high and mighty, made some sarcastic comments in his mind about how everyone in Paris seemed to have some animal nickname (i.e. the general/sergeant person was nicknamed "the BullDog", etc.) without realizing (quite stupidly) that HE HIMSELF had an animal nickname. "The Dolphin". -_-

I'm tired. I'm sure you're all pretty well-versed on the do's and don'ts of such things anyway. It's just that I've had a lot of frustrations all stored up inside recently, and storing them is one of the most tiring things in the world for me. :P So forgive my sharp criticism. I need an outlet. ^^; (You know what, my teacher claims that there are theories that such pent-up feelings can actually help cause cancer. 0_o Imagine that?)

come fly ~ gen