Inept Professional Author # 1: Ted Dekker
Introduction: I've decided to shift from mocking bad fanfiction to mocking bad novels. Novelists deserve more criticism anyway. They should know better.
Title: Blink
Genre: Christian/Thriller
Plot: Miriam, a Saudi princess, flies to America to escape an arranged marriage. There she meets Seth, a clairvoyant college kid who helps her stay one step ahead of both the Saudi and US governments.
Problems:
The biggest problem with Blink is that it drags even as it tries to excite. There is never a real sense of peril, nor is there any doubt that the hero and heroine will make it to the last page. It is telling that the most intriguing parts of this "thriller" are the debates about God, prayer and the future. One would think that the Seth's clairvoyance would be enough to carry a novel. In the hands of a more sophisticated author it probably would be, but that's not the case here.
The writing style is not terrible, but it's not great, or even good. Description is Spartan. Dekker gives barely enough information for readers to vaguely imagine the setting. He is probably wary of boring his audience with purple prose. On the contrary, a unique detail here and there would make the story more vivid. For example, Dekker assumes the readers are already familiar with Berkley, so he doesn't describe it. But if someone showed me a photo of Berkley I wouldn't know it from UCLA. Dekker needs to tell me what distinguishes Berkley from other colleges, among many other things.
The author can't even decide if the hero's eyes are green or blue:
His eyes shifted past her, lost in bright blue astonishment. (p. 163)
Under his tossed blond curls, behind his clear green eyes, Seth's mind was encountering the future. (p. 163[!])
"Your eyes are like the..." She waited for him to finish.
"Blue waters of the Al-Hasq Oasis," he said. (p. 171)
What the heck?
My next complaint is that Seth is supposed to have an IQ of 193, yet he seems to have a normal vocabulary. Granted, he does make some profound statements, but shouldn't he use bigger words? Seth's smartest-sounding words are "Langrangian" and "renormalization," and he says them only in the classroom.
Finally, Dekker introduces minor characters at the beginning and then forgets about them for the rest of the story. There's the jealous professor, the Christian professor, the nerdy student and the shallow cheerleader (pardon the redundancy). Their only purpose is to establish Seth's character as readers see him interact with different types of people. But there are better, smarter ways to develop a character.
Title: Blink
Genre: Christian/Thriller
Plot: Miriam, a Saudi princess, flies to America to escape an arranged marriage. There she meets Seth, a clairvoyant college kid who helps her stay one step ahead of both the Saudi and US governments.
Problems:
The biggest problem with Blink is that it drags even as it tries to excite. There is never a real sense of peril, nor is there any doubt that the hero and heroine will make it to the last page. It is telling that the most intriguing parts of this "thriller" are the debates about God, prayer and the future. One would think that the Seth's clairvoyance would be enough to carry a novel. In the hands of a more sophisticated author it probably would be, but that's not the case here.
The writing style is not terrible, but it's not great, or even good. Description is Spartan. Dekker gives barely enough information for readers to vaguely imagine the setting. He is probably wary of boring his audience with purple prose. On the contrary, a unique detail here and there would make the story more vivid. For example, Dekker assumes the readers are already familiar with Berkley, so he doesn't describe it. But if someone showed me a photo of Berkley I wouldn't know it from UCLA. Dekker needs to tell me what distinguishes Berkley from other colleges, among many other things.
The author can't even decide if the hero's eyes are green or blue:
His eyes shifted past her, lost in bright blue astonishment. (p. 163)
Under his tossed blond curls, behind his clear green eyes, Seth's mind was encountering the future. (p. 163[!])
"Your eyes are like the..." She waited for him to finish.
"Blue waters of the Al-Hasq Oasis," he said. (p. 171)
What the heck?
My next complaint is that Seth is supposed to have an IQ of 193, yet he seems to have a normal vocabulary. Granted, he does make some profound statements, but shouldn't he use bigger words? Seth's smartest-sounding words are "Langrangian" and "renormalization," and he says them only in the classroom.
Finally, Dekker introduces minor characters at the beginning and then forgets about them for the rest of the story. There's the jealous professor, the Christian professor, the nerdy student and the shallow cheerleader (pardon the redundancy). Their only purpose is to establish Seth's character as readers see him interact with different types of people. But there are better, smarter ways to develop a character.