While bookshopping today...

[meredith_wood]

I ran into a paragraph that was so redundant it was ridiculous.  The writer took six sentences and each sentence was a different way to say the same thing. Grr

Comments

[boreal_owl]

There are a couple of authors whose books I won't buy again because of the head-hopping thing. (Mysteries for adults; one has been on the bestseller list.)

[meredith_wood]

Yeah, I'm not much of a fan for the head hopping. Nope. Don't like it much at all.

[christine444]

Hee hee--I was browsing in the adult fiction section last night, and picked up a book by a male author. The first chapter was this really steamy, detailed sex scene... :>O

[meredith_wood]

Yep, I ran across some of that as well. lol

[peadarog]

Head-hopping has gone out of fashion, but mostly that's because it's hard to do without confusing the reader. As fewer and fewer authors use it, fewer readers will be able to handle it comfortably.

I don't use it myself, but some great books, e.g. Dune, work it so that you never forget whose mind you're sharing.

[meredith_wood]

I think the difference in whether it's done right or not depends on whether the writer knows how to write in omniscience or is trying to by using some type of misinformed and misguided form of 3rd person deep.

[peadarog]

Yup, omniscience makes it much more doable, although, like head-hopping, you don't see it so often in genre writing these days.

[meredith_wood]

;-) I am no good at it, though I've tried it a time or two just for the sake of trying it.

[fandoria]

I rarely find writing like that anymore. Then again, I rarely read adult books anymore. It's really hard to find blah writing in the YA section, I've found. Possible, but harder. So yeah, we're spoiled and when we come across blah writing, it just seems all that much worse. At least, it does to me.

[meredith_wood]

;-) It seems YA provides a much higher quality than others.

[kathys_shadow]

Sometimes I wonder how things got published... or why they weren't edited.

I think it's best to be spoiled and used to reading great books!

[meredith_wood]

I totally agree with ya!