“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
I’ve been on somewhat of a reading frenzy these past few weeks. I’m not sure why—work has been busy, the school year has started back up, and life has generally been filling all my waking hours, which have extended into my formerly sleeping ones, so it’s not due to having any extra time on my hands.
With all the reading I’ve been doing, though, I’ve been thinking more about what makes someone's writing good. What I have discovered is that while it’s easy to know if a book is good, figuring out why…is not.
Now, I’m not talking about whether I like a book or not. There are different reasons for enjoying a story. For example, you may find the plot entertaining, relate to the characters, or find themes that resonate in your own life. But even if you don’t particularly care for the hero’s womanizing ways, or you don’t like that Aunt Matilda turns out to be the murderer, you may still have to admit the book was well-written. Which leads us back to the question—why?
In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart described his threshold test for obscenity as the following: “I know it when I see it.” (Yes, this is the kind of stuff you learn in law school.) Although not very robust in terms of providing a set of criteria for evaluating anything, really, I can understand the sentiment. It’s the same with a well-written book—you read it, and you just know. Still, as a person who likes lists, I thought I would write out some of the elements I think make a book well-written:The plot is easy to follow. I’m not saying the plot can’t be complicated, but if it is, then the author has to be sure to describe things in a way that doesn’t leave the reader wondering what just happened.The motivation for the characters’ behavior makes sense. I’m thinking of the book The Lord of Lost Causes by Kate Pearce here, because the hero in the beginning is deplorable (he basically blackmails the heroine into being his mistress). BUT, the story is so well-done, and by the end the reader understands why the hero acted in such a terrible way, and his conversion is believable and beautiful as a result. That takes some skill to pull off.The story is shown, not told. This has been the advice of English teachers since the dawn of time—“show, don’t tell.” I only really understood what this meant after having my own “telling” pointed out to me in a critique of one of the earlier drafts of my first book, Soothsayer. As simple as the rule seems, it is broken all the time (even by published authors). The reader can’t be told that the hero is a loner or the heroine is a rule-follower. We have to learn about the characters by observing their actions and interactions with other characters. In essence, we have to figure it out for ourselves. And when the author takes a shortcut and just tells us what we need to know about the characters, it is not as satisfying. We just have to follow our English teachers’ advice on this one.Every scene has a purpose. Some stories require more words to tell than others, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is having unnecessary words, unnecessary scenes, unnecessary characters. Words might seem free in the age of computers, but they are not. A message can be lost if too many words are used. One of the most difficult things a writer can do is delete a sentence or a paragraph or a chapter. But the alternative—words that have no purpose in furthering the story—is much worse.In the end, I think Nathaniel Hawthorne (whose books include every high schooler’s favorite story about adultery, The Scarlet Letter) is absolutely correct—“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Watching anyone do something really well always leaves us with that feeling. They make it look so easy. That’s the beauty in doing a thing well. And it is well worth the effort.
- Kathryn Amurra