Dave Wrote:I recently went on vacation and bought a few books to take with me and read at the airport/beach/pool as required.

I picked up three from Preston and Child, Penderghast novels. Wheel of Darkness was an odd book...

...Dance of Death was next, Penderghast again, and I found the plotting more intriguing, and more realistic, but still with a heightened sense of weird, which as most of us as fans of Paul should relate to. But again, I found myself putting it down and not being bothered about picking it up again. The writing was methodical, nothing wrong with it, but a bit by the numbers. I haven't finished it, and haven't started the third.

I think the problem is that you started with some of the weaker books in the series without a proper hook to the recurring character. I'm a big fan of the series in general and don't really like those. My favorites are three of the early ones (Cabinet of Curiosities, Brimstone, Stilllife with Crows). The plotting, pace and characterization in those were excellent, and I didn't find those books to be methodical at all, at least with the plotting.

Quote:How do you connect?

I connect when the author makes me care about characters through action, and then doesn't leave you disappointed with a lame plot twist or lackluster ending. I think I'm more plot-driven than character driven, but of course it depends on the book. I've found over the years that writing style now directly influences my enjoyment of a story, where it didn't used to when I was younger. Trying to go back to relive some of my favorite grade school fantasy novels is now impossible, sadly, due to the horrendous writing techniques used.

Monquito Wrote:This is the thing about King that drives me nuts. When he's on form, there is noone better. Salem's Lot is still an utter masterpiece. Concise, with an extraordinary atmosphere of dread. Firestarter still creeps me out. I finally read Carrie which is marvellous.

Then he writes things where 80% of the novel is endless, tedious backstory about what characters A, B & C used to do in school, countless insipid blatherings about baseball, the entire life story of the postman who delivers a package and is never seen in the novel again. I think Cujo had maybe 20 pages of story. I couldn't even finish bloody Dreamcatcher because I had enough of 250 goddamned pages of prologue.

Agreed. His book On Writing talks about the need to 'kill your darlings' (cut out extraneous wordage), as other authors have as well, and he has a lot of books in which he seriously needs to do that.