Dave
09-12-2011, 01:27 PM
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. The characters came across as a modern Holmes and Watson, and the writing was methodical but fellt a little by the numbers. The plotting was exciting, but blatantly ridiculous. I struggled to get through it at first, it just didn't connect, but when the story pieces fell into place then the last third was quite gripping (but still preposterous).
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.
One other I picked up, but have only now got to, was Neil Gaimen's American Gods. The contrast couldn't be more obvious. I immediately found the character interesting, immediately wanted to read the next page, immediately wanted to know what was going to happen to our hero. And then kick in the gut twists started happening before 25 pages had gone by. I'm hooked.
So, long story short, clearly the writing of Gaimen connects with me in a way Preston and Child doesn't. That is not to take anything away from Preston and Child, they've clearly created characters people love (I've heard Penderghast mentioned on this board several times over), and their story telling is exciting enough to spawn plenty of books.
Do some writers have a way with words that can't be taught, that connect with the audience? And other writers create a world of wonder and it is the creation/plotting, not the words, that some people connect to?
How do you connect?