Personal biases do come into play – as a novelist and as a reader. For me, some of them as pet peeves are a reflection of my preferences. Consider those as graded on a scale, one to five or ten.
For example, New York City is way overrepresented in literature – especially Manhattan and Greenwich Village. And so, even though I based one novel on an out-of-towner’s encounters with the subway and then transported part of that to another, setting a book in the Big Apple definitely costs points in my esteem. Harlem, however, is a plus, along with overlooked corners of the boroughs. See Chester Hines, for starters. Something similar happens with Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Chicago, and Seattle. Show me someplace way, way out of the usual media spotlight.
Books celebrating novelists, poets, musicians, visual artists, actors, university professors, or celebrities in general also cost points. We aren’t a superhuman clan, OK? And way too often we’re deeply flawed in ways nobody examines. Still, a rare work, like Tar or Maestro, portraying Leonard Bernstein, breaks through my resistance.
Anything that feels contrived, rather than organic, also turns me off. It goes back to what I considered “Found” versus “Invented” when I was evaluating cartoonists and stand-up comics. Real-life discoveries are superior. How well is the author listening to what’s going on around him (or her)? Or observing in the details?
Escapist. This goes for most of the genres, actually. Off somewhere in space? Or back in a medieval court? Or even in romance and pornography. I read and write to better record the history evolving around and within me.
Factual misrepresentations are an instant turnoff. Getting a key date off, for example, often rips apart the rest of the timeline.
That points to cliché, especially in thinking. What happens when you invert it, so that winners become losers? Maybe a story is more about losers than winners, at least the ones that ring true to me.
Purple prose follows up on that. I hate being told what I’m supposed to be feeling. Will somebody please pop that balloon? But flat, conventionally viewed background also fails.
Inconsistent use of punctuation. Yes, God and the devil are both within the details. Hello, are you awake or fully there at the keyboard? Show me that you’ve mastered the basics.
Grammar and syntax mistakes. Inconsistent tenses drive me up a wall. Misuse of commas or more creates a mess. These are lines in the sand between professional writers and the wannabes. It’s quickly signaled by “towards” rather than the American “toward” or “that” where it should be “who.” Beyond that, “whom” seems relegated to those who want to seem British.
Gratuitous violence is another turnoff. It doesn’t connect with life as I’ve known it.
Dialogue is a special high-wire act. When it rings wooden, I’m gone. The attribution proves equally tricky. I long ago tired of “said” but “stated” is equally overdone.
Well, maybe that will do for starters. There’s so much more I need to start collecting. I know it’s out there.
Jnana's Red Barn 