Okay, fear not, I'm going to continue writing short stories (Hannah's challenged me to quite the duel and I'm looking forward to accepting the challenge) as soon as I get a chance, but at the moment, as has happened on before, I need to take a sec to rant about a book I'm currently reading and struggling with, and my blog seems like a reasonably good place for it.
Today's problem?
Authors have got to tell me why their characters do things.
I am getting so tired of being confused by characters' actions when a single paragraph could make everything crystal clear.
To properly express my frustration today, I think I need to explain what's just happened in the book, but I'll change the names and things so as to avoid giving spoilers.
Gladiola and Evinrude are best friends who live on the planet Ugh. They were both born and raised on Ugh, and are members of a society called "People Who Are Really Super Duper Nice (To Other Native Ughs)". Gladiola runs the local chapter of PWARSDN(TONU). Ugh is also inhabited by the Aches, immigrants from the planet Ouch. Gladiola looks down on the Aches and thinks they should be kept separate from the Ughs, but Evinrude has always had her doubts about both anti-Ache discrimination and PWARSDN(TONU).
As the book progresses, Evinrude and Gladiola's friendship begins to disintegrate as Evinrude befriends some Aches. A minor plot point is Gladiola's continued effort to get a small article utterly condemning the Aches as dirty undesirables based on made-up statistics published in the PWARSDN(TONU) newsletter... of which Evinrude is the editor. Evinrude continues to passive-aggressively refrain from putting the article in, without ever directly telling Gladiola that she's doing it or why she's doing it.
One day, Evinrude finds a book outlining all the anti-Ache legislation currently in effect (Ugh nurses cannot be required to treat Ache patients, Ugh schools and Ache schools shall not share textbooks, an Ache may under no circumstances marry an Ugh, etc.). Because the subject interests her, she takes the book and puts it in her purse. Later, she accidentally leaves her purse at Gladiola's house and Gladiola, being a sneaky, unpleasant sort of character, looks through it, finding the book, stealing it, and then shunning Evinrude. Later, when Evinrude confronts Gladiola about the shunning, Gladiola demands that Evirude tell her the truth about the "paraphernalia" in her purse, saying that she "just doesn't know anymore", and that the government put those laws in place, and that she can't believe Evinrude thinks she knows better than the government.
The last thing I read was another confrontation between Gladiola and Evinrude. Gladiola demands to know why her article hasn't been published in the newsletter yet. Evinrude, who's been going through a rough patch, finally loses her temper and says she'll never publish it. Gladiola threatens to throw Evinrude out of PWARSDN(TONU). Evinrude gets more upset. Eventually, the anti-Ache legislation book comes up again, and Evinrude says that Gladiola can't dictate what she reads. Gladiola retaliates by saying that she can see why Evinrude's boyfriend left her (leading to the aforementioned rough patch). Despite the fact that the breakup had nothing to do with Evinrude's feelings about Aches and everything to do with the male in question being a worthless loser, this comment makes Evinrude more upset than ever and she demands that Gladiola give her the book back. Gladiola says she will if Evinrude puts the article in the newsletter.
So Evinrude does.
Here are my questions:
1. Why did finding the anti-Ache legislation book make Gladiola think that Evinrude was an Ache sympathizer who thought she knew better than the government? Wouldn't studying anti-Ache legislation seem to suggest a dislike of Aches and a desire to know exactly what steps had been made toward keeping them in their proper place? And in what way can a straightforward listing of the laws, a simple factual booklet outlining laws that Gladiola supports, be pro-Ache paraphernalia?
How to fix it: I'm still not actually sure. This seriously makes no sense to me. But I assume it made sense to the author, so she should've been able to explain the path Gladiola's mind took to her weird conclusion.
2. Why was Evinrude upset by Gladiola threatening to kick her out of PWARSDN(TONU)? Evinrude is the narrator, and in the few scenes in which Evinrude is attending PWARSDN(TONU) meetings, she seems bored, out-of-place, and dispassionate. If she has some big reason for wanting to be in the group or some profound emotional connection to it, I should've known before this scene to make the threat meaningful.
How to fix it: "I've never much liked the PWARSDN(TONU). The meetings are too long and I feel like we never really get anything done. But the thing is... this group's a part of who I am. It has been ever since Gladiola started running it. This is practically where Gladiola and I grew up. Not being a member anymore... it'd just feel all wrong." (So that's a really rough draft, but you get the idea.)
3. Why was Evinrude upset by Gladiola's comment about her boyfriend? As I said, Evinrude knows good and well that Aches had absolutely nothing to do with the separation. In fact, nothing Evinrude did was; not her temper, not her passions, not her ideas, nothing. It was all the guy.
Admittedly, this one makes slightly more sense. The book has talked incredibly briefly about how heartbroken Evinrude is, so Gladiola rubbing salt in the wound riling Evinrude up is understandable. But... still. Evinrude is brilliant and reasonable, and I feel like she has more reason to be angry at the guy and therefore unaffected by Gladiola's comment than to be so distraught she's tottering on the edge of collectedness.
How to fix it: "I know, I know, that that dang book had nothing to do with Fyodor calling it quits. I know. But Gladiola's comment hits too close to home, right in the center of the wound that's nowhere near being healed. Suddenly I can see his face, as clearly as if he's still standing right in front of me, the anger, the hurt, the slouched shoulders, the lowered brows. 'I think we should call it off for now, Rudy.' And even though I know it's impossible, I can't stop myself from thinking, What if she's right? What if he looked at me and saw all the things I've been trying to hide, and he decided I just wasn't suitable? What if he read all my secrets on my face as easily as I read his?"
4. Why is Evinrude so flippin' desperate to get this book back, desperate enough to compromise her morals and give cruel, thoughtless, manipulative Gladiola exactly what she wants? Evinrude doesn't need the book to learn the laws. She can look them up. She can find another copy of the book. For Pete's sake, she can ask her Ache friends what the laws are. She already knows more about the way Aches live than that book could ever tell her just from being friends with some. Never once in all the time Gladiola's had the book has Evinrude thought that she wished she had it back. Even when Evinrude was taking the book and putting it in her purse, she made no explanation in her narration for wanting it. So, in short, Evinrude doesn't need the book and I have no reason to believe Evinrude wants the book, and yet I'm supposed to believe she's willing to publish an article she is horrified and repulsed by just to get the dumb thing back. Is it to show Gladiola she's not the boss of Evinrude? Because if that's the case, Evinrude has completely failed in her objective by doing exactly what Gladiola's wanted her to do since the beginning!
How to fix it: Scattered narration of Evinrude thinking about the book. Give her a good reason for wanting it and then have her think about that reason. Don't just suddenly have her want this book more than anything!
But what really bothers me most about this is that nobody else seems to have noticed. Of course, I'm sure it all made sense in the author's head, and I certainly am no stranger to the feeling of writing in a rush of inspiration and then going back and remembering things that won't make sense to anyone but me. But that's just the thing; surely she went back! Surely she reread and redrafted over and over, and in all that time she never thought, "My, that's a bit of a non sequitur!" Then her family members and friends read it, and in that process no one ever asked her, "Wait, why is so-and-so doing this?" Editors both personal and professional, publishers, reviewers, critics. Dozens of people read it and everyone "got" it.
This brings me to my subject line question: Am I not smart enough to read books? Because this is not the first time I've encountered this problem. It even exists in other places in the book I'm reading. Over and over, narrators, the people whose heads I am supposed to be inside, the people I should know inside and out, do things that utterly baffle me and fail to tell me why. The admonishment to "show, don't tell" is being taken to great extremes, because apparently meditating on your actions and explaining them to the audience is just too boring. Or maybe they're boring to everyone but me, because no one else needs them.
I'm writing a book right now, narrated in first-person present-tense, just like the book that's the subject of this post. The difference is that my narrator thinks more than she talks, from long paragraphs in which she analyzes situations and her own feelings to sarcastic asides while she's having conversations. Yes, there are some scenes where she does things and doesn't explain why... the scenes in which not even she knows why she's doing what she's doing.
Look, I found an easy fix for question 4: "Gourd, why am I so desperate to get this worthless book back from Gladiola? It's like I'm on a freight train and the brakes are out; doing this, insisting on this, is going to destroy me, but I can't stop myself."
So... am I stupid? Is my book boring? Because that's how I feel whenever I stumble across something like this. I feel like every other reader, all the people who loved and recommended whatever book I'm reading, made those logical leaps easily, understanding perfectly why characters did what they did and felt how they felt, while I sit around helplessly confused and incredibly frustrated. I feel like if I ever let them read my book, if anyone anywhere ever reads my book, they'll sit there rolling their eyes and skimming the long, introspective paragraphs, saying, "Gosh, Pearl, you are so wordy. We know why she feels this way, we know why she acts this way. You don't have to tell us. It's ruining the story."
*Sigh* Okay, I think my rant's finally over. I think I'll be able to go back to this book and read a little more before bed. But... please... if anyone else has ever had this happen, has ever been annoyed like this, could you please let me know? I'd really appreciate feeling less alone.
Bye for now.
~Pearl Clayton
