Reading Elimination Tournament Round 1: Does Anyone Want Free Books?

No one so far has wanted any of the books that have been eliminated.  Did I scare you off? Just wondering.

I’ve really been falling behind on these posts for the Reading Elimination Tournament, and I just need to get Round 1 finished so we can move on to analyze the survivors and keep reading. So here is the latest round of reviews.

The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman (1995)

I’ve heard about this series for quite some time and been meaning to read them, and The Golden Compass does not disappoint you. Within the first five pages we're introduced to Lyra and her daemon who looks like a moth. We also have them sneaking into a forbidden room, almost getting caught, and witnessing a possible poisoning. The otherworldly feel of this book is amplified by little details such as the daemons. I like how this book starts out in the middle of the action and with a significant event within the first five pages. It sets up some elements of the fancy world and beckons you to read more about it. On to round two.

The Grid – Philip Kerr (1995)

The Grid has an interesting premise, a high-tech office tower that is completely run by computers, yet it turns bad and starts to kill people trapped inside. What's not to like about that? However, I have to make a decision based on the first five pages, and these pages seem to be laying out a lot of background which may or may not be necessary to get the book underway. The description is okay but we still have no idea who the protagonist might be, nor any foreshadowing of what is about to happen within the story and barely any dialogue at all. Although this book slides into one of my areas of interest: technology gone stark raving mad, I'm going to have to eliminate this one based on the content of the first five pages.

The Difference Engine – William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (1991)

This book is acknowledged as one of the pillars of the steampunk genre. Within the first five pages we are introduced to Sybil, a woman who appears to be a prostitute in an alternate Victorian England. In this reality computers have existed for a while and are used to research information about anyone. Although I don't typically enjoy the Victorian era setting in stories, the map in the front of the book showing the world of this 1855 (which looks a lot different than the actual world of 1855) is interesting. I'm sure this book needs a little more time to get started, and I'm intrigued to give it a chance. Round two for this one.

The Hollow Man – Dan Simmons (1992)

Dan Simmons is one of my favorite authors.  In the first five pages we meet Bremen and his wife dying of cancer.  They are both telepathic.  He tries to fill her last night on earth with good memories via that link. She dies around page 5.  This is a great way to hook a reader in. Needless to say, this one is one of the 32 to go to the next round.

Books Eliminated So Far (and available if you want them):

• 21 – Jeremy Iversen (2005) 
• Farm Fatale – Wendy Holden (2001)
• Freezing -- Penelope Evans (1997)
• Stronghold: Dragonstar Book 1 – Melanie Rawn (1990)
• Man of the House  – Stephen McCauley (1996)
• Strawberry Tattoo -- Lauren Henderson (1999)
• Lying Awake -- Mark Salzman  (2000)
• The Feast of Love -- Charles Baxter (2000)
• Love Invents Us -- Amy Bloom (1997)
• Night Duty – Melitta Breznik (1999)
• The Grid -- Phillip Kerr (1995) 

Bonus Books! (because I've finished reading them)

• Lord of Chaos (Wheel of Time Book 6) – Robert Jordan (1995)
• Crown of Swords (Wheel of Time Book 7) – Robert Jordan (1997)

15-Minute Writer Site Review - Dumb Little Man: Tips for Life

Dumb Little Man: Tips for Life is another good source of “brain hacks” which consist of detailed, well-written articles from a talented group of writers, who really understand what makes us tick, and how we can stop sabotaging ourselves.

Although this blog is focused on being more efficient and eliminating roadblocks to productivity, many articles address issues of interest to writers, such as these recent posts:

• 7 Simple Steps to Becoming Well-Read
• 7 Powerful Tips for Becoming a Better Listener
• How Resistance Kills Our Flow

This site posts several new articles every week, and also has over 2000 articles of additional content for you.  It also allows you to follow it via Facebook, email, RSS feed, or Twitter. As a result, this site is a must-add to any 15-Minute Writer’s blog roll. I've added it to mine.

Dumb Little Man: Tips for Life gets ***** out of 5 stars.

15-Minute Writer Rating Scale: * - SPAM is more enjoyable and entertaining; ** - Content not fit for a link farm; *** - An OK site, probably won't be back here often; **** -  Good resource, bookmark and visit often; ***** - An essential resource to consult daily.

The Reading Elimination Tournament: Round 1 – Show Me, Don’t Tell Me

I critique a lot of manuscripts. And one of the most common issues I encounter is fiction that tells a story instead of showing me what is happening and leading me to draw my own conclusion. Telling is pedantic and boring. Showing is dynamic and responsible for many of those" oh wow" moments we encounter in fiction.

Case in point: Stephen King is a master of showing. In The Dead Zone he doesn't tell us that Greg Stillson is an evil man, he shows us by having him sell cheap, overpriced Bibles to rural residents which fall apart days after the purchase, and most of all, by kicking a farm dog to death for no reason other than it annoyed him. He doesn't come right out and say this man is evil, he shows us.

It is easy for the reader to draw the right conclusion from the scene he presents. So whenever you have a choice, try to present the scene to the reader and not tell him what conclusions to draw from it. Let your words paint the picture and create the sensations of being there.

The Sportswriter – Richard Ford (1986)

This book makes you feel like you have sat down with an interesting person who is telling you his life story. This is an engaging first-person point of view, which suggests several of the conflicts to come within the story; giving up a literary career to be a sportswriter, unresolved grief from the death of the child, and possibly conflict with an ex-wife. There is no dialogue per se yet, but the description and the telling of the tale urges me to read on. On to the next round.

Seven Types of Ambiguity – Elliot Perlman (2003)

I like the concept described on the back cover the book.  It is divided into seven sections with each having a completely different narrator, which changes the point of view dramatically. The book is covered with rave reviews on the back cover, front cover and inside pages. I also like the first person narrator voice for the first five pages because it is so  conversational. The thing I like about this section is that the narrator describes the character, Simon, by how the narrator thinks he is seen by Simon. It's still unclear to me whether the narrator is male or female. I am very intrigued by this unusual point of view and the lyrical description of these characters. The seven section structure, mentioned on the back cover, also intrigues me. This one goes to the next round.

The Dead Zone – Stephen King (1980)

This book spawned a movie and a successful USA series starring Michael Anthony Hall, so what else does it need?  It is amazing that I haven't read this book yet since it features some of my favorite subjects, Armageddon, predicting the future, and impossible choices.  The other thing that makes this great is within the first five pages Stephen King shows that he's a master of showing not telling. He doesn't specifically tell us what Johnny's cryptic warning means when he awakens from the bump on the head which gave him predictive powers. He shows us. He doesn't tell us that Greg Stillson is an evil man, he shows us, and in such an intriguing way that compels you to keep reading.  This one goes the next round.

Night Duty – Melitta Breznik (1999)

There are a couple things right off the bat that I do not like about this book. The first  of which is the lack of any dialogue. Flipping through the first 20 or 25 pages of the book, I do not see any dialogue whatsoever, and long, dense paragraphs of text. The first pages provide detail for an autopsy and has a somewhat artificial beginning with "the story begins a long time before my birth, in the German city during the war…”

I don't like pages of long description with no hook, no apparent character or conflict. This one never had a chance. It is eliminated.

Books Eliminated So Far (and available if you want them):

• 21 – Jeremy Iversen (2005) 
• Farm Fatale – Wendy Holden (2001)
• Freezing -- Penelope Evans (1997)
• Stronghold: Dragonstar Book 1 – Melanie Rawn (1990)
• Man of the House  – Stephen McCauley (1996)
• Strawberry Tattoo -- Lauren Henderson (1999)
• Lying Awake -- Mark Salzman  (2000)
• The Feast of Love -- Charles Baxter (2000)
• Love Invents Us -- Amy Bloom (1997)
• Night Duty – Melitta Breznik (1999)

Bonus Books! (because I've finished reading them)

• Lord of Chaos (Wheel of Time Book 6) – Robert Jordan (1995)
• Crown of Swords (Wheel of Time Book 7) – Robert Jordan (1997)

Letter to Your 16 Year-Old Self

This sounds like an interesting book and an interesting writing exercise. Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self, edited by Joseph Galliano (Atria, $20, on-sale Oct. 25) with J.K. Rowling writing the forward to it.

I always have remembered my teenaged years as mostly miserable.  A feeling of straining to reach for grown-up responsibilities combined with fear of them while mourning for a childhood that was too quickly eroding away.

Courtesy of Arty Smokes via Flickr

Having reconnected with many of the kids I grew up with on Facebook, I now realize that these feelings were pretty universal, even for those who I saw as “having it all together,” with normal families, great academic performance, with hot girlfriends and boyfriends and respect as athletes.

I fit into none of these groups and hung out with friends who played Dungeons & Dragons, watched sci-fi TV, explored the forests in our neighborhoods, read comic books and listened to pop and classic rock music and endlessly discussed and argued about the nuances of them all.

At 16, I felt at my core that I was hopelessly geeky and stupid.  I was embarrassed that I was a terrible driver who took over 18 months to get my license when most boys tested and received it on their 16th birthdays.

I liked a lot of girls and even dated a few, but didn’t really know how to talk to them. I was so afraid of saying something stupid or revealing the true geek I was, that conversations with them often contained long, awkward silences. Academically, I struggled mightily at math and science while in English, which I considered by best subject, I was convinced that being placed in the Advanced Placement program was a mistake.

I would have loved to play football or baseball, as a passionate fan of these games, but I was awkward and uncoordinated with no natural ability, and as I discovered as an adult, very poor depth perception that made it almost impossible to judge the speed and distance of an approaching fastball, or where I had to stand to catch a punt. I grew quickly and was skinny despite all of my efforts to bulk up by drinking milkshakes packed with raw eggs and eating tremendous amounts of food at every meal.  Occasionally, I worked out with the encouragement of my friends, even though I was mortified by how weak I was and extremely self-conscious of it. I hated it, so it never lasted.

I knew so little about the world and was afraid of so much of it. I felt like the world had a giant blueprint of how you were supposed to act and what you were supposed to know that everyone else had been given, but I somehow I missed that day at school and fell left behind.  Above all I just wanted people to like me, and was mystified when a few people did not.

I think the teenage years, which are worshiped in our culture as being wonderful and carefree, are a mass of hard choices, unfair rules, and unwritten codes.  It is a world where adults are skeptical of, or actively dislike you.  It is a confusing time where we are introduced to sex, drugs, death, violence and alcohol.  Even if you weren’t involved with any of these, you are exposed to it.  And all the while you are completely unprepared to deal with it, and the knowledge that our parents weren’t perfect or had all of the answers we needed (or didn't want to hear us ask the questions if they did).  For most of us, these were some of the worst years of our lives, filled with regret and bad decisions.

There are lots of things I’d like to go back and tell my 16 year-old self, but I think I can boil it all down to this:

“Relax and don’t be so hard on yourself. You don’t have to be perfect all of the time. It doesn't matter what other people think of you, just what you believe in your heart. Don't let anyone make you feel stupid, ugly or unloved.  You are a great person with a great future ahead of you. Believe it and hold on just a little longer.”

What would you tell your 16 year-old self?