Craft Chat Thoughts on this novel opening?

[Claire G]

 

[mickleinapickle]

Knee-knockingly??? Blimey... too painful for passion after that.

 

[James Charles]

Oh, I've seen this. Wow. The Huddle would rip this a part.

 

[Sedayne]

Swedish masseurs are always better with a snifter of cognac
Intensely miserable indeed

 

[RK Wallis]

and it got published!

 

[Sedayne]

and it got published!

There's a huge market for this kind of nonsense. Maybe the rest of us are going about it the wrong way.

 

[JohnBertel]

A cliche situation, described in fresh way with humour and surprising metaphors and ending with the question "why is he miserable"

Damn good writing.

 

[Serra K]

I love that this came out of someone's brain

 

[wrightstuff]

A cliche situation, described in fresh way with humour and surprising metaphors and ending with the question "why is he miserable"

Damn good writing.

View attachment 19087

To me, it reads like he was aiming for a cross between James Ellroy and Douglas Adams, and missed both.

 

[Ed Simnett]

he's really in love with that bikini- it features early on in another of his books (and exists, if anyone is interested, in Second Life for the low low price of 27 linden dollars Class B Felony: Boomerang Bikini (Transfer)).

 

[MattScho]

This isn't for me.
From the Myron and bikini term, I assumed it was a Coben work, and I can enjoy his books.
His openings are kind of great, at least those I know. This is self-indulgent and flabby. By 60 words, in Coben, you'e usually four grafs in, and in the middle of a mystery.
So I'm guessing this is someone wanting to sound like Coben?

 

[Ed Simnett]

This isn't for me.
From the Myron and bikini term, I assumed it was a Coben work, and I can enjoy his books.
His openings are kind of great, at least those I know. This is self-indulgent and flabby. By 60 words, in Coben, you'e usually four grafs in, and in the middle of a mystery.
So I'm guessing this is someone wanting to sound like Coben?

This is book 6 in that series.

 

[MattScho]

This is book 6 in that series.

Ah, so he's successful enough to ignore his editors

 

[Bloo]

View attachment 19087

 

[Jonny]

Wow! It's as if Wilde is reincarnated and walks among us mere mortals once more.

Stellar prose.

 

[E G Logan]

Is it period?
The immediate opening, and the setting, is pure Ian Fleming (James Bond) or the best of Leslie Charteris (The Saint), early 1960s. Until the twist: 'he was intensely miserable', that is a hint of Douglas Adams (1979/80).

 

[Mel L]

View attachment 19090

Purple prose?

 

[Mel L]

Overwritten, smacks of heavy genre writing, non merci.

 

[Bloo]

Purple prose?

Yup...shades of purple.

I prefer blue.

 

[Claire G]

Harlan Coben, The Final Detail (1999)

 

[LJ Beck]

Overwritten, smacks of heavy genre writing, non merci.

Please explain, Mel. What's "heavy genre writing" and why is it okay to overwrite in it? Just curious.

 

[Bloo]

The opening paragraph is a Class-B felony.

 

[Mel L]

Please explain, Mel. What's "heavy genre writing" and why is it okay to overwrite in it? Just curious.

Maybe you misread my comment (or I wrote it too quickly).
I dislike overwriting in general and tend to prefer more of a pared-down style of prose. But I don't associate it with genre writing. Perhaps I should have said 'bad genre writing', meaning formulaic and trite. I don't know what book this is but it sounds like the kind of detective series that would not be for me. And I've never made it through a Harlan Coben.

 

[JohnBertel]

I dislike overwriting in general

I think he preferred to run the risk of overwriting because the MCs situation needs to come across as over the top positive so when the readers are told the MC feels miserable they can't help but ask why? If he failed to paint a positive picture we would just have a miserable man on a beach - and so what?

 

[Mel L]

I think he preferred to run the risk of overwriting because the MCs situation needs to come across as over the top positive so when the readers are told the MC feels miserable they can't help but ask why? If he failed to paint a positive picture we would just have a miserable man on a beach - and so what?

Right, and clearly it works to set up that contrast. Certainly all that description did not stop Coben's fans from reading (now I see that Claire has identified the work). Just not for me!

 

[Katie-Ellen]

It is comic-book colourful, straightaway pulling the rug from under the feet. It's not my cup of tea, and it is formulaic. But it could be said, so is all fiction, essentially, unless the writer deliberately sets out to subvert the conventions (yawn) and break the rules that supposedly nobody knows.

It has authorial authority. It has voice, verve and humour.

 

[Ed Simnett]

He's been doing this since 1990, and has won the Edgar Award, Shamus Award, and Anthony Award. Link to a (2024) review of his BBC Maestro course linked to below. Some excerpts:

...I recognized a lot of the advice I’ve heard before from other writers and writing coaches, but I was also reminded of a quote from Vincent van Gogh, the famous Dutch painter who is also among the most influential artists in Western art, who suggested to other artists, “First you must learn the fundamental rules of your craft, then you must apply your creative energy to making your own rules.” Coben endorses that philosophy and rejects a lot of the conventional wisdom on writing before explaining his creative approach to breaking the rules.

... Ignore the advice to focus on the all-important opening lines. The opening gets the reader to start turning pages, but the real challenge is to keep them turning pages until the end. And more importantly, write a satisfying ending that will get them to look for your next book.... Don’t start at the beginning, begin from the middle – work out from the primary story back to the beginning and then on to the end.

...Readers will fall in love with the characters, never with the plot. They’ll forgive flaws in both if the story is intriguing and the writing is good. Raise questions with every scene. Answer the early questions early, but then raise more questions and add more shocking plot twists.

#gentleobservation I wonder if the world has changed in a relevant way in the past 30 years. The whole idea of flawed/injured sports heroes doing something else with their lives (English version of this trope: Dick Francis), is perhaps less "relatable" today? Increasingly the role models and ideals are to be found coding, trading derivatives, and schilling bitcoin (or worse) in Forbes and Techcrunch, and those people don't blow their knees out/have their careers ended early in a way that makes them both appealing in a coulda/woulda sort of way and also sort of the platonic ideal of "what I would I wanted to do with my life if life hadn't happened." I think the modern equivalent (e.g. retired at 30 hedge fund manager solving mysteries) exists, but is it as universal or relatable? From an American review of Dick Francis. "He writes believable fairy tales for adults—ones in which the actors are better than we are but are believable enough to make us wonder if indeed we could not one day manage to emulate them."

[Coben took 9 books and 10 years before writing a book which did not feature a sports star. Separately, if you value your sanity don't even try to sample his first effort, which he himself more or less disowns]

What I learned from Harlan Coben - Mystery and Suspense Magazine

Break the rules!

www.mysteryandsuspense.com

 

[Mel L]

Don’t start at the beginning, begin from the middle – work out from the primary story back to the beginning and then on to the end.

This is interesting advice, thank you!