The Moment When A Connection Is Formed
What is one of the most rewarding aspects of writing? For me, it's that moment when I know I've connected with a reader, when that person understands a character's exact emotional state as I intended it.
That's why I was thrilled by the review of Nefarious, the first book in my series, from the "Good, Bad, Bizarre" review blog: not because it said NEFARIOUS was perfect, but because it clearly resonated with the reviewer. And really, as an author, what more you ask for?
Here are a few of the excerpts from the review:
Beautiful simplicity
There’s a reason this point is number one, because it really is great. Let’s start this review off on the highest note.
Looking back, the best thing about this novel is its simplicity. We really do mean that in the best of ways; this author has obviously worked very hard on honing his writing style, and we could definitely appreciate it. The writing flows wonderfully and it is possible to read whole paragraphs without having to pause to digest, simply because it connects with the reader so readily. It was a pleasure to read with so little effort.
What makes a lot of this writing so easily comprehensible is its simplicity. This is not a writer who struggles to make sure that the reader knows every single detail; nor is this a writer that denies the reader the necessary details to fuel our imaginations. Rather, the book works to simplify things to only the most important elements, giving the reader only what we need, and allowing our own imaginations to make up the rest. It was nice to be trusted by the author in this way.
In consequence, we found ourselves over a quarter of the way through in far less time than we expected. This ability for the reader to connect with the characters and to experience their emotions and actions was so seamless that we found ourselves pausing just to marvel over it. Seriously, it was like drinking water on a hot day; goes down easy and settles in nice, leaving us feeling refreshed.
2) Great sense of the “little moments”
There is action in this story–the beginning contains a bomb, for example–but one aspect that we really enjoyed was the little “slice of life” moments woven throughout. These often contained wonderful nuggets of understated emotional truths. For example, when at a bar in the after hours, a recently crippled character: “asked his new acquaintances about their assignments, their lives. It was the easiest way to avoid discussing his own.”
Wow, who here hasn’t done that whenever he doesn’t want to talk about his own problems? Reading it on the page was very enlightening. In a discreet way it told us everything we needed to know about this character’s emotional state, without pulling out a long list of complicated adjectives and metaphors to explain how he feels. The simplicity in this statement allows the reader to put himself in the character’s shoes and remember a time when he probably did something similar, so we really sympathize with him.
There was a lot of space to breathe in this story, and little moments like these are what allow that space. It was a really good sense of pacing, allowing us to connect with the characters in-between the action scenes. As a result, we gave a damn about them whenever they were in danger.
3) Occasional wry humor and wit
This is not an overly funny story, but it does take occasional pains to lighten the reader’s mood with a joke. We liked these, too. There could have been a few more of them, but overall we thought it was a good balance between serious and the occasional silly moment.
4) Good description
We’ve mentioned the simplicity in the writing, so it’s also worth mentioning the occasional quick descriptions that readers can chew on. Perhaps an example will do; here is the description of one side character, Kamaal: “His eyes seemed a size too large for his head, giving him an appearance of perpetual surprise.”
Tell us that you did not just picture that man’s face in your mind. We dare you.
As a special bonus, these descriptions are always quick. They never linger past their welcome, and indeed they might have even been a little longer without annoying us.
5) Attention-grabbing opening scene
It opens with Our Hero’s enemies breaking down his door. Yikes! We were right there with him, wanting him to get moving and escape safely.
Then it immediately skips back into a flashback in Afghanistan. “Oh no,” we thought, “this is awful, how can the writer tease us with that opening scene and then jump to a flashback?” Then the bomb went off, and suddenly we were back into the story. Good thing, too, because that “flashback,” as we originally thought it was, really took up half the book. By the time the book reached the point of the opening scene again (i.e., the “present”), we had a much better understanding of what was happening, and a little smile appeared on our face.
6) Likeable characters
There are a couple dozen characters in here, and the author does a fine job of fleshing them out. Of course, the most 3D character is his hero, Alton Blackwell, with whom we spend most of the time and from whose head we get the most thoughts. Alton was a genuinely likeable guy. He’s like Superman without the superpowers; seriously, the guy was altruistic to the core. We’ve all met people like him, and it’s hard not to root for him whenever he faces adversity. He’s also competent, which is a must for a character in a mystery novel, and which further gives us another reason to like him. His philosophy of “regret avoidance” was great, because giving that to his character added an even further level of depth and helped explain his actions throughout the story. He wasn’t perfect, but was likeable all the more for that.
Ditto for the other characters; we didn’t spend as much time with them, simply because Alton was obviously the story’s focus, but we could also easily like them, too. Even the villains were the sort that one enjoys hating, and when you don’t despise them, you still understand them. All in all, great characterization.
7) Tackles disabilities
This directly follows the previous point, but it was special enough that we thought we should bring it up again, just for emphasis. There aren’t that many stories out there that feature disabled or somewhat mobile-impaired characters, and of those few that do, they often bring in disabilities only for the purpose of lecturing the reader about this or that issue. Of course, this sort of thing often backfires, because nobody willingly reads to be lectured at (and those readers who claim that they like that sort of thing? Well, they’re lying). But this story is different. Does it feature a disabled/mobile impaired character? Yes. Does it harp on the issue? No. Does it ignore the issue? No. Does it show a character’s mindset, as he overcomes his limitations to grow as a person? Yes.
While Alton isn’t in a wheelchair (i.e., he doesn’t possess a more serious condition), his physical impairment does put a definite dampener on his career plans, which of course makes it a Very Bad Thing. But it was really nice to see a story that handled a subject like this without allowing it to break the story’s back: yes, Alton is mobile impaired, yes, this seriously affects his life, but no, we’re not forced to endure any trite preaching on this matter, and yes, we do like seeing him deal with his problem in a human way without letting it overly define him and who he is. While reading it, we were definitely reminded of what real military personnel go through every day. We really appreciated this, so we’re giving it a specific shout out.
8) Band of Brothers meets Sherlock Holmes
Seriously. This was both a war novel and a mystery novel. Rather than have a police detective solving crimes in New York, it’s a crippled soldier solving potential attacks by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan–in the beginning, anyway. Which was an awesome combination of genres. We actually weren’t expecting it and were pleasantly surprised.
9) Awesome ending
Sorry. Can’t tell you much, because Spoilers. But we can say that it has a cool ending. It hit all the right notes and left us satisfied.
10) Cute romance
Okay, we know that we said romance isn’t our thing, and it’s not. But this isn’t a romance novel. It’s a war/mystery novel that just so happens to have a potential romance stewing in it. And we enjoyed it. We rooted for the characters to get together. At one point in the ending scene, we were yelling “Nooooo!” But we won’t tell you completely how it ends, because that’s too much spoilers.
That's why I was thrilled by the review of Nefarious, the first book in my series, from the "Good, Bad, Bizarre" review blog: not because it said NEFARIOUS was perfect, but because it clearly resonated with the reviewer. And really, as an author, what more you ask for?
Here are a few of the excerpts from the review:
Beautiful simplicity
There’s a reason this point is number one, because it really is great. Let’s start this review off on the highest note.
Looking back, the best thing about this novel is its simplicity. We really do mean that in the best of ways; this author has obviously worked very hard on honing his writing style, and we could definitely appreciate it. The writing flows wonderfully and it is possible to read whole paragraphs without having to pause to digest, simply because it connects with the reader so readily. It was a pleasure to read with so little effort.
What makes a lot of this writing so easily comprehensible is its simplicity. This is not a writer who struggles to make sure that the reader knows every single detail; nor is this a writer that denies the reader the necessary details to fuel our imaginations. Rather, the book works to simplify things to only the most important elements, giving the reader only what we need, and allowing our own imaginations to make up the rest. It was nice to be trusted by the author in this way.
In consequence, we found ourselves over a quarter of the way through in far less time than we expected. This ability for the reader to connect with the characters and to experience their emotions and actions was so seamless that we found ourselves pausing just to marvel over it. Seriously, it was like drinking water on a hot day; goes down easy and settles in nice, leaving us feeling refreshed.
2) Great sense of the “little moments”
There is action in this story–the beginning contains a bomb, for example–but one aspect that we really enjoyed was the little “slice of life” moments woven throughout. These often contained wonderful nuggets of understated emotional truths. For example, when at a bar in the after hours, a recently crippled character: “asked his new acquaintances about their assignments, their lives. It was the easiest way to avoid discussing his own.”
Wow, who here hasn’t done that whenever he doesn’t want to talk about his own problems? Reading it on the page was very enlightening. In a discreet way it told us everything we needed to know about this character’s emotional state, without pulling out a long list of complicated adjectives and metaphors to explain how he feels. The simplicity in this statement allows the reader to put himself in the character’s shoes and remember a time when he probably did something similar, so we really sympathize with him.
There was a lot of space to breathe in this story, and little moments like these are what allow that space. It was a really good sense of pacing, allowing us to connect with the characters in-between the action scenes. As a result, we gave a damn about them whenever they were in danger.
3) Occasional wry humor and wit
This is not an overly funny story, but it does take occasional pains to lighten the reader’s mood with a joke. We liked these, too. There could have been a few more of them, but overall we thought it was a good balance between serious and the occasional silly moment.
4) Good description
We’ve mentioned the simplicity in the writing, so it’s also worth mentioning the occasional quick descriptions that readers can chew on. Perhaps an example will do; here is the description of one side character, Kamaal: “His eyes seemed a size too large for his head, giving him an appearance of perpetual surprise.”
Tell us that you did not just picture that man’s face in your mind. We dare you.
As a special bonus, these descriptions are always quick. They never linger past their welcome, and indeed they might have even been a little longer without annoying us.
5) Attention-grabbing opening scene
It opens with Our Hero’s enemies breaking down his door. Yikes! We were right there with him, wanting him to get moving and escape safely.
Then it immediately skips back into a flashback in Afghanistan. “Oh no,” we thought, “this is awful, how can the writer tease us with that opening scene and then jump to a flashback?” Then the bomb went off, and suddenly we were back into the story. Good thing, too, because that “flashback,” as we originally thought it was, really took up half the book. By the time the book reached the point of the opening scene again (i.e., the “present”), we had a much better understanding of what was happening, and a little smile appeared on our face.
6) Likeable characters
There are a couple dozen characters in here, and the author does a fine job of fleshing them out. Of course, the most 3D character is his hero, Alton Blackwell, with whom we spend most of the time and from whose head we get the most thoughts. Alton was a genuinely likeable guy. He’s like Superman without the superpowers; seriously, the guy was altruistic to the core. We’ve all met people like him, and it’s hard not to root for him whenever he faces adversity. He’s also competent, which is a must for a character in a mystery novel, and which further gives us another reason to like him. His philosophy of “regret avoidance” was great, because giving that to his character added an even further level of depth and helped explain his actions throughout the story. He wasn’t perfect, but was likeable all the more for that.
Ditto for the other characters; we didn’t spend as much time with them, simply because Alton was obviously the story’s focus, but we could also easily like them, too. Even the villains were the sort that one enjoys hating, and when you don’t despise them, you still understand them. All in all, great characterization.
7) Tackles disabilities
This directly follows the previous point, but it was special enough that we thought we should bring it up again, just for emphasis. There aren’t that many stories out there that feature disabled or somewhat mobile-impaired characters, and of those few that do, they often bring in disabilities only for the purpose of lecturing the reader about this or that issue. Of course, this sort of thing often backfires, because nobody willingly reads to be lectured at (and those readers who claim that they like that sort of thing? Well, they’re lying). But this story is different. Does it feature a disabled/mobile impaired character? Yes. Does it harp on the issue? No. Does it ignore the issue? No. Does it show a character’s mindset, as he overcomes his limitations to grow as a person? Yes.
While Alton isn’t in a wheelchair (i.e., he doesn’t possess a more serious condition), his physical impairment does put a definite dampener on his career plans, which of course makes it a Very Bad Thing. But it was really nice to see a story that handled a subject like this without allowing it to break the story’s back: yes, Alton is mobile impaired, yes, this seriously affects his life, but no, we’re not forced to endure any trite preaching on this matter, and yes, we do like seeing him deal with his problem in a human way without letting it overly define him and who he is. While reading it, we were definitely reminded of what real military personnel go through every day. We really appreciated this, so we’re giving it a specific shout out.
8) Band of Brothers meets Sherlock Holmes
Seriously. This was both a war novel and a mystery novel. Rather than have a police detective solving crimes in New York, it’s a crippled soldier solving potential attacks by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan–in the beginning, anyway. Which was an awesome combination of genres. We actually weren’t expecting it and were pleasantly surprised.
9) Awesome ending
Sorry. Can’t tell you much, because Spoilers. But we can say that it has a cool ending. It hit all the right notes and left us satisfied.
10) Cute romance
Okay, we know that we said romance isn’t our thing, and it’s not. But this isn’t a romance novel. It’s a war/mystery novel that just so happens to have a potential romance stewing in it. And we enjoyed it. We rooted for the characters to get together. At one point in the ending scene, we were yelling “Nooooo!” But we won’t tell you completely how it ends, because that’s too much spoilers.
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