What got me thinking of pacing, both in my own work and in the books I read, was a book I started reading yesterday.

The story premise is good. The setting is interesting. And the characters, from what I know of them so far, are likable, in other words, they are people I can cheer for.

But the pacing is … off.

Not terrible, mind you. Not even bad, just … off.

Now, to be fair, I’ve only read the first two chapters and sometimes it takes a while for the writer to find her footing, especially in a story where the setting and time period are somewhat removed. But where was the editor?

These first few chapters, of any story, not just this one, are critical to grabbing the reader by the … ahem, throat and not letting her go. I’m not saying you have to drop a dead body through the ceiling at the close of every chapter, but you as the writer do have to give your reader a reason to keep turning those virtual pages. And nowhere is that as important as in the first chapters of your story.

A couple of big no-no’s:

DON’T frontload your story with backstory and info that’s not critical at that moment.

DON’T info dump. Give the reader only as much info as she needs not to be confused.

DON’T flashback. *

* A note here. Flashbacks, if used judiciously, can enhance the narrative and provide glimpses into a character’s past. So they’re not to be avoided at any cost. Rather use them like a strongly flavored spice. A little goes a long way.

DO know where to start the story. Timing really is everything in fiction, at least as far as effective pacing is concerned.

DO show more than tell.

In the book I refer to above, there was one particular scene, told as part of the narrative, that I remember thinking “Wow, I wish the writer had *shown* me that scene instead of just *telling* me that it happened.” Something as simple as choosing which scenes to show and which to narrate can make all the difference. In this case, if the writer had shown this particular scene she could have avoided the need for pages and pages of narrative and flashback. Showing the scene would have given me, the reader, much of the information about the protagonist and his world and done it in a more effective way than citing a littany of events from his past.

If I had critiqued this book I would have encouraged the author to be ruthless in cutting much of those first two chapters and rather choosing a scene or two that would have demonstrated, through action rather than words, who this protagonist is and where he comes from and how that shaped him.

Clearly, the author has good instincts for what makes an interesting and dramatic story. And, to be fair, this is her first novel and sometimes it takes a while to find your voice. But she needs to work on her pacing or she won’t keep her readers, not even if her story is interesting because it will be too easy for them to put down her book.

I hope she finds her way because she has a lot of potential and I’d like to see more from her.

I finished the book last night. Yeah, the book I said was a wall-banger. The book that made me mad enough that I wanted to slap the hero. The book I said just yesterday that I would not finish.

No way. Uh-uh. Not me. Not going to do it.

Well …

So I said I was weak. Lol!

And just in case you were wondering, like I was, there is a HEA. Hero B did indeed take Hero A back after much angst and suffering on both their parts as well as some smokin’ hot, angry, this-doesn’t-mean-anything fucking. That part was awesome btw.

Though I’m not sure I totally bought into the HEA for this couple.

Oh sure, after all that suffering they deserved to be happy. And I had to applaud Hero B’s capacity to forgive even if it took like a dozen chapters of the aforementioned angsting to get him there.

I’m just not sure it’ll last. Good thing these guys are a fictional couple who don’t have to last beyond the last virtual page, though as a reader I like to be able to imagine the couple going on together after the current story is finished. I want to imagine them growing old together and being just as hot for each other as they were that first time they did the horizontal mambo.

I can’t see that for these guys.

It’s the betrayal thing, you know?

Hero A did indeed get fucked by his best friend and old fuck buddy and Hero B did indeed find him in the act and do the subsequent freaking out over the betrayal. And as a result his trust in Hero A was severely dinged.

Thus the reason it took twelve plus chapters for them to reunite.

But in the back of my mind, as a reader and as a woman who has had serious relationships, I really don’t know if, once that trust has been violated, whether I could get past it.

Probably just a me thing because I know many, many couples survive that kind of betrayal every day and some even grow stronger as a result. I just don’t know if I could which inevitably colors my reaction to the HEA ending of this book.

I won’t tell you the title of the book. But here’s a brief description of the set-up.

Hero A, the one about to make the worst mistake of his life, is involved in a hot and heavy affair with sexy yet insecure Hero B who has only just realized that he is in love.

After their most recent and most intense sexual encounter — the one that brought Hero B his revelation — Hero A called Hero B to say how much he missed him and other sentimental stuff. But Hero B didn’t answer so he had to leave a message.

Five days or some such length of time goes by and Hero B never calls back or acknowledges in any way Hero A’s feelings.

Except Hero B never got the message.

Which doesn’t stop Hero A from jumping to the conclusion that B wants him only for sex not for a real relationship.

So while A is feeling like crap (because of course he too is in love by now) who shows up but A’s supposedly straight best friend and used-to-be-fuck buddy. The BF who used to be an FB is also feeling pretty crappy and down-trodden and, in the midst of weeping on A’s shoulder, asks if A wants to fuck him just to make him feel … wanted. *huge eye roll*

And guess what Hero A is going to do?

Guess further who just got the lovey-dovey message Hero A left on his phone nearly a week before? And who, even as A is about to fuck someone else, is on his way over for a grand reunion? And who, instead of said reunion, is going to get a big ‘ol nasty surprise when he finds his lover balls deep in another guy’s ass?

Arg!

I just want to slap Hero A.

But since I can’t slap a fictional character or even kill him off since this isn’t my book, I just won’t finish the story. And I probably won’t buy/read any more of this author’s work either.

Not because Hero A is about to cheat on Hero B. But because the author didn’t give me a solid motivation for Hero A to lose faith in Hero B. I got only a big misunderstanding and an unreturned phone call. And that’s not enough.

Damn. I was liking this book too.

http://www.fictionwithfriction.com/2008/02/24/snowday-reading-or-what-i-learned-this-week/

Nikolai by Angelia Sparrow is such a book.

Here’s the blurb.

“James Ligatos is a man with an unusual hobby. He turns promising young criminals into world leaders. His latest project is Nicholas Boyd, formerly Nikolai of the Revenant street gang. But the little killer-turned-file-clerk is much more than Ligatos and his staff bargained for. As Kentucky attempts to secede from the Confederated States of America and rejoin the United States, Nick’s skills and the group’s training are put to the ultimate test, and the price of failure is death.”

I did something with this book that I rarely do, I bought it because of a review. Well, more than one review actually. All the reviews for Nikolai I’ve read have one thing in common. They all say that you cannot remain unmoved by this story. And I whole-heartedly agree.

Sparrow’s depiction of a futuristic America where church attendance is mandatory, homosexuality and adultery are punishable by death and women can be imprisoned for commonplace actions like wearing makeup is frighteningly plausible especially given our current socio-political climate.

The main characters, Nick and his owner/benefactor James Ligatos, are expertly drawn and compelling. So much so that I had to put the book down several times if only to gain a respite from the wrenchingly real emotions that bleed onto nearly every page.

The story is raw, brutally violent in places and, as I said above, terrifyingly plausible. It is *not* an easy read, but one well worth engaging in nevertheless.

Even after I closed the book I could not stop thinking about this story. It literally haunted me as I lay in bed. Nick’s experiences in prison, though kept mostly off-screen, were so disturbing that I had to stop reading several times, if only for a moment. All the same, there is no way I could put down this book. Not since Tulsa Brown’s Achilles Other Heel has a book so effected me.

If you buy only one book this month, make it Nikolai. You won’t be sorry. But be warned, this story is *not* for the faint of heart.

The book is available from Circle Dark Publishing. Here’s the link.

http://www.circledarkpublishing.net/Nikolai.html

It’s that undefinable something that happens in a well-crafted romance, the thing that makes my heart go pitty-pat as I read, the thing that keeps me turning the ‘pages’ well past my bedtime.

That’s the best definition I can come up with and, yeah, I realize, that’s not a definition at all. Suffice to say that even though my defining skills are not up to the challenge of saying exactly what romantic chemistry is or how to create it when writing, I know it when I see it.

And I know when it’s just not there too.

Now, I would never publicly bash another writer’s work. So I’m not going to mention the titles or authors of the last two books I’ve read where the chemistry was sorely lacking. What I will do is try to figure out why and what those authors might have done to turn up the heat.

Both stories are contemporary, m/m romances with blurbs interesting enough to make me shell out around $7. Both had characters that could have been yummy in situations that could have been yummy. Both were explicit in the detailed descriptions of intimate scenes.

But even given all that, there was zero spark. I couldn’t have cared less if these couples ever got it on or found their HEA. And that’s just wrong.

In the first case, a romantic suspense, there were a ton of plot devices that I just didn’t believe that continually had me going “Huh?” In other words I wasn’t able to suspend my disbelief long enough to get caught up in this couple’s attempt at finding love.

In the second, a strict contemp, I just didn’t believe the pov character’s attraction for the other hero. Yeah, the author kept going on about how gorgeous and classy and all-around nice the guy was, but she didn’t make me feel that thrill low in my belly that comes with true attraction. And again, I couldn’t have cared less when/if they ever got it on.

I didn’t finish either book though there may still be hope for the second. Although if I can so easily put a book down even after the first kiss …

So, yeah, chemistry. How do you know if your story has it? And if it doesn’t, is it possible to fix such a basic flaw?

Any thoughts? From writers? Or from readers? 

But that isn’t really what this post is about. It’s about stepping outside my comfort zone and trying not only a brand new (to me anyway) author, but a brand new genre as well.

Now, admittedly, I read a lot of romance, in fact romance is my favorite genre hands down, and the more explicit the better.

But I also enjoy reading horror, suspense, mainstream and literary fiction.

What I hardly ever pick up when brousing for my next reading experience is science fiction or fantasy. Sure, the occasional Margaret Atwood or Lois McMaster Bujold makes its way into the rotation, but almost never the hard core sf that has garnered such a loyal following among so many of my bookish friends.

But all that is about to change. *trumpet flourish*

After reading a column called Beautiful Losers over at Picador, I am about to venture into the realms of the sf/f enthusiast.

I just bought from Fictionwise a book called Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Here’s the blurb.

Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Then one night he stumbles across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her–and the life he knows vanishes like smoke. Several hours later, the girl is gone too. And by the following morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world. His bank cards no longer work, taxi drivers won’t stop for him, his hundred rents his apartment out to strangers. He has become invisible, and inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere. For this is the home of Door, the mysterious girl whom Richard rescued in the London Above. A personage of great power and nobility in this murky, candlelit realm, she is on a mission to discover the cause of her family’s slaughter, and in doing so preserve this strange underworld kingdom from the malevolence that means to destroy it. And with nowhere else to turn, Richard Mayhew must now join the Lady Door’s entourage in their determined–and possibly fatal–quest. For the dread journey ever-downward–through bizarre anachronisms and dangerous incongruities, and into dusty corners of stalled time–is Richard’s final hope, his last road back to a “real” world that is growing disturbingly less real by the minute.

Doesn’t that sound delicious?