What makes fiction toothless?

its meh

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Recently, in the unbridled soup that is my subconscious, a few ideas about men were floating around: those recent articles about how men aren’t reading as much fiction as women, the Netflix TV show Adolescence about the dangers of online radicalization, and the recent roasting of that guy who wants to open a publishing imprint to focus on men. I found my mind returning to Teddy Wayne’s The Loner, a book I read when it originally came out in 2016. It’s basically a book about a smart guy who gets into Harvard and when he gets there becomes obsessed with a girl he thinks he can have. It’s not that he’s an incel.. but he’s one of those guys? I think you know what I mean? At the time I thought this book was pretty good—it wasn’t on my slam dunk, “I need to proselytize about this book for the rest of my life” shelf, I had some problems with the plot, but it was well written and interesting. Back to now— I found myself thinking about how despite the fact that this wasn’t a 10 out of 10 let’s proselytize this book, it keeps popping into my head over the years while there are many, many books that I read and 100% forget about.

Also, recently I was thinking about what is wrong with Wegman’s chocolate chip cookies. Don’t get me wrong—they are good. Of grocery store bakery cookies, they are exceptional and I like the flavor profile. My problem is that they are not thick enough. Some people might like a thin, snappy cookie—for a cookie to be good for me, I need to be able to sink my teeth into it. I need it to be toothsome. (Can you understand my rage at the Great British Bake Off when they dock people on biscuit week for not having snappy cookies).

We all know that fantastic books are fantastic. Everyone sets out to be a fantastic author but most of us will write books that are not fantastic, but that are flawed with some good stuff mixed in. But the worst thing to be is both flawed and boring. Flawed and toothsome, at least you’ve given me something to think about, to remember you. I remember an author, I think it was Lauren Groff, saying she didn’t care when people absolutely hated her books because at least it elicited an opinion.

I’m going to give you ten examples of books that were entirely forgettable for me, and why I think they were forgettable, and ten books that I keep thinking about and why I keep thinking about them to help us analyze what the difference is.

books that are meh

Obviously I am not going to give you the titles. But I will give you the genre and what specific aspects made it entirely forgettable. And lest anyone think “You forget about books because you read them a while ago,” this isn’t really true for me. I have a really good memory for books.

One: Thriller. I can’t remember even what this book was about. I couldn’t tell you anything about the characters because they’re entirely generic—essentially cardboard cutouts for the plot to happen to. (ie, their personality is “someone is trying to kill me.) Premise was so generic as a thriller that it blends into other contemporaneous thrillers. Even the title isn’t distinctive. [I think part of the problem here is that the marketing department will say, the title needs to sound like everything else on the market, which is why everything sounds like everything else—the same thing happens to covers sometimes]

Two: Fantasy. I desperately wanted to like this one because on paper, it was made for me. The setup and setting are totally my jam. But I cannot remember anything about the characters. Pacing was too slow, plus there was not enough of a hook to drive me forward so it took me forever to read. Writing was competent but weirdly soulless and devoid of emotional stakes.

Three: Bookclub fiction. Premise was exciting to me but the book didn’t really tackle the premise in a way that was interesting. Like it was a solid B when I wanted an A. It’s supposed to be satirical, but had no bite. It reminded me of this time on The Simpsons where Homer is trying to sound smart and says, ”Communism works in theory.” (ie, the most basic thing anyone could say about communism because they read about it in 8th grade ala mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell.)

Four: Literary Mystery*. Well written, but a solid example of how many literary writers struggle to have compelling plots. It’s not really a good mystery if the fundamental “mystery” is that someone didn’t tell someone something or a miscommunication. (sometimes books like these are marketed as Literary Thrillers, which DOES NOT help the authors. I have yet to come across a book that should be fairly categorized as literary thriller.)

Five: Thriller. Had the same exact premise as about 5 other thrillers that came out around the same time. Nothing memorable about either the execution or the characters.

Six: Tiktok sensation. Again I liked the setup, but the characters were one-dimensional, and what happens isn’t that interesting. I cannot explain why this book went viral when there are many other books with the same exact premise, some of which were better executed.

Seven: Literary leaning dark. This had an interesting setting but the main character wasn’t interesting personality wise and never did anything interesting on top of this—they weren’t driving the action. Ultimately the plot of this book just sort of deflated.

Eight: Literary. Interesting premise that wasn’t executed well. Cannot remember anything about characters.

Nine: Thriller. Had the same premise as 3 other contemporary thrillers. Nothing about the plot was original and I can’t remember anything about the characters.

Ten. Literary. This was well-written, which was kind of heart breaking because it was about a premise that wasn’t super interesting, and the plot didn’t end up being that interesting. If someone just handed over a premise and plot that worked to this person, or they worked really hard on hammering this out before writing, they would probably create something great.

Okay so common themes of what made these books toothless for me:

A lot of people treat characters as cardboard cutouts. The elevator pitch for the novel is “What if a X happened to someone??” Isn’t that wild?? What you would do?? No matter how good the hook is, I’m not going to be interested if there aren’t interesting characters inside that premise. This is exactly what happens when an agent excitedly requests your pages—because the premise was good—but then rejects you because of character, execution, or some other issue. Some people are 100% fine with books that have flat characters- but IMHO the reason those authors are published is pure luck because someone else as equally untalented could have been picked up from the pool, plus and I’m willing to bet the people finish these books and never think about them again. Even if some readers enjoyed those books, they are not percolating in the subconscious soup of people’s minds. You can have a premise that is exactly like someone else’s if you have good characters and or writing. You could even have the same plot. You can have a literary novel that’s kind of about NOTHING if you have a really compelling character or writing. When I think about the books I love the most, they have characters that I keep thinking about after the book ends. I wonder what would happen to them next. These are the characters people write fan fic about. (I’m a multitasker, and am literally writing this while listening to Tess Gerritsen speak in an ITW zoom- she’s talking about how her books got turned into the Rizzoli and Isles show. She was saying how when the producers came to her, they did not say “I love your plot” or “I love the intricacies of your mystery”—they said, “I love your characters.” I have sold the option to NSMC twice- and those conversations were all about character—how original the characters are, how actors would love to play them, how fun they would be to put in different situations).

If you look above, it looks like I’m docking authors for having the same premises as others. I’m not—I’m docking them for doing nothing distinguishing with those premises. “A detective hunts a serial killer” is a premise that has been done many, many times: what could distinguish you is having a really interesting detective, having a really compelling serial killer, having a setting that absolutely pops, or having a premise sort of layered on top of that premise (a good example of this is Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44- this MGB (KGB) officer in the Soviet Union has to solve this serial killer case, except all his superiors are like, there is no serial killer, only the United States has serial killers. To even suggest that there would be one in our glorious state is treasonous! So this guy has to solve a murder while existing in a totalitarian state that is denying that the killer exists. AND the MC is in a really interesting marriage.) Not everyone is an “idea man” (woman)— not everyone can come up with premises that are high concept and original. That’s fine. But if you’re not an idea person, you need to be really, really good with the other stuff.

Listen, I love litfic. It’s the main thing I read. I started out as a literary writer. The problem with litfic is how many books have plots that are absolutely anemic limp dicks. I sometimes think literary fiction thinks of plot as being lowbrow or something. Or that so much time in workshop is spent on character and sentences (which lit authors do really well) and not as much on plot—or perhaps the problem is that typically people workshop short stories, which just have a dash of plot, compared to wholeass novels. I think plot is a thing that should be taught in all the classes that teach writing. The shape of a story—the load bearing beams of a house—matters as much as what content is placed inside that scaffolding (the characters, the words, the setting, etc.)

Pacing being turgid is a whole other thing I can write another post about if people want. Some people have a natural sense of pacing while others don’t. Put in short: DID SOMETHING HAPPEN IN THIS SCENE THAT MOVES THE MAIN PLOT FORWARD?

Books I keep thinking about, talking about, or recommending, and why.

Loner, Teddy Wayne. Again, this book came out in September 2016. I don’t think there are a ton of books out there that have grappled with these types of issues facing young men today—misogyny, the impact of toxic masculinity on men, men having a sense of entitlement that can be dangerous. This is not a book about a guy that got radicalized by listening to Jordan Peterson or something, but how it isn’t that inconceivable that a guy would just have these values and not be able to see how other see him. This was unique, zeitgeisty content, and good POV stuff that pulled me in.

No Exit, Taylor Adams. The setup for this book is fantastic and is a master class on how to set up stakes and do so efficiently: a girl is driving in a blizzard and is forced to pull over at a restaurant/ rest stop because it is no longer safe. She’s snowed in with a handful of other people who she meets inside. Then she goes outside to get something from her car. There are a few cars in the parking lot belonging to the people already inside the restaurant. She sees a little girl in the back of a van, locked inside, desperate to get out. What does she do? Which of the people inside own the van??

So Long, See You Tomorrow. William Maxwell. This is just a fantastic book about friendship, and I am driven towards themes of friendship when they are done well.

Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam. I love the ambiguity of this book, which apparently other people hated. I want to live in a world where people can write beautiful, disturbing, ambiguous books. (incidentally, if you saw the movie when it came out, you should rewatch it now.)

Erasure, Percival Everett. I could write an entire dissertation on my thoughts about this book. The thematic content about authors being marketable, the content about being a minority writer, the satire of the publishing world, what does it mean to make money about something you’ve created that you’re not really happy about—I could go on and on. (wrote a bit about it here, after I saw American Fiction)

The Terror Dan Simmons. This is just a fantastic historical horror novel, so whenever anyone says they like stories about about expeditions, ships, or the like, I point them to this novel. (which is a retelling of what happened to the HMS Terror and Erebus, two ships that froze into the sea during an expedition to the north pole.) I constantly think about its depiction of scurvy (horrifying), and his descriptions about how scary are the sounds of snow and ice creaking and popping when you have that volume of snow and ice. This is a book that is masterful in its setting and atmosphere.

Wolf in White Van, John Darneille. I think I think about this book a lot because there’s nothing else quite like it. I suppose it is psychological horror, and few books fit into that niche. There is a man who has been disfigured for reasons that are slowly revealed, and this man has invented a sort of play-in-real-life game that went too far and killed some people. The book is eerie and you’re not sure where it’s going and it’s unsettling, and I’ve yet to find anything else like it.

The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice. I keep thinking about this book because I want another vampire book in this vein (no pun intended) and no one is writing it. All the vampire books I keep seeing are not written at the sentence level that Rice could write at (in her earlier works at least- at a line level she was a literary writer, IMHO).

One of my writing teachers once said in class that the worst crime in writing is to be boring—he might have been quoting someone smarter than him, I’m not sure. He was dating an undergraduate at the time, which isn’t interesting because we have seen the trope of a professor dating one of his students so many times.

Speaking of Toothless, the adorable dragon from How to Train Your Dragon, they are doing a live-action remake of the original animated film that shot-for-shot looks the same (except the guy they cast looks 30 instead of being a kid..?) Anyhow there are a lot of reasons to hate the endless recycling of IP, but the main reason it sucks is because you’re giving me something I’ve already seen before. When I get excited about something it’s either because: “Oh shit I have never seen anything like this before” or “oh shit their doing this trope in a such an interesting way.”