Slipping into an Author's Skin

I started a Margaret Atwood book yesterday, and now I am Margaret Atwood. Her storytelling is my storytelling. I feel that I know--or should know--what's coming next, maybe because it's happening to me, or maybe because I'm telling the story or because it just fits so well. In the last month, using talented authors' skins, I've been a tough private eye and a disillusioned lawyer. I've been a black maid working for a white family in the '60s south. I've been a naive rich girl working her first ever job as a secretary. And I've been a woman with MS.

I was not able to be some characters. Lots of books that are perfectly readable are not wearable for me. I can't be that ditzy cozy heroine who muddles her way through improbable adventures. She doesn't fit, and I keep falling out of her story. Neither can I be that non-feeling protagonist who anesthetizes the stink of life with booze. In most cases I can read those books, but I don't wear them. I sit on the margin, looking in.

But when an author's skin fits, it is a golden time. There is no greater thrill for a reader than finding that author who lets you slip into his skin for a few hundred pages, who lets you read yourself a story using his words as if they were your own.

Life's Paradox

Here it is: It's not about you; it's all about you.
And as Forrest Gump would say, that's all I have to say about that.

Why Are Self-Published Books Bad?

Trick question. They're not, or at least they don't have to be. Some people I know have self-published, AFTER they thought about it for a long time. They paid an editor to find the errors they missed. They paid an artist to do a classy cover. They even paid a computer geek to make sure the formatting is clean, correct, and friendly to whatever e-reader would be used. Then and only then did they self-publish. Yay for them.
On the other hand, there are people who are too anxious, too egotistical, or too clueless to make their books the best they can be. I heard a (supposed) author say not too long ago, "I never edit. I just put it out there." Yeah, I'll bet that's what it is: out there.
The industry is changing--has changed. Authors can make their work available for sale to the public without waiting for an agent, an editor, or a publisher to deem it suitable. But that's a double-edged sword. Yes, it makes for variety, avoiding the "this is what sold well last time" mentality that many publishers exhibit. But unless a person is open to help and advice, quality suffers. Somebody has to tell an author when it isn't working. Somebody has to correct his or her mistakes in plotting, in syntax, and in spelling.
If you're going to be a self-published author, the responsibility falls on you. You have to do what a "real" publisher would do and submit your work to lots of people for criticism and suggestions. Don't want to put out a bad book? Then don't let your love affair with your own creative genius blind you to the possibility that without help from others, your book might be, indeed, really bad.

The Limits of Teasing a Reader

Okay, Author, you've got a big secret in your book, something that happened to the main character in the past that has a bearing on how he/she acts today. Here are Peg's rules for dealing with it:
First, refer to it sparingly. I get tired of being reminded that there's something you know that I don't.
Second, make the clues progressive, so I have a chance of figuring it out, at least partly, before the end.
Third, the secret had better be good enough when I get there to justify the hints and clues. I want to feel what the character felt and decide I might have had the same reaction.

I guess it's pretty obvious that I just finished a book with such a secret. I got tired of the vague hints that kept coming up but never added to my understanding of the character. And in the end, I thought the author hurried through the explanation so that I never got the sense of experiencing the terrible event with the protagonist. He was so well drawn in the rest of the book that I felt cheated by being left out of his life-defining moment. I felt like I'd been teased all along, and then the author just walked away. They shouldn't do that.

Reading Reviews

As a writer, I cringe when I hear of a new review of my books. I feel like J. Alfred Prufrock--Do I dare...?
As a reader, I probably should cringe as well, because it's going to cost me. A good review makes me want to read a book, and by "good", I don't necessarily mean positive. A good review is like a teaser: it gives enough info to entice me onward, which generally means onward to a purchase. Even if the reviewer doesn't like the book, or if he/she criticizes bits of it, it might still sound appealing enough for me to buy it.
Bookstore owners are great "reviewers". They hand-sell books they enjoy, recommending them to readers they see as similar in reading tastes. Professional reviewers are helpful, too, although you need to get a feel for the individual and what he or she chooses to read and review.
I just read a review on THE KILLING SONG by P.J. Parrish on MysterEbooks.blogspot.com from my friend P.J. Coldren. Now I'll have to buy the book, because it sounds great. Add a frisson of anticipation to that cringe as the "cha-ching" hits my credit card!