Common Threads

Most of us--all of us?--here at YAYA have finished more than one novel. Some of us (you know who you are) are insanely prolific. So it's only natural to begin noticing common threads, the little links from one story to the next. These are the threads that will keep your readers hooked on your stories for-ev-er, the things beyond style and voice that can make the difference between loving a book and loving an author.

Maybe the common thread is that they're all YA. Maybe they're all sci-fi, or they have similar themes, even though the plots and even genres are totally different. Sometimes I'll pick up just any book, as long as it A) is well-written, and B) contains some character archetype to which I'm craving exposure.

My stories always take place near an ocean or sea. Most of my characters are female. I often write some kind of freedom theme--I guess this is pretty important to me. Forgiveness is probably the chief virtue in my universe.

Now, the genres are often different and the setting might be current-day Massachusetts or 5th century BC Athens, complete with horny deities. The main character will be somewhere between several million, sixty, and seventeen years old. She may or may not "come of age". But I'm betting my readers will find enough commonality from one story to the next, because of all those little pieces my awesome subconscious inserts.

(Thanks, awesome subconscious.)

What will your readers find in common in your stories? What kinds of shared threads do you, as a reader, like to find in your favorite author's books? Do you need that genre fix, or are you more of a character archetype reader?

The Difference Between 'Suck' and 'Style'.

There's stylistic repetition. And then there's stylistic repetition repetition repetition repetition repetition repetition repetition...

Ad nauseum.

We all know that style and voice are very fragile things, and at least I believe that they can make or break a story. I know that in some of my favorite books (Slaughterhouse-Five comes to mind), if they weren't written in the way they were written, I wouldn't have been interested in finishing the book at all.

And for the sake of style, sometimes you have to do something out of your comfort zone, and the story should be all the better for it. At the moment, I'm staring down the throat of the beast, wondering where the fine line would be to get rid of the extraneous lines that come with fast drafts -- it is Fast Draft February, after all -- and still preserve the sound of the narrator.

Eh. I'll figure it out later. Or, at least, my betas will for me.

Well, we all know that writing 'bad' can be turned into writing 'good' in particular situations, like "Flowers for Algernon" had the improper grammar and bad spelling, but that was specifically done to get a point across about characterization.

And now for the inflammatory point of the day: this is why I don't read a whole lot of YA. I remember picking up YA books in the bookstore and being annoyed by the style, usually because the author tried to capture a teenage voice. Whether they succeeded or not, I don't care, it's just that I'm not too fond of the sound of teenagers talking. The story may have been good, but if I had to listen to the average teenager tell it (as many of the main characters would like you to believe), I wouldn't stick around to let them finish.

That said, I don't really think there's an absolute line between 'suck' and 'style.' As Potter Stewart, Supreme Court Justice, said about hardcore pornography, I'll say about style: It's a tricky thing to define, but I'll know it when I see it.

So, let's talk. Where do you draw the line? Have you had any style failures? Seen anything audacious that actually worked?