Epiphany!

I just finished having about an hour-long phone call with a woman I met playing Warcraft who also happens to be a writer, in which she critiqued the current draft of my novel. Interestingly enough, given my blog post of a couple days ago, she really didn't like my dialogue style--so it looks like I need to take a much harder look at how I'm doing that (and for that matter, ask some of my other readers whether it annoyed them as well). But more importantly, towards the end of the conversation she told me that she just didn't care about the world or the characters in it.

Bad press perhaps, to be posting that someone felt that way on the blog, but it led me to a very important realization about why books do and don't work for certain people. I think it's a fairly well-accepted truth that readers have to like at least one character in a work of fiction, to root for them, to identify with them etc. Even in the best stories, full of great characters, everyone finds one in particular that is their favorite--whose story moved them more than that of the others.

I realized that for my friend, that never happened. Character after character was introduced and none of them spoke to her. None of them grabbed her like they grabbed other people I've had read the book, and without that grip there was nothing to keep her reading.

To be honest, I'm not sure what to do with that knowledge now that I've got it, other than to go back with a more critical eye and make sure that my characters become sympathetic as quickly as possible, but I think it's a very important realization, and one that I'm sure will bear dividends in the future.