Dissection

I lifted the image at left from PETA. When I was in high school, I didn't believe in dissecting animals, and I was actually excused from doing so by writing a paper on anti-vivisection.

However, lately, I have been working outside my usual genres--transforming one of my manuscripts into a thriller (and I think it's going great so far). So last night, I once again, picked up a thriller and began dissecting.

I noticed a few things. I am reading Saving Faith, an old release by David Baldacci. I am dissecting his formula or set-up. I am somewhat amazed by how much this guy back-story dumps. Dissecting the book, I can see these long stretches of blah-blah-blah back story of the hero. My writers' group would have been merciless on this guy. However, I do see he always ties back story to a single element of the current action, so I see how he does it even though I find myself occasionally annoyed. On the flip side, what the author does amazingly well is provide the kind of details I presume readers of spy/political thrillers love. The technology of eavesdropping, the political operatives. He does that flawlessly. And the hero and heroine are instantly likabale . . . though the villain to me was just a character out of central casting.

Anyway, this is sort of why I don't read fiction. I don't like dissecting a book. I want to get lost in a book. Hence, I am still making my way through the biography of von Braun I wrote about a few posts ago.

However, I think Lurker Monkey has it right. For years, he and I have been in a writers' group together. And for years, I know he has read voraciously in YA (a genre he writes in). I know he and I both think that if you set out to write for kids, or for a genre, you damn well better know what's current, how it's done, who's the best in the field, why they're the best. You need to study it, dissect it, figure out what works about the genre, what do readers expect, and so on. You can choose to defy convention, of course. There are audacious books published every year that sort of break out of a genre, or have some buzz about how different they are. But you still better know what the demands of your chosen genre are.

Think about if you went for a job interview. Would you show up unprepared? Would you apply for a nursing job if you were an engineer? You would know you need to meet the demands of the field.

I used to routinely meet romance writers writing chick lit, having little idea of what the genre was about. They just wanted a sale in what was current. I have seen submissions for YA that are downright bizarre given the age the writer intends to write for. Do you really KNOW what middle-school kids are into these days? What about high schoolers?

How about you? Dissect anything lately?