What makes people put down a book (goodreads)

[Aminar]

Hmm. That's the kind of bravery from an author that would definitely make me want to read on; I generally appreciate authors who take chances even if they do not work over authors who play safe, at technical and structural levels. 

I think part of it is that I have a really strong dislike for stories where protagonists get protected by different rules from everyone else just because they are protagonists.  Titanic for example, where the two leads appear to be playing by Indiana Jones rules when it comes to wasding through icy water but everyone in steerage is dying from exposure much more realistically.  I can't connect to protagonists who are safe because they are protagonists, and nor can I connect to protagonists who are supposedly in danger if no serious consequences of danger ever happens to them.

I do think character death has to have meaning.  Yes, as protagonists they shouldn't be invincible.  They should be in danger, but if you're killing them, USE IT.  Play for the impact of their death.  Doing so offscreen is bad bad bad form.  When it happened in Harry Potter it forever tainted the ending as badly written, and it wasn't even main characters.  Compare that to the end of the book where everything gets different.  I swore.  I yelled so loud my neighbors were worried and my roomates freaked out.  That is how to use character death.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I do think character death has to have meaning.  Yes, as protagonists they shouldn't be invincible.  They should be in danger, but if you're killing them, USE IT.  Play for the impact of their death.  Doing so offscreen is bad bad bad form. 

Incidentally, I've just finished rereading a series that does exactly this with a main character well into the series and really makes it work.  It is impressively understated, and quitely affecting, as a reader, to go straight from "the central characters have vibrant relationships with this person" to "the central characters are dealing with the rality of a world this person is no longer in" without going through the loss itself (which none of the viewpoint characters were or could have been on the same side of the planet as at the time).

[Aminar]

Incidentally, I've just finished rereading a series that does exactly this with a main character well into the series and really makes it work.  It is impressively understated, and quitely affecting, as a reader, to go straight from "the central characters have vibrant relationships with this person" to "the central characters are dealing with the rality of a world this person is no longer in" without going through the loss itself (which none of the viewpoint characters were or could have been on the same side of the planet as at the time).

And that's fair.  But at least they are using it then, and there's a viable reason to have the death off screen.  Although I'd have been tempted to have a one off chapter from that character's perspective just to show.  Or have the information given in some detail, making it sort of on screen.  There are ways to do it.  A traumatic phone call can be just as effective if handled right.  Part of the Harry Potter problem was that the grief just never seemed to be there because SO MANY DEATHS.

[Sully]

For those of you who read Elizabeth Moon, she wrote the lead up to a character death, the death itself, and the aftermath absolutely wonderful in her latest book, Limits of Power.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

And that's fair.  But at least they are using it then, and there's a viable reason to have the death off screen.  Although I'd have been tempted to have a one off chapter from that character's perspective just to show.  Or have the information given in some detail, making it sort of on screen.  There are ways to do it.  A traumatic phone call can be just as effective if handled right. 

Not in a book set in 1815 it can't.

[Aminar]

Oh come on, that's not historically inaccurate.  DRAMATIC TELEGRAPH(Did those exist then?)  There are still ways to use the event, just ones that take more time.

[Snowleopard]

Dramatic messenger or letter - no telegraph at that time, I believe - I could be wrong
on that however.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Dramatic messenger or letter - no telegraph at that time, I believe - I could be wrong
on that however.

And by the time any plausible one of those has rounded the world, you're a long way from the impact of a direct scene.

I think telegraph is just post-Napoleonic, remembering the telegraph tower scene for The Count of Monte Cristo.

[Snowleopard]

According to what I just Googled - Morse created the telegraph in 1832.
So 1815 is out.

[Mandy_The_Dandy]

I'm sure this may be a bit unfair to the author, but when someone tries to force me to read a book that's almost a guarantee that I will never read it. Apparently the lines "hey you might like this book" can be swapped with a rabid "READ THIS THING OR WE'LL NEVER BE FRIENDS AGAIN" without incident. If I do read the book, they get really surprised when I voice a poor opinion of it and don't think the author is God's gift of prose.

The opposite effect is when a friend shows me a book, tells me the gist of what it's about, gives me the option of borrowing their copy, and leaving it at that. I'll blaze through that mother and probably love it to bits.

[trboturtle]

Re: The first one, Neuro.

Yes, all characters have functions but in this one book - it was so blatantly obvious that
a certain character was just being set up to be killed that it annoyed me - I guess because
she came off like a paper target.  No real depth to her.

But you just decribed aq large slice of English murder mysteries. I've read a lot of those type, in which you're fairly sure who's going to get killed withing the first few chapter (if it's not on the back of the book cover), usually through interaction with the people around them (who then become the suspects.)

Craig

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

But you just decribed aq large slice of English murder mysteries. I've read a lot of those type, in which you're fairly sure who's going to get killed withing the first few chapter (if it's not on the back of the book cover), usually through interaction with the people around them (who then become the suspects.)

There is, indeed, a term in horror criticism for such characters: shreddies.

[meg_evonne]

fwiw, my first choice is "a book that treats me like an idiot".

Interesting thread...  Agree to this one. Definitely have difficulty figuring out why some authors don't get this. Reading a book is a joint activity. No reason to force feed an author's heavy opinion & conclusions at the end of chapters or (as I've seen) ending of paragraphs. It is far better to have the reader active. You have to let your work fly and let the reader put their own end caps on things. I've pointed this out to a couple critique partners but they still don't get the difference. Perhaps it's my personal preference or I'm not explaining it right.

[Eire]

You have to let your work fly and let the reader put their own end caps on things.

On the other hand lots of people say that Nabokov supported paedophiles- granted, mostly those who were prejudiced from the start, but still.

I must say that I often have the problem with historical fiction, mainly with the way most of the authors handle values dissonance- and I don't day about things like 300 that just take some fancy tokens from the past but so called "historical fiction". No matter time and culture, the protagonist will always have morals strangely resembling those preached by liberal upper middle class from USA- and I have an impression that lots of them either
a) didn't do research
b) did, but was afraid that the audience will react like those amazon reviewers who complained that "Kristin Lavransdattir" would be a better book had the heroes not thinking that much about religion.

I know it's risky topic that requires a lots of skill to make a protagonist likeable in spite of having different morals than reader, but it's possible. I understand that Melanie Wilkens wasn't abolitionist and that Mammy considered herself a better caste than field slaves. Petronius of Quo Vadis while being considered by his slaves as exceptionally patient and understanding man didn't hesitate to order corporal punishment when one of them didn't obey him on spot. Heroines of Lisa See couldn't be more different from modern Western women, yet they are interesting characters whose characteristic perfectly fit their time and background.

I don't say that character can't have some modern morals- Sometimes skilled writer can sneak them by presenting it as an extraordinary- like Judge Dee who gave shelter to rape victim and later married her to keep silent bad tongues (on the other hand he wasn't above using tortures while serving justice).

On the other side of the spectrum we have that guy from Patriot, pure as freshly washed clothes who see like a transplant from XXI century.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I must say that I often have the problem with historical fiction, mainly with the way most of the authors handle values dissonance- and I don't day about things like 300 that just take some fancy tokens from the past but so called "historical fiction". No matter time and culture, the protagonist will always have morals strangely resembling those preached by liberal upper middle class from USA-

That sounds to me like you're not reading the really top-end historical fiction like Patrick O'Brian and Dorothy Dunnett, then.