reader confusion, complex plots
Ben Crowell
Saturn's Children, I do feel disappointed in that I simply couldn't
follow the plot. I had a similar experience with Halting State. Do
I just have a low tolerance for complexity? As writers, do you worry
about over-taxing the reader's willingness to keep track of all the
twists and turns? As a reader, I'm reluctant to put a huge amount of
effort into tracking stuff like this, especially if I'm getting signals
that it isn't meant to be taken totally seriously or doesn't in fact
make sense. I was totally lost as to what was happening in the
climactic scene of Saturn's Children, and was not sure it was worth
trying to puzzle out since it was basically silly, and there were also
internal inconsistencies. (The POV doesn't know what grass is, but
instantly recognizes a ring-tailed lemur.) My wife is a big mystery fan,
but when I've tried reading books she's recommended I've never enjoyed
them. At least in a mystery you know that the complications are integral
to the genre, and you know that the writer is forming a sort of implicit
contract with the reader to make it all make sense in the end.
Some things I do appreciate about Stross: his wicked sense of humor,
his ability to do space travel (both STL and FTL) in a dramatically
satisfying way while demonstrating that he actually understands
physics.
Eric Ammadon
>I generally enjoy Charles Stross's work a lot. But having just finished
>Saturn's Children, I do feel disappointed in that I simply couldn't
>follow the plot. I had a similar experience with Halting State. Do
>I just have a low tolerance for complexity? As writers, do you worry
>about over-taxing the reader's willingness to keep track of all the
>twists and turns? As a reader, I'm reluctant to put a huge amount of
>effort into tracking stuff like this, especially if I'm getting signals
>that it isn't meant to be taken totally seriously or doesn't in fact
>make sense.
I read fiction for enjoyment. I do not enjoy taking notes in order to
track what is going on. If the author can't keep things moving
without my needing a scorecard, I find another book to read; about the
second time that happens, I find another author.
On rare occasions the writing is so interesting, humorous, or
whatever, that I don't care what is going on because I'm sufficiently
interested in -how- it's going on. Very rare occasions.
--
arggh, is it priate day again?
Bill Swears
> I generally enjoy Charles Stross's work a lot. But having just finished
> Saturn's Children, I do feel disappointed in that I simply couldn't
> follow the plot. I had a similar experience with Halting State. Do
> I just have a low tolerance for complexity?
I like following multiple threads in books like Niven/Pournelle's
Lucifer's Hammer and Brin's Earth. Some folks don't. I'm midway
through Stross' Accelerando, and mostly enjoying it, though I
occasionally wonder what he took to get into his altered storytelling
state. In truth, I'm taking a break from Accelerando to read some more
of the Dresden Files, since my brain was beginning to steam from keeping
track of multiple chronologies and multiple instances of the same
persona. I think Charlie mildly overloads my desire to track
characters, even though I'm one who really likes more complex books.
Bill
--
Living on the polemic may be temporarily satisfying, but it will raise
your blood-pressure, and gives you tunnel vision.
ShellyS
<crowel...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote:
> I generally enjoy Charles Stross's work a lot. But having just finished
> Saturn's Children, I do feel disappointed in that I simply couldn't
> follow the plot. I had a similar experience with Halting State. Do
> I just have a low tolerance for complexity? As writers, do you worry
> about over-taxing the reader's willingness to keep track of all the
> twists and turns? As a reader, I'm reluctant to put a huge amount of
> effort into tracking stuff like this, especially if I'm getting signals
> that it isn't meant to be taken totally seriously or doesn't in fact
> make sense. I was totally lost as to what was happening in the
> climactic scene of Saturn's Children, and was not sure it was worth
> trying to puzzle out since it was basically silly, and there were also
> internal inconsistencies. (The POV doesn't know what grass is, but
> instantly recognizes a ring-tailed lemur.) My wife is a big mystery fan,
> but when I've tried reading books she's recommended I've never enjoyed
> them. At least in a mystery you know that the complications are integral
> to the genre, and you know that the writer is forming a sort of implicit
> contract with the reader to make it all make sense in the end.
>
For me, it depends on the author. Some handle complexity better than
others, usually by finding interesting ways to remind me about
important points yet don't make it feel repetitive or redundant or
worse, condescending. For the record, I've read only one of Stross'
books, and while I enjoyed it for the most part, I also found it
confusing and hard to follow, especially since I read mostly during my
commute to work and some time can pass between reading sessions. I
felt no compulsion to seek out his other titles.
(snip)
Shelly
Brian M. Scott
<crow...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote in
<news:00b611df$0$23802$c3e...@news.astraweb.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> I generally enjoy Charles Stross's work a lot. But having
> just finished Saturn's Children, I do feel disappointed
> in that I simply couldn't follow the plot. I had a
> similar experience with Halting State. Do I just have a
> low tolerance for complexity? As writers, do you worry
> about over-taxing the reader's willingness to keep track
> of all the twists and turns? As a reader, I'm reluctant
> to put a huge amount of effort into tracking stuff like
> this, especially if I'm getting signals that it isn't
> meant to be taken totally seriously or doesn't in fact
> make sense. I was totally lost as to what was happening
> in the climactic scene of Saturn's Children, and was not
> sure it was worth trying to puzzle out since it was
> basically silly, and there were also internal
> inconsistencies. (The POV doesn't know what grass is, but
> instantly recognizes a ring-tailed lemur.)
I find that it depends greatly on how the complexity is
handled. Steven Erikson's Malazan cycle is enormously
complex, but I've enjoyed it through the first eight (of
ten) books. I enjoyed Catherynne M. Valente's _In the
Cities of Coin and Spice_, a complex of interlocking fairy
tales that also interlock with the frame story. I don't
know how I'd react to these two of Charlie's books: I gave
up on him a while back after trying four or five books and
consistently being disappointed after promising beginnings.
> My wife is a big mystery fan, but when I've tried reading
> books she's recommended I've never enjoyed them. At least
> in a mystery you know that the complications are integral
> to the genre, and you know that the writer is forming a
> sort of implicit contract with the reader to make it all
> make sense in the end.
You probably worry about it more than I do: I'm distinctly
character-oriented, not plot-oriented.
[...]
Brian
R.L.
I don't read this genre, but just in general....
If the characters are clearly defined and it's clear what they care about
and how that is progressing, I can skim any amount of complex detail I'm
not interested in. I quite happily read along in Sayers skipping the
timetables and techy stuff of one kind or another. Same for complex
plotting if necessary.
R.L.