I feel like this little…rant, vent, whatever you want to call it, has been brewing for a while. And I want to stress here I am specifically talking about traditional, not indie publishing – the kind where an author gets an agent, likely goes through some editing process, gets a publisher, then goes through (or should go through) more editing, before their book lands on bookshelves and in readers’ hands.
It’s a long hard road to get there. A difficult one, too. And in theory, only the best of the best should make it through all the hoops to land in front of readers. Unfortunately, whether it’s chasing trends or looking to make an extra buck, that really doesn’t seem to be the case.
There’s always been ‘weaker’ trad published books. And, of course, being traditionally published is no guarantee you’ll make it as a writer, just as self-publishing or going the indie route isn’t a guarantee you’ll end up languishing in a dark corner forever.
Some of these issues I’ve mentioned in reviews, but I’m finding it happens more and more, across different genres. I feel like I’ve rarely read a 5 star book that came out in the last few years. I don’t expect every book to be perfect, but more and more, characters feel flat, books feel bloated, and overuse of repetition makes me feel like I’m going around in circles!
I’m not going to specifically pinpoint the books I’m talking about here – typically, that’s covered in my reviews, and for this post, I’m more focused on trends.
Re characters. I feel like I’m noticing an increase in unlikable characters. I don’t think it’s intentional, either. I recently finished reading Home Sick (and this is a positive comment so the note above about specific books doesn’t apply!), and the MC of that is deliberately unlikable – she’s bitter and spiteful and so angry. But it all serves the story, and it’s handled in a really intriguing way, meaning we get to know and understand her better, get to see where this all comes from, and are interested in her story and journey. It’s excellent writing, with a layered character, and it works.
Now, on the other side, I’m seeing more characters acting in…likely intended to be morally grey ways, but they come across as simply insufferable. If I can’t stand the character, I don’t really care if they fall in love and get their HEA, or if they die at the hands of the supernatural killer. Worse is when they’re just boring. Characters need to keep a reader’s interest. But I feel like I’m reading more books where the author either doesn’t know what they want to do with the character or how they want them to come across, or hasn’t put in the work to make their vision clear. It makes for unlikable-in-the-worst-way or characters you never feel anything but “meh” towards.
The other issue is we’re getting so much telling! I don’t know why, but authors more and more seem to be relying on telling rather than showing. I don’t know if it’s a misunderstanding of show, don’t tell, a lack of editorial guidance, a lack of guidance in general (courses or writer’s groups or other mechanisms in place for authors to get feedback), or some kind of desire to “push back” on ‘writing rules’, but showing over telling is so important, especially when it comes to character development.
And the problem with relying on telling the reader information is not only is it less engaging, but the chances are the writer then shows something that contradicts the telling. It doesn’t matter if a writer tells the reader a character is super smart and much more intelligent than the people around them, if in everything that follows we see that actually, they’re really not. There is nuance to this – we can be told something by an unreliable narrator, only to see something different happening, either explicitly or by reading between the lines. That can create incredibly effective writing, but there are a limited amount of writers with the high level of skill to do this and to utilise showing and telling in this way. That is not what’s happening here.
If I’m reading Romance, it’s not enough to tell me the couple like each other – I need to feel it! I need to see the attraction between them, feel the tension, get caught up in the characters so I want them to get together. If I’m reading Horror, telling me a character is scared isn’t going to do anything, but showing me the reason for their fear and how that affects them? Then I’m invested.
And am I the only one who feels books are getting increasingly bloated? It’s strange, because with the cost of things you’d think publishers would be erring on the side of caution when it comes to physical books, but it looks like more and more they’re going for things like Kindle Unlimited, where (as far as I know, anyway!) the more pages read, the more you get paid. But the stuff being added isn’t valuable – it’s not making the book better, as these books also seem to suffer from an excess of repetition!
It makes books feel like they’re going in circles – more than once, I’ve found myself exasperated when I’m reading a summary of an event that happened earlier in the book, or being told about a character’s childhood again and key events again or having characters thinking the same things over and over and over. A character has a problem and rather than actually engage in any form of problem solving, they just constantly think about it!
The biggest problem (imho) is that this is becoming a failure of the industry. They’re putting out subpar debut novels, which when they’re reviewed poorly won’t sell, and authors are going to be impacted by this. We don’t like to talk of books as products because they’re the result of creative work, but ultimately, that’s what they are. They are products which go through a long process and should be put through multiple hands before ever reaching the consumer, but it seems the industry is caught in a hard place where they’re treating the book as a product without reflecting on the creative aspect, and similarly not viewing the book as a product which should be of high quality, because by the time they push out one, they’re trying to push out the next. Quite simply, publishing is in trouble – there are too few staff for the amount of books being put out. Editors are overworked. Authors are being asked to do more and more non-author work, including their own marketing and arranging book tours, because no one wants to spend the money on marketing staff. Everyone is taking on jobs outside their speciality (a problem not confined to publishing!) and ultimately, it’s the authors and readers who suffer for it.
So, what’s the solution? Well, I don’t have one! The fact is, anything that improves the situation costs money, and any impact is long-term – which way too many business’ (including councils and government and other areas that don’t like to see themselves as a ‘business’) fall into the trap of angling for short-term gain with as little money spent as possible. But the price here is trust – readers will stop trusting publishers who aren’t willing to invest in authors and the staff who support them. They’ll turn to indies instead, where the work is being put in, where self-published authors take their role seriously and put out the best product they possibly can. The expectations, I find, are rightfully lower, but indie pubs and self-published authors are absolutely beating out trad publishing for quality right now, and that shouldn’t be the case.
Ultimately, however, authors need to be able to focus on writing and improving their writing. Both prior any start to the publishing process and during it. They should be getting detailed, good quality feedback at all stages, but it really doesn’t seem like these things are happening. Books should go through multiple rounds of edits with different editors, and non-marketing staff shouldn’t be expected to take on the marketing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like any of this is going to happen anytime soon, and it makes me wonder exactly how much longer readers will put up with such poor quality before losing interest completely.
Unwrapping Words 