Things which annoy me in novels #2: Secrets not revealed in internal monologue

Jul 07, 2016 11:01

I remember ranting about Dream Sequence a while back, so I guess this is rant number 2 ( Read more... )

writing, reading, books

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philmophlegm July 7 2016, 10:13:02 UTC
But without that, we wouldn't have been able to enjoy years of R+L=J speculation...!

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eledonecirrhosa July 7 2016, 11:02:34 UTC
I think GOT gets a Get Out of Jail Free Card because it was hiding the secret subtly, not being in your face about it. My moan is about things like:

1) I read (part of) a novel where the hero quite literally looked at himself in the bathroom mirror in the mornings and thought things like "It's a good job my boss doesn't know my secret, or he'd fire me". My bet was on Lost Heir to the Kingdom AND mutant superpowers, but I got so annoyed by the way the lead character angsted without telling me WHY he was angsting that I gave up about 70 pages in.

2) I'm currently reading a book where the heroine is on the run, because she has found out some dirty secret of her boss. She keeps thinking about "the Boss's secret", sometimes several times a chapter. But so far absolutely no clue to the reader. Murderer? Thief? Has sex with giant squid? All of the above?

3) There was another book with a heroine being hunted by several sinister people with sinister and secret agenda. The Big Secret of one of them was eventually revealed to be: She's my ( ... )

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