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That feeling when you start a new book that you're slightly excited about reading, but the teen-girl character is a wannabe influencer who's right out of central casting, and the voice is laying it on so thickly and stereotypically, and we're hitting all of the expected sentimental notes of Tragic! Backstory! for the dad, and...
It's like the Truck Driver's Gear Change, right? It works - it's crude but it works - but once you know it for what it is, once you see the gears turning, it seems like a cheap trick.
Everything that works just a little too well feels a bit calculated and pandering.
The advice I want to give myself is "Stop reading genre fiction for a second; read out-there litfic, read that queer one narrated by a mountain lion, read some difficult poetry," and I think that's correct but I also don't really have enough brain for it.
It's like the Truck Driver's Gear Change, right? It works - it's crude but it works - but once you know it for what it is, once you see the gears turning, it seems like a cheap trick.
Everything that works just a little too well feels a bit calculated and pandering.
The advice I want to give myself is "Stop reading genre fiction for a second; read out-there litfic, read that queer one narrated by a mountain lion, read some difficult poetry," and I think that's correct but I also don't really have enough brain for it.