Telling, not Showing.

Cheddar mentioned this in the shameless self-promotion thread in the Books forum, and I suddenly realized it was why I wasn't enjoying a book I'm trying to read right now (Destroyermen, Book 1 by Taylor Anderson).

The story itself is actually pretty interesting (WW1 destroyer, pressed into service in WW2 Pacific, sucked into an alternate Earth with no native humans) but sweet mother of god, the telling. The Telling.

There are three pages dedicated to describing the ship's weapons. And another page all about how she's falling apart at the seams. Telling us she's a war ship and in bad shape is necessary, but I don't want the narrative to grind to a halt every time you want to show your research. Or, as in this case, I'd like the fucking narrative to begin before you show off. Everything he said could have been worked into the story proper at more appropriate times.

It's the way it's framed that frustrates me the most, I think: the captain is standing on the bridge, thinking about his ship. That's it. It not until after we've been told about the ship's capabilities that we find out it's happening while they are sprinting away from a Japanese flotilla. It would have worked better, and felt more important, if he'd been reading a damage report or even having a conversation, but no. It's just him, standing there, running through the operator's manual in his head.

There are other issues with the novel, such as the female lead being a walking 'strong, yet feminine' cliché (I'm actually dreading her appearances, and understanding that she becomes the captain's love interest for the next 10 - TEN! - books in the series is enough to make me not want to read any further) and the ham-fisted manufactured conflict with another ranking officer who also reads like a textbook bad guy cliché (also an informed attribute, as the guy's had exactly four lines to say in three appearances), and the drifting POV (the number of times I've been told things the captain shouldn't or can't know, when the paragraph started out from his perspective, is unfortunately high and distracting).

But it's the stopping to tell me things that frustrates me the most. If something needs to be said, let the fucking characters say it. You shouldn't be stopping everything to tell me, the reader, yourself. If you do that, I'm no longer reading a story, I'm listening to a lecture, and I didn't enjoy that when I was paying for it in university, I'm sure as hell not going to enjoy it when it's free.

As a side note, don't read the Destroyermen series. It's too frustrating.

 

Info dumps are usually one of the things that makes me stop reading a fic. If I have to read through another chapter that describes this or that in excruciating detail delivered in an absolutely humorless manner, I'll usually stop reading it. Tie the descriptions and information into the story and don't write them like they could just as well have been footnotes or in a compendium. It detracts from the pacing and immersion of the story, particularly if it's just the regular fandom additions of power-cores or the dreaded shopping trip to Diagon Alley.(though the number of those have mercifully declined.)
It's even worse if they're in the beginning of the story. I don't want to slog through thousands or tens of thousands of words for the story to take off but that might have something to do with me being a slow reader with a relatively short attention span.

 

Ever read Moby Dick (which includes whole chapters of dry exposition about whales)?

 

Yes. It took me months, and I was 12. The most unpleasant book I ever read. Les Mis was positively a glorious read in comparison. Both unabridged.

 

No, and I probably never will. In my defense the book isn't really that popular in Denmark. Those kinds of books don't interest me to be honest.
Exposition is a problem in a lot of the "classics" and someone like Tolkien is really big on it, which detracted from LotR in my opinion. I was sorely tempted to skip the first book on my second read through. This is also the reason why I think the Hobbit is the superior book but I doubt many people share that opinion.

 

Moby Dick is a didatic book about whaling and 19th century ships, and a man's confunsion about his sexual feelings towards an animal. It's not literature.

 

I read LotR when I was really young. I was around 12, maybe? It was a struggle and I haven't read it since, but I clearly remember it was hella wordy and went over my head a lot.

I felt like the Hobbit went too far in the other direction though.

Think it's linked?

 

I read LotR when I was about ten. I liked it but I haven't had the urge to pick to books up again an reread them.

 

An old one but one I've never seen posted:

People being interested in a psycopath protagonist. Let me list for you the dimensions of psycopathy that make it hard to empathize with a REAL psycopath (not the media version, but the actual personality disorder) shallow affect (emotions), pathological lying, lack of remorse, failure to accept responsibilities for your actions, parasitic life-style, lack of realistic goals, irresponsibility-

Actually it's a lot easier to just point out the traits that are at least interesting in your protagonist; grandoise sense of self-worth, glib/charming, cunning, criminal versatility, and promiscuous sexual behavior.

People who think being a psycopath would be cool, or knowing a psycopath in any capacity have no idea about what the disorder is, and how it affects the people in the individuals life.

TL: DR Psychopaths are literally the lowest scum society has to offer, as opposed to the media portrayal of them (in shows like Dexter). No one does their research and it pisses me off.

 

I thought Dexter was a sociopath?

 

Psychologically/medically sociopathy doesn't exist. The traits that he is shown to have (shallow affect, criminal versatility, impulsivitiy, early delinquincy, etc) are all classic psychopathy traits.

 

Only place I'd disagree with you here is labeling them as "scum," since they have a legitimate medical disorder. They can, however, be very, very dangerous. Lack of empathy beyond all else will do that to a person.

 

There is a reason several CEO's of incredibly successful companies show sociopathic tendencies or are themselves sociopaths. In order to succeed in a cutthroat economic system like Capitalism, you literally have to be a sociopath to make it big, because you have to step on quite a few people - and break some people's knees so you can step on them - to get to the top.

I'm not justifying sociopathy. I'm just saying that I find sociopaths interesting, in a character-study sort of way.

 

That's a logical fallacy, you know that right? Correlation does not imply causation. You'll find successful sociopaths in every socio-economic system.

 

Continuing from what Redshell said, seeing as they are fascinating I think it's interesting to read about a sociopath protagonist.

 

You all mean "psychopath". A sociopath is a buzzword that has no real definition, whereas psychopathy has a clear and distinct definition, with distinct characteristics and attributes. They are NOT interchangable, just like someone with Anti-Social Personality disorder is not the same as someone who has full blown psycopathy.

Fun fact for all you nimrods, everyone has psycopathic tendency. Then intensity and frequency of those tendencies determines what level of psychopath you are. "Successful Psycopaths" (such as those in politics/business/law enforcement/military) are usually the ones who are missing key attributes such as juvenile delinquincy, criminal versatility, and all those other fun characteristics that get you in trouble in society.

 

http://m.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-difference-between-a-psychopath-and-a-sociopath.htm

They suggest there is very little difference between them and mostly interchangable. My mumis a psychiatric nurse and I remember asking her this very question several years back to the same result. You have to be pretty anal to pissed at people using them interchangeably

 

I learned in psychology that 'psychopathy' and 'sociopathy' both fall under (that they are, I should say) Anti-Social Personality Disorder, not that ASPD is a lesser form of or a precursor to 'full-blown' psychopathy. Though it's true there are different levels. I remember a story about a doctor that studied the brains of people with ASPD. To demonstrate to a class (trainees or whatever) what a normal brain would look like in comparison, he scanned his own. As he was showing his pupils the ASPD brain, one student interrupted and said he had the wrong picture. The doctor was shocked. Turns out he just didn't have an average intensity of emotions and lacked a bit in empathy.

But I'm not a psychologist, and I haven't kept up to date on the categorization of psychiatric disorders, so what do I know?

Anyway... I don't know if this has been said yet, but I despise anything that makes Hermione Granger out to be the second coming of Minerva McGonagall. Hermione's a star student, obviously McGonagall is going to like her. It doesn't mean they're the same person.

I recently read a time travel fic that had young McGonagall quote Hermione verbatim every chapter. Only it was even worse than it sounds. The author clearly wanted to demonstrate the cooling effect of Harry and Ron, so McGonagall was made to be such a stickler to the rules that the professors (who taught during the '30s) seemed laid-back in comparison. I really don't know why so many twelve year olds believe people remain static from adolescence to adulthood. It's fine to think that McGonagall walked the straight line, but to portray her as an unbearable goody-two shoes is aggravating as hell. Especially when McGonagall demonstrated in canon plenty of times that she's less of a tight-ass than her hairdo would suggest. An efficient, stern teacher is completely different than a nosey, prissy busybody.

Also, same for Lily Evans. I don't remember anyone in canon telling Harry that Hermione was exactly like his mother. Sirius may have made a comparison between them (I don't think he did, though), and Slughorn definitely went on how Lily was such a great student, but I don't see how that equates 'must be like Hermione.' You can do very well in school without having such a Hermione level of dedication and hunger for praise.

 

Was reading Pers' Dagger and Rose and hit upon a new pet-peeve: third person POV in present tense.

Pers does a good job staying in it, but I really have a hard time reading present tense. JBern's TLIL finally got me to accept it in 1st person, but I don't know if I'll get there in third person.

 

Fuck you, bro.

(All my pro sales in fiction are third-present. Charles Stross, William Gibson, John Updike, Suzanne Collins--I'm in decent company writing in the form.)