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Oh. That explains something.
I have just come to a realization about my writing. I don't like writing red herrings.
By that I don't necessarily mean the false clues and dead-end leads of a traditional mystery, although that's certainly an example and likely to be a problem for me if I do get around to writing that gritty-cozy mystery with the kitten. But more generally, what I don't like is writing attempts that don't work or actions that don't lead more-or-less directly to the conclusion of the story. Say that the story revolves around a character who has problem X, and he tries several things to solve it. Now, the first couple of things he tries won't work, because a story in which the protagonist fixes his problem right away with the first thing he tries usually isn't very interesting (especially if the story is as long as a novel). As the author, I know those first couple of things aren't going to work, so they don't capture my interest, and I'm disinclined to waste time developing them. I prefer to get things right the first time in real life, and I'm generally pretty good at it (except when I'm really, really not), and I've realized I approach writing somewhat the same way. I want to get right to the thing that is going to work, so my impulse is to just briefly mention the failed attempts and spend almost all of my time and page-space on the important, i.e., successful, stuff.
But the reader doesn't know what's going to work and what isn't (at least, they don't if the writer's done her job right). Part of the enjoyment of a story is the suspense of "Will this work?" "Will this be the solution to Our Hero's problem?" And if the protagonist fixes everything first try, the reader is left feeling that it was "too easy" -- either the problem wasn't that big a deal in the first place (and therefore uninteresting to read about), or the character is some kind of unrealistic super-genius (and therefore uninteresting to read about). Characters need to struggle to overcome their problems in fiction, and part of struggling is that sometimes what they do doesn't work.
Or doesn't work completely, or works but causes a bunch of new problems in the process. There are lots of ways to create a sense of struggle in fiction. But jumping straight to the attempt that pays off is a sure-fire way to kill it, because what makes it a pay-off is the build-up of attempts that didn't work.
This is why my revisions to the novel-once-again-in-progress have included turning a rather short chapter into two fairly long ones, and will probably involve the same again with the chapter I'm currently on. The trick is to find some way to make the red-herring scenes fun for me as a writer, which will hopefully translate into fun for the readers as well.
By that I don't necessarily mean the false clues and dead-end leads of a traditional mystery, although that's certainly an example and likely to be a problem for me if I do get around to writing that gritty-cozy mystery with the kitten. But more generally, what I don't like is writing attempts that don't work or actions that don't lead more-or-less directly to the conclusion of the story. Say that the story revolves around a character who has problem X, and he tries several things to solve it. Now, the first couple of things he tries won't work, because a story in which the protagonist fixes his problem right away with the first thing he tries usually isn't very interesting (especially if the story is as long as a novel). As the author, I know those first couple of things aren't going to work, so they don't capture my interest, and I'm disinclined to waste time developing them. I prefer to get things right the first time in real life, and I'm generally pretty good at it (except when I'm really, really not), and I've realized I approach writing somewhat the same way. I want to get right to the thing that is going to work, so my impulse is to just briefly mention the failed attempts and spend almost all of my time and page-space on the important, i.e., successful, stuff.
But the reader doesn't know what's going to work and what isn't (at least, they don't if the writer's done her job right). Part of the enjoyment of a story is the suspense of "Will this work?" "Will this be the solution to Our Hero's problem?" And if the protagonist fixes everything first try, the reader is left feeling that it was "too easy" -- either the problem wasn't that big a deal in the first place (and therefore uninteresting to read about), or the character is some kind of unrealistic super-genius (and therefore uninteresting to read about). Characters need to struggle to overcome their problems in fiction, and part of struggling is that sometimes what they do doesn't work.
Or doesn't work completely, or works but causes a bunch of new problems in the process. There are lots of ways to create a sense of struggle in fiction. But jumping straight to the attempt that pays off is a sure-fire way to kill it, because what makes it a pay-off is the build-up of attempts that didn't work.
This is why my revisions to the novel-once-again-in-progress have included turning a rather short chapter into two fairly long ones, and will probably involve the same again with the chapter I'm currently on. The trick is to find some way to make the red-herring scenes fun for me as a writer, which will hopefully translate into fun for the readers as well.