So yesterday I had a bunch of Harlequin books download on my Fire, five of them chick lit by Millie Criswell. (I vaguely remember pre-ordering them, all for $0.).
God, they're bad.
I like chick-lit and will put up with a lot but oh my gawd, these are bad. I mean, in the first page there's so much info-dump that you think, 'aha, I now know everything'. Except somehow she manages to info-dump on every single page.
Every conversation is an info-dump.
No actions are considered. They just happen with an info dump to explain them.
And the conversations!! Okay, I'm a conversation snob. Characters need to sound the way people actually talk. Nobody talks the way these characters do. Which by the way, always contains more info-dumping.
Did I mention that everything she writes is an info-dump? Yeah? I didn't think so.
Ha! I'm going to delete them all off my sweet little Fire (named Lucifer) (cause I roll that way). And if I ever see another Millie Criswell book, I'll run the other way. I promise.
Otherwise I might get dumped on.
How about some dialogue examples? Want to see how much I learned. ;-)
ReplyDeleteTell, tell, tell, no show?
ReplyDeleteI believe, though I may be completely off, that I have one print Millie Criswell (at least I'm pretty sure I have one book with that last name somewhere) in the humongous TBR. Not that it was anywhere near the top, but now it's surely down by the end.
Now you know why there were a bunch of them for $0...
ReplyDeleteIt's got me to thinking about my info dumping... I think by the time I edit this nano, I'll be lucky to have 1000 words bahahaha.
Thanks for the heads up Lori, will keep this name on the list of DNB (do not bother).
But, you know, I think Romance may be the only genre that doesn't like info dumping. I just reread The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley and most of it is exposition, filling in background and such. I remember thinking 'this wouldn't cut it if it were a romance'. Don't know why it's this way.
ReplyDelete