It Was A Cold Dark Night

I make no claims to being an expert writer, or even good as far as that goes. I rarely blow my own whistle you see. However, I don't care who a certain famous writers editor is, what I do care about is that he allowed the writer to make a decent four hundred page story into a bloated six hundred and fifty page weather report...
I'm not trashing the author exactly. I like most of his writing. He happens to be quite prolific and well known in the horror market. (Not King by the way.) Still, there comes a time when I am perfectly happy, satisfied even to know only that, "It was a cold dark night."

I made a decision not to mention the writer by name. After all, who am I to criticize a New York Times best selling author? Nobody, that's who. On the other hand, I read a lot. And I can tell when a story is too full of unnecessary fluff that does nothing to further develop an interesting story, or keep a scene moving.

If you are anything like me, when an author goes overboard on description I start skimming paragraphs. Why would someone do that when they have paid good money for a book? Shouldn't you immerse yourself fully in the story, read and savor each and every printed word like you would your favorite food which in my case would be a nice fat greasy hamburger smothered in mayo and onions? After I drag myself out of the grave I fell in from being bored to death, I'll tell you. It bores me to death, that's why.

It is raining throughout the entire story I am reading. (So far anyway. I haven't actually finished it yet.) Actually, I am struggling through it. Why? Because there are several hundred pages of weather reports in it. If I wanted that much weather info, I would read the Farmers Almanac, or turn on the Weather Channel. Sure, sure, I am probably exaggerating, there may only be one hundred and fifty pages, or one hundred pages of weather. But you should be getting my point by now. Each and every chapter mentions the weather. And most of the chapters are short. Very short, like four to eight or ten pages.

Come on. By now I realize it is still raining, and it is probably going to be raining throughout the entire book. I don't need to know that the "...volume of rain pouring from the sky rivals the hourly output of the Hover Dam and Niagara falls combined." And I certainly don't need to be reminded that it is even raining by an updated weather report every eight pages. I may be dense, but nowhere near as dense as those "Moisture laden clouds billowing sheets of rain drops so densely packed that it was impossible to take a breath through your unprotected nostrils without inhaling a small portion of the bone chilling fluid directly into your already drenched and mucus laden lungs."

Hey, I'm all for a good descriptive sentence, even if I can't quite nail one down as elegantly as the particular author I am railing on. But I certainly don't want to be reminded it's still raining every eight pages. I swear, he has told the reader at least thirty times that it is raining, and he has told it thirty different ways, each one as clever as the preceding one. Maybe it's just me, but I would know it was still raining if he simply said, "My hat is all that kept my hair from feeling like I was walking through a car wash."

This reminds me of something King said in his book, "On Writing." He had said his wife didn't particularly like something he had written in one of his books. He asked her if she just wasn't interested in the particular character or what and she replied, "Yes, but you don't have to bore me to death with it." (Or something similar.)

That's all I'm getting at really. If it's that important to tell the reader that it's still raining, fine. And if you have to do it twenty or thirty times in your book, fine. But don't give me thirty weather reports. Don't describe a rainstorm thirty different ways. Find thirty different ways to get the same message across without even mentioning the word rain (or clouds) and you will definitely be accomplishing something other than making me a more proficient speed-reader.

So who am I to be criticizing a man with millions of copies of his books in print? A bored, disenchanted reader yearning for a good, solid story from cover to cover.

I happen to like long stories or thick books. I hate reading a three hundred page book inflated to six hundred and fifty for the sake of it, whatever the reason may be. I wouldn't be that upset if King wrote a three hundred page book. I wouldn't be that upset if any author did. I just can't stand wading through hundreds of pages of fluff, boring descriptions and someone explaining the fact that this guys mothers mother had a niece who's boyfriend got bit by a rabid dog that had escaped from the dog catcher's van when he got broad-sided by the mayor's wife's drunken step sister. I still can't believe his editor let him get away with it.

"It was cold and dark and the night stole through the city like a smothering blanket coated with stinking black axle grease. I could barely breath; the air was oppressively thick, heavily laden with pollutants riding piggyback on huge filthy droplets of water no longer able to remain suspended in the heavens above. Dirty raging rivers resembling oil slicks gushed along the sidewalk curbs and emptied into the depths beneath the streets to be forgotten and ignored along with all the other man made waste poisoning the planet."

Sounds like it was raining pretty hard eh? "It was raining pretty hard, and it was a cold dark night..." Ok, I've had my fun, now I have to go finish reading that damn book...