Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Getting ahead of myself

While I was working my core on my fit ball (hilarious! that is actually true!) I started listening to Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight, by Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow.

The book is dual perspective, with Joel's story written and read by Nick Earls and Cat's story written and read by Rebecca Sparrow. Happily, both authors do a good job as narrators.

The plot involves Joel and Cat writing a tandem story for an English assignment, with each of them taking turns to write a paragraph. This makes me extremely curious about the writing process for the book.

Questions occur: Did Earls and Sparrow use the tandem method to write Joel and Cat? Did they map out the plot beforehand? Did either of them make the other one change bits? Are they on together?

When I read books I am a terrible skipper to the ender. I frequently go to the last page or flick through to see if a character keeps being mentioned. With story tapes you theorhetically can't do that. Except, you sort of can if you Google the book, or look at reviews on Goodreads, or look up the author on Wikipedia etc. Recently I have not been able to resist reading spoiling reviews/interviews/articles of the books I've been listening to.

So I am determined not to impact my experience of Joel and Cat set the Record Straight by reading about it. Dammit, I will form my own opinions of the work, and let the plot unfold at its own pace.

I am finding it hard to resist the temptation to Google. Very hard. Like my core. (That is not true, core is not hard despite agressive once a week fit ball regime.)

2 comments:

  1. Ha ha! I am a terrible skipper to the ender too, I thought I was the only one. I have no tolerance for suspense. I do not enjoy it, I don't find it fun. Anxiety detracts from my reading experience. I need to be able to relax in the knowledge that everyone will be okay (or not), then I can focus on the story instead of just feeling vaguely nauseous with worry.

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  2. I'd always thought I was impatient but now I realise the suspense does make me anxious and you're right, that does detract from the reading experience. So I will skip on!

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