Reviewing the reviews of 1Q84. They suck!

Title: 1Q84

Author: Haruki Murakami

Progress: 50%

Amazon Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

NYT BS Hardcover/E-Book List: #25 (but was in the top 10 for a while)

Book 7 out of 107

When I put down “1Q84,” I feel as if emerging from a dream. I’m a bit disorientated, a bit disturbed, melancholy and a might creeped out. I’ve never read anything like it.

Given the long passages of backstory, of exposition, of exposition delivered as long episodes of dialogue, all the extended asides into minutia, it has no right to be as compelling as it is, to have the power that it does. And yet it has a hold on me that I’m going to miss once I finish it.

I think it’s the work of a genius.

So I was surprised by its reviews, which range from dismissive to disappointed to angry. Not so with many reader reviews. The amateurs at Amazon and Good Reads have plenty of positive things to say. Search for #1q84 on Twitter and you’ll find a legion of happy Murakami-heads. 


The professionals, not so much.

Janet Maslin of the New York Times throws several haymakers to the literary jaw of Mr. Murakami. To her, reading “1Q84” is akin to be “stuck in quicksand.” It’s a “stupefying” experience, she says.

My review of bad reviews of "1Q84"

To Nathan Heller over at Slate, Mr. Murakami isn’t even a good writer. In fact, according Mr. Heller, the wildly popular author has never been a good writer. Apparently, his first writing award as "best new young writer" was given half-heartedly by judges who in essence gave the entered work a grade of C. 


Why it won if it was so mediocre Mr. Heller doesn’t actually explain. It’s an unanswered question of the kind Ms. Maslin hates so much.

Across the pond, Matt Thorn at the UK’s telegraph calls it a “tedious waste of the reader’s time.” You read that aloud with a British accent and it has a serious sting.

All my life, I’ve been fascinated by works that get uniformly good reviews. If critics become unanimous about something, I want to know why and immediately digest whatever obscure foreign film or independently published novel is getting buzz from the professionally opinionated.

Sometimes, they are absolutely right. Sometimes, critics herald amazing works like “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” "Breaking Bad" and “Memento.” Thanks critics! You have made my life that much more enjoyable by celebrating what the Pop Culture Machine would not otherwise have put in front of my eyes.

On the other hand, I sometimes take it personally when something I love takes beating. Guess what? I liked “Thor” and “Captain America.” I liked “the Da Vinci Code” (the book, not so much the movie). I liked “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” the book and movies (US and Swedish). 


I really loved Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works”. “Midnight in Paris” is getting huge kudos this year, and it’s great, but “WW” with a bitter, sarcastic and lovable Larry David makes me smile just thinking about it. And critics hated it.

And they loved “Greenburg: (75% at Rotten Tomatoes.com!), which is a stinking pile of unfunny dreck full of critic bait.

When I read a bad review of something I love, I try to decipher why the critic is disapproving, and figure out if maybe I’m wrong. What flaws do I have that I missed such glaring shittiness?

Let’s break down a few things Slate’s Mr. Heller offers as evidence of Mr. Murakami being a bad writer.

This is from his review…

“And yet for all of its plotting flourishes, 1Q84 reads, paragraph-to-paragraph, as some of Murakami’s weakest writing in years. Obvious things are overexplained. (“If we're through choosing, we'd better close the menus,” Aomame at one point instructs. “Otherwise the waiter will never come.”) Figurative language is often forced. (“Little children might pee in their pants, the impact of her frown was so powerful,” goes one description.) And when the book’s frenetically evolving plot requires explanation, as if often does, much of the crucial data is simply dropped into the mouths of characters…”

When I read the cited passages in the book, they didn’t strike me as bad writing. Maybe I’m a barely literate idiot, but they didn’t.

With the menu business, the stilted dialogue between two characters happens while they are just getting to know each other. They are young women who aren’t used to having friends. They are nervous and worrying about what the other is thinking and what they should think about the other. That kind of social situation leads to saying overly obvious things like: “We should put our menus down or the waiter will never come.” That line seemed perfectly suited to the situation and the mindset of the characters.

With the second example, citing the “forced” figurative language, this thought happens in the head of a character suffering from sharp self-esteem problems. And while a beautiful girl, she can become inordinately scary looking when grimacing. It’s something she worries about a lot and will often force a smile from her lips for fear of letting slip her frightening expression. So again, that line, the childlike tone of it, the simplicity of it, I had no problem with.

I’m trying to prove anyone wrong. When it comes to art, there is no right and wrong. People like or dislike, and some people can explain with entertaining clarity why it is something repels are attracts them.

In the case of “1Q84”, all I can say is that I love it. It has a hold on my imagination. I know, like and hope for the two main characters. My perception of the real world seems a bit shifted after a long session of reading this beguiling book; things seem a bit unreal and mysterious, filled with strange connections. I half expect to look up into the sky and see a second moon, a green one, and feel the pull of the vacuum of fate, which is what I think this book is actually about.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Who knows?

I do know this about reviews and critics.

As much as I appreciate their work, a critic has never moved me. Mr. Heller will never make me re-examine the nature of life and fate. Ms. Maslin will never make me cry or laugh or write anything that will make me say wow. Critics, at best, can point to works that would otherwise go unnoticed. But do they have anything to teach me? I think maybe not. Not much anyway.

So here is a new rule for this project. I’m not going to read reviews, professional reviews, until after I’ve read the book and learned what I can from it.

My task is to discover the power and secrets of how these novels work, reverse engineering them so I can put one together myself. I’ve read enough how-to-write books and reviews, and if you could become a novelist just through reading those, I’d be rivaling Stephen King by now.

Now, back to year 1Q84. Some crazy, crazy stuff is happening, and I’m sure Janet Maslin doesn’t approve of any of it.  

1Q84 -- Give me that old time sexy assassin surrealist novel

Title: 1Q84

Author: Haruki Murakami

Progress: 25%

Amazon Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

NYT BS Hardcover/E-Book List: #25 (but was in the top 10 for a while)

Book 7 out of 107

I had read a few commercial thrillers in a row and was craving something a little deeper.

Mr. King’s “11/22/63” almost scratched that itch, but not quite. I wanted my brain fed something a little more substantial, chewy and satisfying.

“1Q84” seemed to fill that bill. And it almost adhered to my rules for this project. It was a New York Times bestseller, and did indeed feature a crime, murder in fact. I jumped right in.

Woah. Trippy.

First off, I went into it not expecting what I like in crime thriller fiction, namely, sex, violence, a sense of danger and a taste of darkness. I was expecting an arty, dense, and deep read, but without much fun. I guess I was expecting a Japanese version of a Franzen novel with a little surrealism thrown in. (When discussing Mr. Murakami, people talk about surrealism a lot.)

Not too far into the book, a sexy female assassin kills a man with needle to the base of neck.

That’s the kind of thing that might happen in a Sandra Brown novel, but not a book by a writer who collects literary awards like he’s an 8-year-old collecting little league participation trophies.

And there is sex too, not graphic scenes, but adult thoughts about erotic situations, followed by the emotional aftermath of such encounters.

To my surprise, I’m getting my thriller itch scratched and my artful literature muscle massaged. I have cake and am eating it too. Nice. Thank Mr. Murakami!

From the first 25% of “1Q84”, here is what I’ve learned…

I like character development. Pages and pages are devoted to careful construction of living characters who have been grown, groomed and perfected like perfect little origami trees, each complete unique and yet each defined to the point that there is an elegant discipline evident in the eye of the creator.

I like weird coincidences, and this novel is full of them, small patterns and references that tie to each other, creating a support structure, but for what I’m not sure yet. The mystery that drives this book isn’t an obvious one. It’s subtle, delicate. How are these two characters (the sexy assassin and the bookish giant) going to come together?

Two stories are being told, each completely separate, and toward the end of quarter one, they have begun to flirt with each other, winking, touching hands, but not quite joining yet.

The whole thing feels Japanese, the patience of it, the elegance, the simplicity that belies a deep, perhaps incomprehensible, dare I say inscrutable, complexity.

Also need to note this…Mr. Murakami, like the previous authors I’ve read, also seems to be an outliner, even though he denies it in interviews. His plan seems quite clear for Quarter One, develop the two stories, and the two main characters, and then begin the connection process at precisely the 25% mark. It happened right on schedule and the next quarter is going to go in quite a different direction now that the two halves of this novel have begun to impact each other.

Underneath it all are the mysteries that make it hard to put the book down. Who are the Little People? What’s up with the second green moon? Did the world change somehow when Aomame went down that ladder?

If this is ever a movie, and it never will be, David Lynch should write and direct. Only the auteur behind Mulholland Falls and Inland Empire could capture anything close the dizzy feeling this hypnotic novel creates.

What have we learned? First off, we learned that even an arty novel can have sexy female assassins. Good to know. Second, don’t be so afraid of character development. If they are good characters, fleshing them out with deep backstory is fine. Sometimes modern commercial thrillers speed along so fast they read more like story outlines than completed novels. At 1,000 pages, I think 1Q84 is complete, and if the first 250 are any indication, each one will be worth reading.

Make your hero suffer like you don't care what your friends think

Title: 11/22/63

Author: Stephen King

Progress: 100%

Platform: Kindle

Amazon Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

NYT BS Hardcover/E-Book List: #1 (debuted at number 1, and still at number 1)

Book 6 out of 107

Annnnnd ... we are back...

The holidays and work got in the way of this little project. Life does get in the way of our big plans, doesn't it? Fate throws things in our way, tests us, makes sure we really want what we say we want. 

That thought ties in nicely with "11/22/63," which is about about fate, about the things we can and cannot change.

When last we talked, I was halfway done reading it and had mapped out the outline Mr. King used for the first two quarters. The second two section fall perfectly into an outline, with big course changes happening at 50% and 75%.

Section Three has our hero, Jake, spying on Lee Harvey, working out if he actually was the JFK assassin or not. This is an important story problem because if Jake knows for sure, this becomes a short book. Jake kills Lee, runs back through the rabbit hole, and boom, done.

With a smidge of doubt, Jake just can't kill Lee in cold blood. He can't murder an innocent man. He has to know for sure.

This section is the most problematic, and Mr. King has said in interviews that he hopes it's not boring, all the logistics of setting up eavesdropping equipment and then doing the tedious work of actually spying on people. 

Mr. King's instinct is right. Those bits are boring. Why? Because Lee Harvey is a bore. He's a snotty, spoiled brat with delusions of grandeur. Until he picks up his rifle and goes out shooting at people, he doesn't do or say anything all that interesting. He's not actually part of a conspiracy, so Jake listens in on family arguments and political chit-chat. 

Luckily we've got the romantic sub-plot to keep us entertained. Will those crazy kids get together, our time traveler and his lovely librarian? We hope! 

The last quarter of the book is devoted to the prevention of the assassination and its aftermath. It's as  an exciting a final act as I have ever read. It's also a clever piece of clockworks that brings together all the gears, levers and springs that Mr. King has spent 100,000 words putting into the place and winding up.

Here are all the parts that come together...

1. Jake tells Sadie that he's from the future and why he is in 1962.

2. Sadie, her face horribly scarred after being attacked by her asshole ex-husband, is ready to help.

3. The mobsters who Jake has been robbing with his 100% accurate sports bet, catch up with him and beat the snot out of him. He is so injured that there is no way he can complete his mission without Sadie's help.

4. The past itself, as it has been for the entire book, makes things close to impossible. To change the future in such an epic way, the past demands a high price, punishing, heartbreaking price.

5. Lee himself reveals himself as the lone gunman, the single, arrogant asshole who decided he was special enough to change the world with nothing but a mail order rifle.

After all that comes together in the sixth floor of the Dallas Library Repository, Lee is finally stopped. The president is saved. We get what we were waiting for, and then we move into the aftermath, the effect of Jake's heroic cause.

I won't get into the ending. Some like it. Some hate it. I liked it, with some mixed feelings. 

I won't spoil the ending for you because it doesn't have anything to do with the lesson of the day. What is the lesson? Make your hero suffer like you hate him.

Yes, sure, absolutely, ever how-to-write-a-novel book says about the same thing. Yet, I've found it's hard to make my imaginary people, especially my hero, suffer. 

Part of me worries that going to far with the suffering would make my story overly dramatic and sensational. Another part of me actually feels bad for my people, doesn't want to hurt them too much, because I like them and want them to be happy.

And there is this other worry I have while writing, the worry about people I know reading my work and thinking...That is so cruel! So gross! I am so weirded out that this nice guy that I know wrote this hardcore, depressing, gross, sick stuff!

When writing, stop caring about the people in your personal life think.
Care only about keeping the reader on the page.

So I pull back. I soften. I sanitize.

Mr. King doesn't. He makes Jake suffer in a variety of ingenious ways, mentally and physically, from a cracked skull and bruised brain to the heartache of losing the love of your life. When Jake is beaten by the gangsters, you feel the pain of each steel-toed kick to the face and baseball bat to the spleen. You want it to stop, hope for it to end, and just when you think it might, Mr. King goes a little further, pummeling you as much as the hero.

I don't think Mr. King cares what the people in his personal life think. He cares far more about grabbing the reader by the neck and not letting go.

I think the lesson is if you aren't going so far that you fear offending your friends and family, you aren't going far enough.

Imagine if Stieg Larrson had cut out the anal rape scene in "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" because he was concerned about what his wife and friends would think. If he does that, the book doesn't work. We never understand Lisbeth's rage and develop the strong desire to see her come out okay. Without the rape scene, the book doesn't set the world on fire, and maybe doesn't even get published.

So what have we learned? Make your hero suffer, really suffer, suffer to the point you worry about what your family will think about you.

Next up, "1Q84."

Stephan King gets sexy in 11/22/63. Surprising!

Title: 11/22/63

Author: Stephen King

Progress: 50%

Platform: Kindle

Amazon Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

NYT BS Hardcover/E-Book List: #1 (debuted at number 1)

Book 6 out of 107

It's been a while since my last post. It's not because I've been too busy. It's because 11/22/63 is a freaking long book. I could have read The Litigators twice by now, but really, who would want to?

I'm halfway done and I remain steadfast in my opinion that Stephen King is lying when he says he doesn't outline. I think he thinks it makes him sound cool, like he's just so talented that he doesn't need a guide to get to the end of a book like the rest of us hack writers, like he's a jazz saxophone player riffing his way to the end of a bestseller without so much as making a note in a margin.

Yet, right there at 50%, bang, a major turning point, our hero Jake being sent in a new direction, one part of the story done, and another just begun.

If I could break into Mr. King's home and take a peek at his notebooks (after looking in his refrigerator, because who doesn't want to know what a guy like that eats?), I think I'd see something like this...

First Act -- We explain the rules of time travel, introduce Jake and have him go back in time to kill a guy who deserves killing. This will be a warm up act to the main event. This section is about Jake proving to himself he can take on history and win. 

Second Act -- This is the calm before the storm. Jake falls in love with the 50s, re-falls in love with teaching, then falls in love with a girl. This will make the reader love him and makes the stakes more personal. We will go into the second half of the book not just wondering about preventing JFK's murder, but worried that Jake won't get the girl and live happily ever after.

Stephen King gets romantic in Act Two of 11/22/63. More gore is sure to be around the corner. If King had baked this cake, it would be filled with blood and a time bomb filled with anthrax.

It's all working famously. Mr. King is awesome.

I was once of the opinion that one of his tricks was a little too worn. He will often lovingly develop a character, make you, the reader, care more than you really should about the fate of a fictional person. Then, cruelly and with relish, Mr. King will kill that character slowly, gruesomely and with a poet's attention to detail. I think his goal with his books from the 80s and 90s was only to terrify. The well developed characters were just a trick and felt contrived, created to be killed. This is especially obvious if you happen to read two King books in a row.

These days, as the horrorist revels in his post-death scare artistic phase, the frights don't seem to be the point. The point is about the character, about life, about love. The scares are a spice, but not the point of the meal.

This second act of 11/22/63 could be cut out, edited a bit, and released as a successful novella, a time travel love story between two misfits who find each other, he in the wrong time because of a wormhole, she in the wrong time because of her gender.

Some of the few negative reviews cite this romantic subplot as the bad thing in this book, as the thing they would like to edit out. Dumbasses.

If this were Mr. King's first novel, cutting out the romance would be the first bit of advice an editor or agent would give. Get rid of the fluff. Drive the plot forward. No cares about the characters. Readers want action. Get to the killing, blow some stuff up, can ninjas be involved? Sure, throw a little romance in there for the ladies, and a little sex for the guys, but get back to the guns as soon as you can.

Again. Dumbasses.

What have we learned this week? When your story has a heart, everything else -- the action, the gore, the frights, the dangers, the bad guys -- works better. A lot better. 

Man versus Push Back versus King kicking ass, King wins

Title: 11/22/63

Author: Stephen King

Progress: 31%

Platform: Kindle

Amazon Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

NYT BS Hardcover/E-Book List: #1 (debuted at number 1)

Book 6 out of 107

First off, Stephen King is a liar. He does outline. The evidence? Right there at the 25% mark comes the first big plot point of the book, a big gruesome tent pole moment that completes the first quarter of the story and launches us into the rest of it with great momentum. 


You can tell it’s a big King moment because it comes complete with a bloody struggle, a sledge hammer wielding maniac and a chest skewered with a bayonet. He goes for the horrific gross out and dares you to look away. You can't.

Second off, Stephen King is amazing. What a great read.

There is too much to talk about for one post – time travel, first-person narrative, bringing to life the 1950s – so I will talk about what I think is the most important lesson of the read so far. Let’s call this the lesson of Push Back.

Push Back is whatever is pushing back against your hero. In the last book, Zero Day, the Push Back against our hero, Reacher, was first the mystery of who killed the family, then the mysterious people trying to kill him, and then finally the ultimate bad guy.

A good Push Back, like a good tennis opponent, is tough, quite close to unbeatable, but just a sliver not tough enough to win the battle against our hero. However, the Push Pack should be tough enough to abuse our hero, bruise him, batter him, make him miserable, give him diarrhea (which happens in 11/22/63), and make him suffer in myriad ways.

With 11/22/63, Mr. King had an interesting problem with the Push Back. The story is about a guy who goes back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK. The hero of the story, Jake Epping, does his time traveling via a portal conveniently located in the pantry of a diner he frequents. I’m not going to get into all the details. It’s a time travel story, which means there are paradoxes and logic problem to be found if you look for them. So…moving on.

Jake’s problem, once he gets past dealing with living in the 50s (No I-Phones! No computers! No automatic transmission!), his obstacles are not that big of a deal. It would be easy enough to track a person down, kill him, then hustle back through the portal to home. Not a problem.

So here is the genius thing King does to solve his Push Back problem…Time itself starts pushing back. Every time Jake attempts to make a big change to the future (like saving a family from being murdered by an angry, drunken father), things get in his way. He gets a stomach flu. His car break down. The stairs he’s walking on crumble. He get a blinding migraine.

As convenient and contrived as the idea is, that time would seek to defend itself from being changed, it rings true. There are times, in the real world, when you are urgently trying to complete something and the universe seems to intelligently and methodically conspire against you. Have you ever had to get to the airport to catch a flight that you have just barely enough time to catch? And everything goes wrong that possibly could? Traffic is backed up due to an accident. The long term parking bus breaks down. The line to check-in looks miles long. The security line looks longer. You end up waiting in the one line with the metal detector that breaks. Arrrrrrgh!

When things start pushing back against Jake, you can relate to him, understand how he needs to work to decrease the odds of failure. He putsan extra can of gas in the car, repairs the spare tire, picks up a bottle of Kaopectate, just in case a stomach flu hits him. He needs to be paranoid and prepare for almost anything. 

He’s going to have to earn his chance to re-write history.

That feeling of the entire world being against him, testing him, making him work for his victory, that is powerful stuff and makes for tense, addictive reading. Despite the fantastic time travel plot, there is something extremely relatable about Jake and his struggle to get past fate, and a lovely taste of sweetness when he does.

What have we learned so far? Stephen King kicks ass. And he solved a story problem in a clever way that elevates this story above so many others that cover similar ground. It becomes more than just a time travel story, but a statement about man’s struggle with fate. These are big ideas delivered via a thrill ride. Nicely done.

Gauging the POV depth, plus a funny cat picture

Title: Zero Day

Author: David Baldacci

Progress: 100%

Platform: Kindle

Amazon Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

NYT BS Hardcover List: #4 (debuted at number 1)

Book 5 out of 107

Back after a few days off  for Thanksgiving with the family. With all the flying, I was able to finish off Zero Day. Nice job, Mr. Baldacci. I had a hard time putting it down. I eventually did, because reading at the Thanksgiving table would have been rude, but it was tempting to just keep on reading in between passing the stuffing and green bean casserole.

There are lots of things to learn from Zero Day, but as I'm anxious to get into the next book, I'll deal with just two.

I don't like riding in cars and I don't come when called. David Baldacci is now on my list,
and you don't want to be on Angry Cat's list.

First, (SPOILER ALERT!) at the end of the book, our hero Jack Reacher hits the road after a long, difficult case. He needs some downtime. He decides to go for a long drive. So he packs up his cat, named AWOL, and hits the road.

The cat sits peacefully in the backseat. The cat, at a gas station, leaves the car, goes somewhere to do his business, and then returns to the car with no coaxing.

As the owner of many cats, I can safely say that Mr. Baldacci has never owned or spent time around felines. They don't ride peacefully in the back seats of cars. Instead, they howl, meow and cry, detesting everything about the experience of being transported in a big, loud, stinky machine. I believe they consider it undignified.

Also, they do not, ever, ever, behave as dogs would behave. They don't come when called. They don't take care of business on a handy piece of grass and return to their vehicles. A cat set free, especially after a long car ride, is not going to obediently jump back into the back seat when finished. That cat will either run away or find something to hide under where he can watch you as he curses the day you were born.

This lack of cat knowledge is surprising because everything else in Zero Day is researched to within an inch of its life. I'm fairly certain I could build a decent nuclear bomb after taking in the last 50 pages where we get a detailed yet clear explanation of how such a bomb could be made.

The second thing, and this I think is the more interesting lesson, is about what I'll call the POV Depth Level, or POVDL.

As I think I made that term up, I get to define it. Let's go with... The depth that an author chooses to go into the the thinking of a character.

With the books I've read so far, the POVDL is quite high, more on the surface. In the thriller genre, the rule seems to be to reveal no thinking that doesn't immediately concern the plot. If it doesn't move the story forward, it doesn't hit the page.

Sure, sometimes we get a wise crack or quick observation about an attractive female (I've encountered nothing but male protagonists so far), but otherwise the hero's thinking is devoted almost exclusively to the case at hand as he reasons through the clues and plans out next steps.

In Shock Wave, the POVDL is so high I had a hard time getting into the head of the character and relating to him. Because of that, the book didn't grab me by the throat and make me care.

Not so with Zero Day. Jack Reacher became a real person to me. I think I could recognize him if I saw him on the street. I know a good bit of his likes and dislikes, how he treats people, what motivates him, and what scares him. I like him and  care about him. If he had died at the end of the book, which considering the situation was quite likely, I would have been angry. I'm looking forward to spending more time with him.

Having said all that, we don't actually get too deep into his thoughts. We get enough to make him come to life, but we get only a rare few bits that aren't related to solving the murders and tracking down a potential terrorist cell.  

Yet there were some perfect opportunities to get more into his thoughts. He is clearly attracted to the tough yet beautiful sheriff, Sam (short for Samantha), and aside from one admiring glance, we don't get to hear his internal monologue about what he really thinks about her, what he finds attractive about her, what he thinks of her eyes, her legs, or anything else about her.

In another section, he interviews a suspect who was kicked out of the Army due to the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. Reacher tells the guy, "DADT was bullshit," but we don't get to know if he actually thinks that. What does he think about gays serving the military? It would be interesting to know as he had completed six tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq and has the medals and scares to prove it.

I liked Zero Day a lot, and I think it is an excellent example of a competent, entertaining thriller. 

I do wonder if it would have been more entertaining, and more effective, if Mr. Baldacci had moved a bit deeper into the POVDL of Reacher. I'm not asking for Franzen-level of introspection (but I do wonder what a Franzen-written thriller would be like). I'm asking for these thrillers I've assigned myself to read to give me a little something more than a few thrills that fade away as soon as I'm done reading.

Mr. Baldacci did give me a character I will remember for a long time, and am looking forward to meeting again. Here's hoping I get to know him a little better next time around.

What did we learn? I'm not sure. We did explore a bit my theory that the thriller genre could benefit from a deeper POVDL. Not sure I'm right about that. I'm hoping to find the book that proves the theory soon.

Next up, Stephen King's 11/22/63. I know, it's not technically a crime thriller, but it does feature a notable crime, people do get shot, and there are thrills. I'm stretching the rules a bit. I have a feeling there is a lot to learn in that one. Four and a half stars on Amazon so far. That is tough to do. 

Baldacci right on time with Zero Hour

Title: Zero Day

Author: David Baldacci

Progress: 25%

Platform: Kindle

Amazon Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

NYT BS Hardcover List: #4 (debuted at number 1)

Book 5 out of 107

In case you were wondering, here is how I'm choosing books for this project...

As soon as I finish a book, a go to the New York Times Bestseller's list for combined print and E-book fiction. The next book will be the highest on that list that falls within the broad range of crime thriller or mystery. I'm going for real world settings, no sci-fi or fantasy, though I love them both. 

I am looking for the best, or at least the most popular, books that have someone getting murdered in an early chapter. Or, as in the case of The Litigators, a clear conflict that will be resolved after several chapters of building tension.

I'm now on book 5, and now I have a few more rules.

I'm going to write a post at every quarter mark (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%), so I'll be posting a little less so I can read more. 

Those particular marks are good stopping points because thriller writers seem to outline based on those marks. The stories I've read so far all take important turns at the quarter marks, and I think that's by design.

Let's talk about outlining for a minute...

Stephen King says he doesn't write  with an outline, and he probably doesn't need to. He is writing epics. His books stretch for a thousand pages or more and have lives of their own, obeying their own rules of fiction, rules that Mr. King seems to make up as he goes along. He's like a jazz musician, playing within a certain key and construct, and then improvising as wildly and energetically as he can.

Thriller writer can't do that. These stories must be tight, effective, and deliver satisfaction in about 300 pages. Tom Clancy got away with some fat books, but everyone else in the genre keeps it tight. It's what the fans want. And when your publisher wants a book a year, I would guess tightly outlining is the way to go.

In my own experience of starting and abandoning novel projects, I used to be anti-outline, because I was too cool for that, too much of an artiste. Then I switched to screenplays, which have a lot rules, including a three act structure that every reader looks for. 

At first, I kind of hating all those screenwriting rules, which seemed so limiting, like the writer was reduced to changing a few variables in a formula, as opposed to creating something fresh.

You know what didn't happen when I writing screenplays? Writers block. Why? I had an outline. I had a plan. I knew where to go. I didn't always know how I would get there, but having a landmark to reach made writing so much easier.

On this novel I'm currently working on, I've got an outline l like a lot. I've got some big scenes that I think will work. I've got a finale I love. All those ideas came into existence because is started with an outline. 

An outline is a compass. It's a guide, nothing more. It's a tool, not a pair of handcuffs.

Getting back to Zero Day...

Holy shit. David Baldacci can write. This is the best book I've read so far as part of this project.

Here is what Mr. Baldacci does that I really like...

1. Killer opening that immediately establishes the mystery. A mailman discovers a murder scene that sends him running out of the house puking. We don't get to see inside the house, but we know that what is in their is horrible. The mailman puke on the lawn is proof.

2. Disciplined devotion to the main character, John Reacher. We stay almost exclusively in his point of view, and the only time we leave it is when another character has something to think about Reacher. This character is becoming real to me in a way that the other books I've read couldn't pull off. I am not saying this is a character-driven book. It is flying forward with great momentum, dropping plot twists at the end of every chapter, increasing the body count at disturbing rate. Even with all that action, Reacher to growing to be a fully realized, detailed and complex character.

3. Supporting characters get some love. When a supporting character takes the stage, Mr. Baldacci gives them a little something to bring them to life. He gives them each a little more description and dialogue than other authors will allow. This creates a richness to the world without slowing the story down. Also, because we are always in Reacher's POV, we are getting his views on these new people, so not only are we getting to know new characters, but are also learning more about how Reacher thinks. It's a great trick.

What have we learned? A lot. There is a lot to learn from Mr. Baldacci.