I did something this week that I haven’t done in a long time. I deleted titles from my ereader. I do this when I finish a book and post a review and/or a star rating on Goodreads. But the ones I got rid of this week were books I didn’t finish. Both boxed sets were by authors new to me. I saw their books on Kobo. The descriptions looked interesting. I read the first couple of pages, and the writing seemed good. At one time in my life, I would force myself to finish each book I started. I don’t anymore.
The first book hinted at a species other than humans on Earth. No problem. I like paranormal stories. The prequel didn’t tell me what the characters were. The one I thought was the heroine, died. The next one I thought was the heroine spent the first several chapters in book one participating in behavior I found odd for a heroine. There could have been trigger warnings, but the author didn’t include them. I deleted the book because I didn’t understand the main conflict, I wasn’t told or given a hint as to what kind of creature the hero was, and I kept losing the connection between the main characters and the supporting cast.
The second boxed set I deleted was an alien romance. I’ve written a couple of science fiction romance stories. I know there is a wide variety of space opera, military sci-fi, and alien romances. I was interested in the premise of the series. But when the male aliens spoke with modern slang, weren’t described, and the heroine bounced back and forth between trusting and disliking the hero, I stopped reading.
In sharing this with a writer friend, we talked about how authors engage the reader. I thought perhaps the author from my first example wanted to keep the reader turning pages so they would find out what kind of creatures were in the story. Maybe the second author thought that making the alien hero just like a human hero would have readers relating to the alien. She said she stopped reading a popular series because of the hard core language and description used during spicy scenes. We both wondered if that author thought they needed to be graphic in order to hold a reader’s attention.
Holding a reader’s attention might also be behind some authors’ use of AI to quickly produce books. If they slip for a month, perhaps they fear they’ll loose their following.
I write romantic suspense, a subgenre that is currently less popular than many other subgenres. My settings change, sometimes my characters have supernatural powers, but there is always a mystery to solve or a villain to battle. The books that keep my attention when I read, and the stories I write, have layers. Various conflicts and characters and themes make my stories immersive and intriguing. Probably not everyone who starts one of my books finishes it. But one of my goals as an author is to lead the reader on an adventure. I might temporarily hide the villain or a clue to solve the mystery, and my characters have their own speech and mannerisms. I don’t write for every reader, but I use honest words to weave a tale that holds the reader’s attention.
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