Ian Lesnik: "Dear Carmen Maria Machado: We Read Fantasy Like Children, Not Adults"

 Dear Carmen Machado: We Read Fantasy Like Children, Not Adults

By Ian Lesnik

            When you're deciding what to read, outside of school, what compels you to pick up a particular book? And once you've started, what's the worst thing an author can do? What makes you decide not to finish something?

            Much like children, it’s fairly difficult to get the attention of a reader, and much more difficult to keep it for the hours that it takes to read an entire book. Considering the sheer number of fictional stories someone could pick up, the only thing a book is to me before I begin reading is a title and perhaps the brief introduction on its covers or some website. Recommendations can also influence what I read, but those often consist mainly of already immensely popular books, and people such as myself don’t have the time to read far past these lists. I’m afraid I don’t have much more than that regarding what compels me to read a book other than that it aligns with my interests, but there are a few things that would result in me casting a book aside indefinitely.

            Something I constantly see authors fail to do is try to tell two stories simultaneously. The method for doing this that I’m more familiar with is through a series of books where each one focuses on a specific character and then later books bring them together. One of my favorite series, The Age Of Fire by E. E. Knight, attempts to do this, however when reading through the novels I felt that the transition between the first and second books, Champion and Avenger, was inadequate. Not only does the second book suffer from the reader wanting to return to the character they’re already invested in from the first book, AuRon, but the writing style and story that unfolds is so different that it almost feels like each book is intended for a different audience. This results in some people who enjoyed the first book stopping during the second because of this unexpected change. If the reader wanted a story that involved such a starkly different topic they would begin with another series instead of continuing. Rather than completely dropping the series, I decided to move on to the third book, Outcast, that yet again involved a different main character. However, the story returned to the same pace and type of story that was set in Champion with similarities between the struggles the characters face with AuRon having no scales for protection and Outcast’s RuGaard having a crippled arm and initially no name. Although Outcast still pulled the reader away from Champion, the similarities between the characters, writing, and events allowed Outcast to still be enjoyable for me. The other method for telling two stories simultaneously is switching between characters after each chapter. However, this is just as excruciating as the first method for me because once I begin to feel attached to one character I’ll begin to dread chapters involving the other character, even to the point of skipping them.

            Another thing authors have done that hinders my ability to enjoy their book involves telling me too many things that, in the grand scheme of the book or series, do not matter. This was something I also felt during E. E. Knight’s Avenger and contributed to my decision to skip the second half of the book. This became apparent to me as I read the final three books in the series, Strike, Rule, and Fate. Of course I did not know one or two characters, but their roles in the over-arching story were minor and I hadn’t felt like I had missed very much. I’ve also heard similar things about J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers from friends and online sources alike to skim the book instead of read it for enjoyment due to Tolkien’s detailed writing while very little happens. This obstacle has pushed me toward other books rather than finishing the series.

            Because people primarily read fantasy for pleasure, pulling them away from characters they already know in an attempt to introduce another only impedes the reader from experiencing the story they want to. Likewise, excessive time spent away from these characters in descriptions or meaningless events feels more like empty space within the actual story and reduces how much the reader can enjoy. Introducing either of these things can result in a reader finding another book that they can derive more happiness from, similar to how children will tend to choose benefit now rather than more benefit later.