What are some techniques used in books that you just love for some weird reason

Submitted by shorttompkins t3_ztiznm in books

I'll give an example - for some reason I really love when an author will put breaks in a book that defines the next section. Basically a blank page with a single word that teases whats next. Or even when the book is just broken into sections and you get that sudden page break with a basic title. I really cant explain it but I just love it - it builds this weird type of suspense or something for me. Its almost as if I can hear a bass drop when I hit that page!

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boringbonding t1_j1e7ywx wrote

I love when a fiction book includes well researched non-fiction elements like telling you the (correct) history of certain things, describing the process that is used to do real life things, giving insight into certain ways of life, etc. Or in fantasy, giving realistic detailed processes for things that aren’t necessarily realistic.

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Optimistic__Elephant t1_j1ezprn wrote

Les Mis is full of that. There’s chapters on the history of sewers if I remember correctly.

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tintinsays t1_j1ha7e0 wrote

There is. To be fair, this is because it was printed chapter by chapter so he got paid more the more he wrote. Still fascinating chapters!

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Hopefulcupcake3255 t1_j1heitt wrote

Or how detailed he got about rituals in nunnery. For my 12 yrs old brain growing up in Iran, I had my parallel world of living in 20th century but shared experience of nuns ...

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The__Imp t1_j1kjstp wrote

I’ve heard them called divergences of genius. There’s also one that is basically a 50 page blow by blow retelling of the principal actions in the battle of Waterloo that is only barely tangentially related to a story.

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TheGrumpyre t1_j1ehz23 wrote

It's one of those magic tricks for a writer, where if they can convincingly describe something that the reader knows to be real, it lends extra credibility to the parts where they describe things that only exist in imagination.

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Merle8888 t1_j1gejtd wrote

I wish more of them did it. My experience with books is that if you know something about something, you’d best avoid novels touching on the topic because they’ll only frustrate you, even if the uninitiated think they’re well-researched.

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TheGrumpyre t1_j1ghgod wrote

Indeed. I pity all fantasy fans who also know a lot about horses.

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Merle8888 t1_j1gimro wrote

Definitely! I can attest that knowing about politics and governance as a fantasy fan is almost as bad.

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tintinsays t1_j1haaif wrote

Absolutely. If you know where your towel is, you’re a real hoopy frood who must have just misplaced the rest of your belongings.

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AmateurEverything04 t1_j1epbaa wrote

This is one of the many reasons that “Contact” by Carl Sagan is my favorite book of all time.

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hgaterms t1_j1fmf74 wrote

Same with "The Martian." The amount of scientific accuracy research that went into that book is astounding.

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Research_Sea t1_j1fjx5n wrote

There's a certain fantasy vampire/supernatural series that often gets a lot of flack, but I love specifically how intensely the author researches the topics. If there are details about snakes, local wildlife, geography, types of fighting, weapons etc, they've been painstakingly researched and it shows. Absolutely love it.

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Hambone102 t1_j1gcirc wrote

The way of kings does this perfectly, so much of the world is defined to a point it’s pretty interesting to learn about something new or new discoveries

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DrakeRagon t1_j1gj620 wrote

In fantasy, I really like seeing the real life historical aspects explored, even if in passing.

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RigorouslyStupid t1_j1dymg0 wrote

I like stories inside stories that last for a large section

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bxsephjo t1_j1epxc4 wrote

Lemme introduce you to this chick I know, her name’s Scheherazade, she’s perfect for you, I swear you’ll love her

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ClarkTwain t1_j1e9gll wrote

I just finished The Revisionaries by A.R. Moxon and it will give you this in spades

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booksandspooks t1_j1ee01z wrote

The best book I read this year. Such an incredible ride.

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ClarkTwain t1_j1eg760 wrote

I couldn’t agree more. I’m very glad I read it.

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[deleted] t1_j1epus3 wrote

[deleted]

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riancb t1_j1ezn0w wrote

Get outta here with that Chaucer fanfic. Canterbury Tales are where it’s at! Lol.

Hyperion’s fantastic. Excellent recommendation.

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cinnapear t1_j1ebs5k wrote

Gotta love The Manuscript Found in Saragossa and One Thousand and One Nights.

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patientpedestrian t1_j1eeb9r wrote

Everything is ever all an unbound infinity of story, but we as creatures bound by time are forced to focus far too often on the frames that individually adorn each cross-section of narrative present.

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Apophthegmata t1_j1ect01 wrote

The Princess Bride, The Never Ending Story, and of course, Hamlet.

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dance-song-97 t1_j1ee72j wrote

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Colonel Aureliano’s wars are a book within a book.

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deepthoughtsby t1_j1enovt wrote

“The world, according to Garp” has a story written by the protagonist, who is an author, that I think may be better than the entire rest of the book.

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Wendybird13 t1_j1fuglk wrote

A Widow for One Year by John Irving has 4 characters who are writers, and we get excerpts or synopses of their books, interwoven with the real life events that inspired those stories. Also, there is a scene where a character tells his daughter a family story she never knew before that almost feels like a stand-alone novella. If you like Garp, you will love A Widow for One Year.

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JonnySnowflake t1_j1etiae wrote

The Window Through the Keyhole has a character tell a story, then a character in that story tells a story

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treetrnk t1_j1fhfwg wrote

You should read Frankenstein, if you haven't already. It's a story of a guy who makes a friend that tells his life story where talks to another person who tells his life story and in that story is another story of a family that he observed. It goes 4 layers deep.

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kgxv t1_j1eq0xe wrote

So you must be a big fan of Shelley’s Frankenstein

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saalamander t1_j1g6y6n wrote

I hate that more than anything lol. I just finished Misery by Stephen King and I completely skipped the parts that were a book within a book.

I understand the imagery and foreshadowing and all of that, but they just remind me of when characters have dreams in books in that the plot isn’t really progressing.

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txberafl t1_j1el367 wrote

If you like science fiction, Time Enough for Love is like this. It immediately popped in my head when I read your description.

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boxer_dogs_dance t1_j1fgi80 wrote

Ugh. I like Heinlein but with Time Enough for Love he could have used a better editor IMHO. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

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eezzy23 t1_j1fs8iv wrote

Have you read extremely loud and incredibly close?

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stumbling_disaster t1_j1gyxtm wrote

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is about 50% book within a book. It was a great read.

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Anewnameformyapollo t1_j1jecqz wrote

Man so many responses and nobody has mentioned “If on a winter’s night a traveler”. 2/3 of that book is pieces of other books that never get finished.

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Book_1love t1_j1e9wb5 wrote

The only good part of the Twilight series was when Bella’s depression was represented by several mostly blank pages with only the month written on each page to show the passage of time.

The context around the situation was really stupid, but the blank pages were great.

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Anon-fickleflake t1_j1exjy8 wrote

The blank pages of Twilight are the best part. I concur.

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PatheticMutant t1_j1f00xq wrote

The twilight books have brought happiness to over 100 million real people so it’s still a net good for society even if you found it bad.

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hgaterms t1_j1fmnok wrote

As much as it pains me to say it, I agree with you.

The book is STRAIGHT TRASH, and not my jam. But if someone read it and they love it, damn who am I to shit on them for enjoying it?

I mean, I will shit on them, but not to their face. I believe in letting people enjoy their life. I'll be over here laughing, but also enjoying my own stupid shit too.

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PatheticMutant t1_j1fnxs9 wrote

Of course they’re trash lmao! Like I “look down on” adults that get obsessed with Harry Potter and stuff but I’m not going to pretend like those books are some scourge on our civilization or whatever (shitty author aside).

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phantom_fox13 t1_j1f2lqz wrote

I admittedly poke fun at Twilight, but people can enjoy whatever they want unironically or ironically.

I guess when I do get frustrated by its popularity, it's more on the wave of similar vampire portrayals, definitely not to my taste, that seemed to suffocate the market for a while. Or anytime you mentioned vampires, some people assumed you meant you were a Twilight fan.

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[deleted] t1_j1f1h1m wrote

[deleted]

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PatheticMutant t1_j1fmll6 wrote

You think Twilight is “bad” for people? What other recreational activities do you feel this way about?

It’s a fucking young adult book that a bunch of people spent 8 hours of their life on lmfao. Acting like it’s some scourge of civilization is snobbish in the most pathetic way possible.

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ReturnOfSeq t1_j1fq0qj wrote

Twilight was meh and opted into the easiest possible deus ex machina ‘happy endings for everyone!’, but I enjoyed some of the maneuvering, and really enjoyed the premise that some people get some characteristic amplified into a semiunique superpower when turned into a vampire.

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LordOf2HitCombo t1_j1e074e wrote

I like a good digression wherein we get a random character's perspective for just one chapter. They are usually not central to the main narrative, but it's like they happened to find themselves in some circumstances that directly or indirectly influence the main story.

For example, one chapter in the middle of The Hunchback of Notre Dame is entitled "History Of A Leavened Cake Of Maize", and it introduces us to a boy and his family who are passing through around where the story takes place and who basically give us some exposition about a secondary character from the main plot. Of course, we also get to know a little about their dynamic and personalities. They never return again.

A perhaps slightly less illustrative example is in "Nine Perfect Strangers", where the story is told from the perspective of guests who are staying at a resort and some employees. One of the guests is a writer and is mortified after a book critic had some not-very-nice things to say about her latest effort. This book critic is only one of the author's problems, and she is mentioned a few times, only once by name. When all the characters are getting chapters near the end devoted to explaning what happened to them after the events of the main story, out of nowhere we get a(n extremely short) chapter from the critic's perspective and it's genuinely one of the funniest bits of literature I've ever read.

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New-Presentation8856 t1_j1eppll wrote

The Moonstone passes the narrative around from character to character in a similar manner (probably one of the first books to do that) and it too is a delight! Every character has an opinion.

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mmorix t1_j1fcdhp wrote

Ooooo yes, Wilkie Collins is such a gem.

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valhrona t1_j1g46rc wrote

Victor Hugo does this a lot, especially in Les Misérables, where his digressions about churches and convents, Waterloo, Parisian sewers and street urchins, riots and revolutions....take up about a quarter of the actual novel. I enjoy them, but you have to be in the right mood.

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lucia-pacciola t1_j1i1lls wrote

The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe, has several stories within the main story. Including a fairly long section in Claw of the Conciliator where the protagonist judges a story competition.

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zebrafish- t1_j1mawd9 wrote

I don’t know if you’re looking for recommendations, but one of my favorite examples of this is in The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel!

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guesswho-2022 t1_j1es4eg wrote

I really like that thing that Stephen King does where there's a word (phrase) in parentheses in the middle of a sentence, as if the character's thoughts are trying (succeeding) to break into the narrative flow.

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moeru_gumi t1_j1euggs wrote

I also like this— like what the character is trying to “tell” you is at odds with what they REALLY believe in their own mind.

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RankledCat t1_j1f85ci wrote

While we’re praising our King, I absolutely love the chapters he writes from an animal’s point of view.

This is difficult writing and he does it masterfully.

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eline_28 t1_j1fmlho wrote

I love those things! Knowing you have this kind of "control" over the story and/or the character(s) bc you know what they really feel and can perhaps identify yourself to them even more yk. Sometimes it’s just random things to emphasize their hate towards someone and it’s just funny but still brings something more in that specific moment. Anyways that’s just my simple opinion of it :)

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boxer_dogs_dance t1_j1e3cq6 wrote

I find epistolary novels satisfying. I also take great pleasure in Terry Pratchett's footnotes.

Edit, since everyone is recommending books, some favorites are the Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Dracula and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

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HILBERT_SPACE_AGE t1_j1ekeky wrote

Footnotes! Love 'em. I haven't read it since I was a teen but I remember the Bartimaeus trilogy also having hysterically funny footnotes.

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tintinsays t1_j1hais2 wrote

If you love footnotes, may I suggest Infinite Jest.

Or, as some may call it, Infinite Footnote.

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likeafuckingninja t1_j1fdyg0 wrote

I loved the bartimaeus trilogy.

Especially the footnote.

I don't like stories told in first person. But third person with first person sarcastic commentary? Sign me up!

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Calembreloque t1_j1fh5cg wrote

For a nice and cozy epistolary experience, I recommend The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

For a sad and gut-wrenching epistolary experience, I recommend Address Unknown.

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boxer_dogs_dance t1_j1fk4he wrote

Thank you. Based on Address Unknown, you might appreciate Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin and Guerin the Brown Plague.

It's worth it to read the wiki about Fallada's life. He had a promising career cut short by the Nazis.

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Athragio t1_j1fbi3x wrote

> footnotes

So have you ever heard of this guy David Foster Wallace? He might know a thing or two about footnotes.

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shorttompkins OP t1_j1e5zuc wrote

I also love when an author uses this trick well - where they foreshadow something very subtly with basically a spoiler but you never know when/how its going to work out. Something along the lines of "so and so mentioned needing to remember to do something tomorrow, even though ultimately it wouldn't matter". (terribly poor example on my part) You're just like "ohh shit, it's about to go down but I have no idea what that means!!"

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TheGrumpyre t1_j1ejx0a wrote

Have you seen the movie Stranger Than Fiction? They talk about that important phrase "little did he know"...

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gomets6091 t1_j1ex0qc wrote

Stephen King does that a lot, and I agree it's really good when done right

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Maninhartsford t1_j1f0ome wrote

I like it sometimes but he definitely overuses it. I remember at one point in Under The Dome I was like "hey, stop with the spoilers"

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tommy_the_bat t1_j1f0gym wrote

Absolutely hate this device :/ Interesting that you enjoy it though!

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Psychological_Tap187 t1_j1fxf36 wrote

They laughed and parted ways for the night not knowing that that would be the last time they would all be together under such happy circumstances.

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things2small2failat t1_j1gaca3 wrote

She tapped out a brisk reply to the comment and then hesitated as she picked up her coffee. The coffee wasn’t hot anymore and there was no comfort to be had in holding the cup. The reply was fine, she thought. No one would read it anyway. And even if someone did, there was nothing in it to identify her.

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TehDandiest t1_j1er0dv wrote

I love Hemingway. His style of writing just works for me. He'll use short sentences; abrupt, to the point, with few adjectives. Then build up slowly without you realising that the sentences are getting longer and longer. The emotional impact increases, bombarding you with more punctuation at every single step, carrying you forward, almost against your will until you're out of breath, brutally and relentlessly. Then he'll stop.

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Black-Sam-Bellamy t1_j1dpsn1 wrote

Not really the answer to the question you asked, but I've seen multiple people angry about the litany against fear from Dune, because it's wierd nerd shit but it WORKS.

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Electrical-Sea7108 t1_j1ehy1l wrote

Love the whole "delayed decoding" technique where something is stated very casually and you only understand its true implication a little later. Heart of Darkness has this and I really like it when the understanding makes me go "Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit".

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SmoSays t1_j1f5ejk wrote

Oh me too. That's something I loved about the whole Silence Will Fall plotline in doctor who

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moeru_gumi t1_j1etgf6 wrote

Chapter titles.

For some reason they’ve fallen out of favor. Or else people are just lazy. But a chapter title can and should increase anticipation of what’s coming, and help you recall it later. Of course the chapter titles in Lord of the Rings are the most perfect example I can think of for this, but who can say they aren’t filled with interest when they read a chapter is titled “Shadows of the Past” or “Many Partings”?

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beruon t1_j1g43pc wrote

Titles I love, excerpt type stuff like in some childrens vook I always HATED with passikn even when I was a kid. "Chapter 3, where Winnie goes over to Rabbit for a tea party". Like even as a kid I was like "CAN YOU NOT SPOIL THE WHOLE STUFF???". For the brief time my parents were reasing to me (brief, bwcause I leanred to read at age 5 lmao) I always asked them to skip that

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moeru_gumi t1_j1g7td6 wrote

Keep in mind that A. A. Milne, who wrote Winnie the Pooh, was born in 1882.

​

This reddit thread gathers some information that chapters starting with "In Which Our Hero Goes To Have a Tea Party" etc etc. is a style from the 1700s and 1800s.

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatstheword/comments/8t9hjr/wtw_for_chapter_titles_that_all_start_with_in/

When he had stories read to him as a child, they could have easily been from the 1700s, like Winnie The Pooh, Sherlock Holmes, The Wind in the Willows, and A Christmas Carol are read to us and are over 100 years old now. When he wrote chapters in Pooh that describe the plot in the chapter title, he was probably doing it as a sort of quaint throwback to his own childhood reading. When it bothered you in your childhood, you were reacting to a nearly three hundred year old writing trope.

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beruon t1_j1g7zei wrote

Damn thats interesting. Does not change my thoughts on it, but its really interesting how old id a trope is that! Thanks!

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longdustyroad t1_j1e4tji wrote

I love short chapters.

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hgaterms t1_j1fmsw8 wrote

I also love chapters that end on a cliff hanger.

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clamwaffle t1_j1jbaxw wrote

saaaame, i used to be someone who would stop a reading session in the middle of a chapter, but now i just can’t for whatever reason. long chapters make it really difficult mow because even though i might be tired, i force myself to read to the end of the chapter

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UsrLocalBinPython3 t1_j1emoj5 wrote

An epigraph at the beginning of each chapter. They’re usually from classics/mythology (i.e. Watership Down), but then Dune has epigraphs from in-universe books and such. It just makes that universe seem that much bigger and mysterious, that there are all these books in it that we only have tiny excerpts from.

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phantom_fox13 t1_j1f37i0 wrote

I really love when books manage to tie in "natural feeling" references to world building cultures such as their specific classics or mythology. Like, yes please give me a glimpse into a religion or history in this world!

Admittedly, at times I've been a bit disappointed when they feel like parodies of "real" literature (instead of inspired by) when the tone isn't meant to be funny.

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beruon t1_j1g3pfp wrote

Oh absolutely. Warhammer 40k does this a lot with in-universe military manuals and stuff and its AMAZING.

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LordOfDorkness42 t1_j1es7il wrote

Love first person stories that's locked to one person.

It's a TOUGH perspective to write well in, but when it works I find it the most exciting one since you learn one individual character on such a deep level. Even something as small as what they focus or ignore can be a huge deal.

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SmoSays t1_j1f8h57 wrote

I know 1st person gets a lot of hate but I love it so much that I primarily write in it. I write a lot of romantic comedies and thrillers and both lend themselves well to the format. For a romcom it feels like a person is telling you their story and it kind of helps the humor (I like standup comedy and this feels like that as well). For thrillers, you get to experience the rush, the fear, the disgust, the terror, all ok this sort of claustrophobic way which heightens everything I think.

But that's just what works for me. I have no issue with the other perspectives or those who choose to write them. This is just what I find works for me

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thepr3tty-wreckless t1_j1i0qfk wrote

I didn’t know people dislike first person (I guess different strokes…)! It’s my favorite kind of book. And honestly it’s hard for me to get into third person. It can be sooo cheesy. “She walked to the window and looked longingly across the lake… her hair shining in the moon’s reflection, falling swiftly down her back…” etc just makes my eyes roll and completely takes me out of it lol

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mechajlaw t1_j1ebqu5 wrote

I like the crazy footnotes in House of Leaves and Infinite Jest. I really like going down the rabbit hole on weird tangents. I also like the bizarre side stories in Catch 22 and Gravity's Rainbow, they really made WW2 feel huge, unwieldy and strange which created a super cool setting.

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ladygoodgreen t1_j1hyfv4 wrote

I haven’t read either of those books, but Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell has wicked footnotes. It was almost my favourite thing about that excellent book.

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mechajlaw t1_j1ik4jm wrote

Funny you should mention that because I have that book right now after I absolutely loved Pirenesi. My wife makes fun of me for having a type when it comes to books, and this is probably why.

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ladygoodgreen t1_j1ivqxc wrote

Piranesi was good as well! They have a similar otherworldly feel to them but other than that they are very different books. I hope you enjoy this one too!

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ResoluteClover t1_j1etqf6 wrote

I like it when in fiction/fantasy they introduce technology or slang or some magic but treat it like it's ubiquitous rather than something that has to be explained to the reader.

It gives the reader a bit of a mystery but at the same time let's you really get immersed in the telling when there aren't huge out of context exposition drops.

For instance, imagine you're taking a story about right now to a person who time traveled from the 1960s. Rather than explain to them what cell phone is you describe your interactions with it normally.

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clamwaffle t1_j1jb15f wrote

unless my memory is failing me, foundryside by robert jackson bennett does this. you learn as you go. it’s really nice, but having waited years between books in the trilogy (and that the series is lesser known) really took me out of some moments when i was racking my brain trying to figure out/remember what some of the devices and stuff they use were

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According_Smoke_479 t1_j1er3bm wrote

I really like when authors create fictional towns or locations set in the real world and give them a really rich and believable history. For example Derry from IT. I genuinely thought that was a real town for a while. It’s just really cool to me that he made a whole map of the town and had so many details about historical events that happened there. It is inspired by a real place (Bangor, ME) but it’s not an exact recreation of it, there are a lot of things that he added or changed.

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crystalsinwinter t1_j1e54oe wrote

I love it when creative writing styles are used. Here are some that I love in some books I have:

  1. One book series I have is completely written in America Online instant messages, America Online Instant Messenger, online emails, complete with the fully detailed dialogue boxes, options, etc.
  2. One book I have is written in a Blackberry and traditional book paragraph formatting.
  3. One book I have is written completely in Twitter tweets and Twitter direct messages, and in true Twitter colors.
  4. One book I have has three writing perspectives in it: One has an old-fashioned calligraphy type font to tell the story about characters in a book. The second writing perspective is the characters that live in the book play-acting the scenes in the book and having to act, dress, say the same things every time anyone reads that book. The third perspective is the main girl in the book who loves to read that book and then discovers the characters in the book are REAL and she can hear them and see them move around.
  5. One series I used to have has one half of the book being from the female's version of the same events and when you flip the books upside down, the other half is the same story but from a male's version.
  6. One series I have is very interesting. You read what the author writes and then every time the main person in one of the books has to make a decision, you get to decide. Go to page x to read on with the choice from x or go to page y if you chose the choice that's with y. I like to go back and read everything from both choices eventually just to see the author's creativity. :)
  7. One book I have has the story written on post cards, post-it notes, notebook paper.
  8. One series I have and another unrelated book both have traditional book paragraphs and Internet blog text boxes and settings.
  9. One book I have has one of the most intriguing writing forms I have ever seen. There are two girls in the book. One girl's thoughts are in run-on essays in all of her chapters. The other girl has very chopped up short thoughts in every line in all of her chapters. The chapters alternate in the book.
  10. One book by three authors, but while each author writes her own book, they are all tied in somehow to the first book but they are not a series. They are their own books in one book.

Edit: Hi, everyone. lol I have seen a bunch of fellow book lovers want the titles of these books. I have tons of books and some I don't right now know the information but I will share the many I "do" know the information for. Here are six.

  1. Tweet Heart by Elizabeth Rudnick is in Twitter tweets, blogs, Twitter direct messages, and emails..
  2. Men At Work is in the Harlequin Romance genre. I skip the sexy pages but everything else is amazing to read. It is a compilation of three books all in one book. Through The Roof by Karen Kendall is a romantic comedy about a man from Peru and his wife who is as they say "richer than God" in the USA and her charity to help underprivileged people using men from construction (because her husband is a construction worker) to pose for the calendar for charity. Taking His Measure by Cyndi Meyers is about the calendar photographer and a friend in construction who is redoing a house potentially for sale that happens to be the house she wants to buy, her dream house to call home before she realizes people, not places give her a home. Watching It Go Up by Colleen Collins is about the petite but punky blonde private investigator the wife in the first book hired to find her husband who wants to divorce his wife because he's too proud to ask her to give him more money to fund his construction business. The private investigator gets hired for another job surveilling an American Indian Skywalker (They are called Skywalkers because they are fearless.) but it turns out the crimes happening put her in danger the more she investigates and the target becomes her hero when the real killer shows up. :)
  3. What If... by Liz Ruckdeschel and Sara James is a series about choosing your destiny. You as the reader get to decide every time the characters have to make an important decision, what their next decision will be.
  4. I can't find the series I used to read where every individual book has its own author and every book was half from the girl's version and flipped upside down the other half was the guy's version. lol My dad had me donate my books back then because he thought I had too many books. lol
  5. TTFN series by Lauren Myracle is a series where every book is titled by an Internet popular letter message such as TTFN (Ta Ta For Now), L8R, G8R (Later, Gator), and more). Everything in the book is in America Online instant messages and conference messages. It in my opinion is a bit too intense for teens even though it's about teens. But maybe it's a good thing these issues are brought to light because they ARE happening to kids and teens.
  6. I am trying to find the book where every other chapter is continuous run-on essays of thoughts by one girl and every other chapter alternating is chopped up, tiny thoughts by the other girl who have the same boyfriend. I know I will find it when I'm not looking for it. lol The beauty of scavenger hunts.
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FenixDiyedas t1_j1ecz4q wrote

These sound awesome. What are the titles of all these books?

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BudgetStreet7 t1_j1eigdh wrote

The book Beaches, that eventually became a Barbra Streisand movie, was written as correspondence between the characters.

The 1980’s series of "choose your own adventure" books fits number six. I have some generic ones as well as a few that pair the reader up with Indiana Jones.

I also appreciated Jasper Fford's series of Thursday Next and Nursery Crimes. Thursday Next is a detective who lives in the real world and solves crimes in the world of books. In the first book, a notorious fictional criminal is hiding out inside of the novel Jane Eyre. Nursery Crimes is another detective series peopled with characters from nursery rhymes.

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FenixDiyedas t1_j1ep55l wrote

I remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Those were cool. There’s a board game version of them now.

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crystalsinwinter t1_j1hc723 wrote

The nursery crimes books sound cool! Thank you for this! :) It's nice finding fellow book lovers. :)

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zebrafish- t1_j1ek2wc wrote

I like this too — if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love the titles!

I’ll give you a few I’ve liked also:

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher — from the perspective of a professor, told entirely in the form of letters of recommendation he has to write (for students applying to grad school, colleagues seeking promotions, etc)

Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke — absurdist satire where a guy’s consciousness is uploading into his company’s Slack workplace. Told entirely through Slack messages.

Yeats is Dead — a murder mystery written by 15 Irish writers. Each author did a different chapter.

Sounds like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehito Hindman — a memoir written mostly in second person

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FenixDiyedas t1_j1eczmd wrote

These sound awesome. What are the titles of all these books?

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xenizondich23 t1_j1fc6w6 wrote

You'd probably enjoy adding a book I once found: the entire thing was written in emoji. I don't recall any details about title or author, but the story started with a man getting up our of bed and making breakfast. It was intriguing how legible it was.

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crystalsinwinter t1_j1hgxgh wrote

Book From The Ground by Xu Bing. Does that sound familiar to you? According to the web site when I typed "book written in emojis", information and pictures about this book and its author came up, as well as info about various museums around different regions hat have his work.

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xenizondich23 t1_j1hv27t wrote

Yeah, actually! That looks very similar to what I remember. Great find!

Apparently the author has also written a book of illegible Chinese characters that no one can read. Which sounds counterproductive.

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crystalsinwinter t1_j1hc07v wrote

I would LOVE to get that book. :) I'll look for that book online. If I find it, I'll post about it in this awesome subreddit. :) I have to go look in my physical book library for some of the books I have that I described in the post, so I can edit the post for everyone. :) lol

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HeySista t1_j1etcc6 wrote

I love subtle details you can perceive if you’re paying attention, but aren’t exactly buried too deep. You feel this sense of satisfaction because you noticed, but it’s as subtle as what the author did, not a huge aha moment.

Examples: in Handmaid’s Tale you can deduce the protagonist’s name. It’s never stated but it’s clearly there if you pay attention.

Also: in Remains of the Day how you notice things that even the protagonist is oblivious to - though I’m not sure if it counts when it’s the whole point of the story.

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clockworkdance t1_j1erqy0 wrote

I love it when the chapter's title or epigraph references an object that has some significance within the chapter. I've also seen books do this with a playlist, one song per chapter, where the song comes up in some way.

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brockollirobb t1_j1euklm wrote

For all of the Twilight saga's many flaws, that little trick in New Moon where depression was represented as blank chapters labeled as months has really stuck with me as a simple but clever idea.

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smurfette_9 t1_j1dost6 wrote

I love it when no quotations are used for speech, like the sally rooney books and also girl, woman, other. It makes it feel like it’s more quiet or muffled or something. I love the effect.

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moeru_gumi t1_j1eu8iu wrote

I’m the opposite, which is fascinating. I feel like it’s poorly constructed and egotistical, like the author thinks so highly of their prose they think it’s poetic, and are just pooping it out onto the page without editing or any concern for how the reader will have to do a lot of work to determine who’s talking. It feels like a very intimate stream of consciousness straight out of the author/narrator.

I react very badly to this, because rather than reading a story, I feel like either I’ve been handed a journal of the author’s personal thoughts or they are just talking directly into my face endlessly. I find it an imposition to have to figure out what’s dialogue and what’s just internal narration/description. And an author who wants me to do that much work must think very highly of themself and who do they think they are?

It’s fascinating that you like it, it really shows that style is so personal.

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Perfect_Drawing5776 t1_j1hmso8 wrote

I think the only book in this style that I’ve loved is The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey. Fascinated by the picture on the cover of Ned’s armor, I read his letters first and that made all the difference. I’ve no idea how Carey stayed in character but he mimicked Kelly’s style so beautifully. Don’t think I’d make the effort to reread but it’s an amazing work.

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Cygnusasafantastic t1_j1e0f43 wrote

Agreed, it lends a certain appealing subtlety to the dialogue that makes it feel more organic, like watching a movie scripted by David Mamet. Cormac McCarthy is master of this in case you’ve never checked him out.

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smugday t1_j1e0bmm wrote

Idk if it's an answer to your question but i love it when a book teases an idea for a long time but not really point at anything. And suddenly they reveal that specific plot but don't explain it any further.

It just gives me so much indulgence as a reader. I go back to all the places they teased about the plot and think - aah so this is what they meant here.

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mattmurdick t1_j1e8xfc wrote

That stream of consciousness style like in Angela's ashes where parts of a sentence suddenly are in the voice and tone of a character in the scene.

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w3hwalt t1_j1epv0h wrote

I love it when first person narrators talk to the reader, or are implied to be talking to a character through their narration. I don't mean epistolary, I mean when the narrator will say things like 'I know you'll think this is crazy...' or build up tension like 'I know I said I'd never tell you about this, but...'

If makes first person narration feel more real and lively.

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TheGrumpyre t1_j1ehi8o wrote

There's something nostalgic about a good Dramatis Personae section in a fantasy novel.

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arsenicaqua t1_j1eazt1 wrote

I love when chapters go back and forth between characters POV and then all connect in the end. It's like 2 stories in 1!!!!

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Jack-Campin t1_j1du014 wrote

The eighteenth century trick where they'd print the first word of the next page at the bottom right before a page turn. They must have read REALLY fast back then.

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AlfredoEinsteino t1_j1evx8i wrote

It's called a catchword. It was an assist for readers, but was meant more as an aid for the bookbinder assembling the page signatures to make sure they got them in the right order.

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lydiardbell t1_j1dz1wi wrote

Are you talking about chapters?

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shorttompkins OP t1_j1e5llz wrote

No like major sections of the book broken into sections or parts. Sometimes thered just be like 3 parts or something with chapters between.

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BudgetStreet7 t1_j1ejipo wrote

Part one: Home (chapter 1-23) Part two: Philadelphia (chapter 24-50) Part three: Paris (chapter 51-68)

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hubertsnuffleypants t1_j1esptu wrote

I love when there are no dream sequences. I absolutely adore the common trope of the story following through without any “gotchas” to the reader.

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JonnySnowflake t1_j1etbli wrote

I actually like when Stephen King gives minor spoilers for later in the book. Like "he had no way of knowing that he would never get to feel her breast, or any, because Brian would be dead before the sun set" and then jumps to a whole other setting and plot thread

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macroscian t1_j1efcbb wrote

You might come to love Jeff Noon. They're a master of quirky stuff.

Vurt, Pollen, Automated Alice, Nymphomation
Needle in the Groove too

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Autarch_Kade t1_j1exy26 wrote

Funny reading through a lot of the comments and realizing so many of these techniques are all present in a book I recommend here pretty often.

XX by Rian Hughes has multiple character perspectives that meet up, stories within stories, directly references the reader themselves or the page they're reading, uses the white space and text layout to indicate what's happening in the story as well as crazy fonts, hell even uses emails in the text like one person mentioned.

It's an absolutely bizarre book that I can't get out of my head

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icarusrising9 t1_j1f3ehb wrote

The almost absurd over-explanation of Kazuo Ishiguro's characters is oddly charming and soothing.

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SmoSays t1_j1f903p wrote

I love me some maps! I mean I glance at it a few times and understand almost nothing but I just dig having it there. Like the vibes

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beruon t1_j1g5n0o wrote

Me too but I always METICULOUSLY track everything. Like even stuff as in "oh so the they travelled for a week between A and B and now talking about C, C seems like twice the length, so its gonna be two weeks. Damn thats gonna be scary with all the zombies around" or something. When I read Eragon, I literally photocopied the map and tracked where a character is exactly, and I drew their routes etc.

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SaltMarshGoblin t1_j1fe730 wrote

I love epistolary novels! I just read {{ Sorcery and Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, }} which is an epistolary novel created as a Letter Game (ie, the story was actually written by the two authors sending letters back and forth, without otherwise planning!

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ReturnOfSeq t1_j1fqjlx wrote

The insane ‘no punctuation for you!’ Shotgun blast presentation of blood meridian was exquisite in building up the feel of the book.

I also enjoy unreliable narrator books, where at some point you realize they can’t be entirely trusted. Iirc: one flew over the cuckoos nest, the locked tomb trilogy.

And nonlinear books that hop around different characters’ perspectives, like catch-22 and trainspotting

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snorkblaster t1_j1gy8kj wrote

I get a kick out of unreliable narrators

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BrushPlus t1_j1eh3cb wrote

Anton Chekhov's short stories like " The Student". Short, concise, and packed with meaning in a few pages.

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johnnypanics t1_j1f7xfh wrote

Footnotes with lots of asterisks.

Yes yes, I'm a Pratchett fangirl.

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SkeezixMcJohnsonson t1_j1ff3z6 wrote

I liked the story told via letters or emails back and forth. The Guernsey Literary Society… is one, Where’d you go Bernadette is another.

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Choppergold t1_j1fl8dg wrote

I loved how in Cold Mountain and in The Road both authors used phrases from sentences in the chapter as the name of the chapter

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Deep-Big2798 t1_j1gj21o wrote

Using chapter length to establish pacing. I like it when faster, more intense moments are in short chapters. I read faster this way as well. I also like when the author throws in longer, more descriptive chapters to help me establish the world in my head.

Currently reading the ToG series, & there were a series of one page chapters scattered throughout the book in the POV of a character who was possessed by a demon. Just a half page of rambling thoughts. I like how it captures the helplessness & swiftness of his suffering, only to be stopped short by the continuation of the plot.

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UKS1977 t1_j1j1k90 wrote

Unreliable narrator. You can do it well in books that is very hard in any other medium.

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szalkaisa t1_j1ejjv4 wrote

I think nano and quantum techniques are quite impressive in books...

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glorpian t1_j1etyc8 wrote

Well I mostly only read Pratchett these days so prolly gonna go with wonderfully descriptive footnotes.

That and of course how one font is synonymous with a character. It's a real masterpiece of sudden introduction without needing any words.

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Chaghatai t1_j1f3xfl wrote

Pages with a single word that aren't chapter titles or something like that seems like something? Garth Merenghi would do

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SmoSays t1_j1faem1 wrote

From a writing perspective these are things I've seen other authors do that I myself enjoy doing.

  • First Person POV. I find that this works well with my writing style and feels most natural to me. It also helps solidify myself into the minds of the characters.
  • Chapter titles. Usually following a format but not always.
  • starting the book in the thick of it where the reader is just dropped into the middle of the action and what's going on is slowly revealed over the course of the book. My aim: to make the reader go, 'what the FUCK is going on?'
  • I aspire to throw a map in the beginning but I'm shit at cartography as my d&d group can attest
  • love the Good All Along trope
  • switching up the speaking patterns of characters so you can recognize who is speaking even before you're told. This takes some work on psychological linguistics but is fascinating and so worth it
  • introducing new phrases or slang that fit in the world
  • I love it when I learn something from a novel so I always try to insert (not shoehorn) some facts
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beruon t1_j1g5smb wrote

Uhmmmmm tell me your book??? These all sound like stuff I love in books, so you sound like an Author I would love lmao.

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SmoSays t1_j1ghmt8 wrote

That's kind of inspiring ngl. Genuinely.

When I get it finalized I'll be sure to send it to you.

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beruon t1_j1h818g wrote

Thanks! Good luck with it all!

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ThatGamingGuy99 t1_j1fsqwm wrote

I love it when authors use analogues as way to describe things. Or when authors take the extra step to describe the smells or sounds of a scene.

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Smilecausecheese t1_j1g01db wrote

Going back in time but it’s told through letters or a journal the character found:)

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Perfect_Drawing5776 t1_j1hn639 wrote

Yes but why do they only read a few pages at a time and spend the chapters between talking about how important the letters or journals are and how much they wish they knew what was in them? That can make this trope tricky.

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ugagradlady t1_j1gcntq wrote

A character turning out not to be what they seem, and getting mad at the reader for expecting such a formulaic story. Examples include Gone Girl, Pedro Páramo, Candide, and House of Leaves (in one sequence Johnny Truant says that he has friends who helped him recover, then mocks the reader for thinking a storybook ending like that could happen here).

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USSPalomar t1_j1gpdzl wrote

Well-executed polysyndeton is the nectar of the gods.

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kgbubblicious t1_j1grnui wrote

I’m fond of E Nesbit’s kind and loving aside to the reader - in the middle of charming and intriguing stories, she’ll pause to basically chat with you in the most winsome and affectionate way about what’s going on in the story. Some of my favorite children’s lit!

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EsquilaxM t1_j1gy5ng wrote

When I was 11 or 12 my friend introduced me to Max Barry through his book Jennifer Government.

Over the next few years I'd read Max Barry's works as I found them/as they were released and I ended up adopting his writing style to a small extent because I found it easy and enjoyable.

I would employ em-dashes for asides or to separate clauses, I would make my writing conversational and, most notably, I would use sprinkle in short sentences and paragraphs. Some of my paragraphs would just be one sentence, I liked how it looked and flowed.

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bamboosugar t1_j1gyy45 wrote

I love short stories in general, especially when the subsequent story has some element that connects it to the previous. E.g. the character from one story is a writer, and in the next story the new character receives a book written by that author as a gift.

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OGPrinnny t1_j1gzmpv wrote

The best magic trick for any writer is to create lingo. Making up your own words for the reader tricks the brain to be more connected with the writer and disconnected from those who don't know the word.

Harry Potter and their magical spells is a great example. Bonus points if there's even a word to discriminate against those who don't know the lingo!

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j_cruise t1_j1h075v wrote

Stephen King's The Shining put certain words in small-caps for emphasis and I really liked it

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Perfect_Drawing5776 t1_j1hondy wrote

There’s a mystery series by SJ Rozan that features two detectives, Lydia Chin and Bill Smith. They’re written in first person but she alternates between the two with each book. I was absolutely fascinated by how they see themselves versus how they see each other. You get some of that switching perspective within a novel but maybe it’s not as noticeable when you’re quickly getting both views of the same events. When Lydia narrates she’s a little dingy and somewhat cowed by her overprotective Chinese mom and brothers. Bill thinks she’s this incredibly smart badass. Lydia thinks Bill has way more layers than he actually does. Rozan does a good job of showing these perspectives and not just telling it. This series started in 1995 and her efforts to age the characters and add modern technology have been spotty imo but I still love swapping perspectives for the entire book.

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clockwork-tangerine t1_j1hqwz6 wrote

I like the technique(s) in a lot of modern/postmodern novels in which a traditional novel format is broken. For example having a series of dialogue written out in play format, or question and answer format. It’s very creative and it gets your attention!

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CmdrSpaceMonkey t1_j1i6080 wrote

Robin Hobb did a series of books called the rainwild chronicles. The leaders of different cities used to send letters to each other and they were included at the start of each chapter.

The people in charge of ‘posting’ the letters used to add messages to each other to the letters. that side story, the way it was done was the best thing I have ever read.

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[deleted] t1_j1ijd23 wrote

[removed]

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clamwaffle t1_j1jc1v2 wrote

short flashback chapters that give you more insight to a main character and give you some insight into the next chapter and the character’s reactions to events within it. despite hating the book, i think the invisible life of addie larue did this masterfully!

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