Is a Good Book All About the ~~Vibes~~?

Maybe?

Hi Friends!

This tweet went around over the weekend, and yes, I am going to write a whole newsletter about a tweet. Wouldn’t be the first time! This one is by an author I am not familiar with (yet) and I think the tweet was in my feed from in the For You tab (I don’t hate it?????). I also do not know what specific manuscript the author is talking about, and that doesn’t matter for our purposes here.

Before you jump in the comments with a hundred caveats about why you read books, or certain books at certain times, I just want to say that you are correct about that. Everything you personally think about why you read books is 1000% correct and you don’t have to convince me or anyone else about that. Obviously the way you personally pick books to read is the absolutely best way to do so and you should keep doing that.

But also, Garza (for pointing this out) and this manuscript’s author (for the thought itself) are correct. This is the exact feeling I, as a reader, long for. It’s what stays with me for years after I finish a book, beyond the point where I can tell you a single thing about the plot or characters or setting. Some books that feel this way to me are Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love, and Donna Tart’s The Secret History, and Margo Lanagan’s Black Juice, and Brit Bennett’s The Mothers, and Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Megan Abbott’s Dare Me, and William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, and a hundred others. The metaphor (and it’s just that, a metaphor) represents the feeling a book gives us, which is the byproduct of the author’s skill and where we are when we read it. Both of those things create our reaction and the lasting impression a book leaves on us.

That is to say, if the vibes are off, a book is not going to stick with a reader.

The vibes are also created by how skillfully the author arranges the plot and characters and setting and sentences. I mean, that’s what makes up a book. These elements will be arranged in various ways, with emphasis on various things. PLOT and characters and setting and sentences. SENTENCES and plot and CHARACTERS and setting. Etc. The reader is going to come to a book expecting emphasis on various aspects according to the marketing of your book, the genre, your previous books (if any), the cover, and what other readers tell them about the book. Oh my god the love interest is soooooooooo hot! (Characters). Oh I couldn’t put this down!!!! (Plot.) I just wanted to hug this book when I was done, and force all my friends to read it. (Sentences, et al.) I felt like I was in living in this book. (Setting.) These reactions and their corresponding causes are not exhaustive or exclusive. People think different things about different books! And they think multiple things about the same book! But the point here is to encourage you to look at your book, a book, from the reader’s point of view. How are they coming to your plot and characters and setting and sentences? What are they taking away with them after they finish? What are they likely to share with other readers?

You can’t know how each reader will do this. But you can look and try to guess some of it.

I know what you’re thinking. Kate, wtf am I supposed to do with this? You say the vibes matter more than the constituent parts but the parts make up the vibes?????? Um, yeah. that’s what I’m saying. What I want you to take from this is that A: there are many ways to write a good/successful/beloved book and B: you gotta think about what it is that the reader is going to take from your book. Step back. Look at the big picture. Stop thinking about the minutiae like I heard my book will never sell if it’s in the first person. Or I heard agents like it better when a book starts with dialog. Or If my book is 100,001 words and has a single typo, I’m doomed. None of that shit is true. I mean, do you think that stuff when you read a book? You might not love a long book or you might wince at a typo that makes its way through the production process (¯\_(ツ)_/¯ we’re all human) or you might think, after you finish a book maybe, that you wish you knew the main character better and maybe that could have happened if the book was in first person. But you are probably not including most of that stuff in your Goodreads reviews or whatever. Or you aren’t phrasing it that way. You are reporting on how the book made you feel. You might share if you thought it was believable or accurate or convincing. You might share if the dialog was excellent or poor. You are probably talking about the ~~vibes~~.

Apply these things to evaluating your own book. It’s hard! I know! It’s difficult to be objective about your own stuff! One thing that helps is taking some time away from your work so you forget what you wrote. The point is, readers respond to vibes (among other things). Try to think like a reader when you’re writing.

XOXOXO,

Kate