sholio | Leaning into your premise

Crossposts: https://sholio.livejournal.com/919882.html

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creative:writing

Leaning into your premise

Just FYI, my latest book as Zoe, Dancer Dragon, is out on Amazon now.

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There's something I've been thinking about lately, after some conversations with

rachelmanija about ... well, it didn't even start out about writing at all; it was just that she was looking for books set in circuses and observing how few books with circuses in the title and/or on the cover are actually ABOUT CIRCUSES. And then we got to talking about it, and now I'm seeing examples everywhere of books (and movies, TV shows, etc) that promise to be about something interesting and then disappoint because they don't lean in. There's a circus on the cover, but only one chapter is set there, or the whole book is set there but it might as well be anywhere because they never really do circusy things.

It's intriguing to me how often books/movies do this, and how I've never actually seen this (as such) in any advice I've ever read -- lean into your premise, your setting, whatever's unique about your characters. Use it. I guess it's sort of a Chekhov's gun kind of thing (that everything in the book should serve an eventual purpose) but it's not exactly that. It's more like, if you're going to put ghosts in your book, why not use them to do uniquely ghosty things rather than just floating onstage for their one moment? If your protagonist is a con artist, she shouldn't solve problems like a normal law-abiding person would! I think a number of the works of fiction that have disappointed me have done it because, on some level, they were failing to do this. I can remember being annoyed, for example, with books that tell you about somewhere fascinating the characters might go, but never actually take you there.

(Insert obligatory disclaimer that it also depends on what an individual finds interesting; some people will be there for the detailed descriptions of dressmaking and some really wish you'd skip the dresses and get straight to the murder, etc.)

But honestly, even if it's not something the reader is actually into, I think that writing it so that it fills the page makes it interesting. I could not have cared less about either sailing or the Napoleonic Wars, but Patrick O'Brian's books are wall-to-wall both of those things, and they actually make me care about page after page of nautical terminology and blow-by-blow descriptions of battles, because he cares. You can practically feel the creaking of the deck under your feet.

... And you know, like anything else, not everything interesting has to appear on the page; maybe being stuck somewhere the protagonist finds dull is the plot. But I mean, even there, the reader shouldn't be bored, reading it; the dullness of the setting should fill the page until it becomes fascinating, like the vivid grayness of Dorothy's Kansas. The issue is when, as a reader, you find yourself thinking, "Why did you even tell me about that interesting thing if you weren't going to show it?"

To be fair, Dancer Dragon probably could lean in a lot more than it does. If readers are reading it for detailed descriptions of ballroom dancing they're probably going to be disappointed. On the other hand, there's definitely dancing in it; it's just really more of a thing the plot wraps around than the main plot. There's also the problem that what I know about ballroom dancing could fill a very small thimble with room left over.

I got some negative reviews on the first book in the series, Bearista, because it didn't have enough coffee shop in it! I mean, you wouldn't think coffee shops are something that people reading a romance novel would really care about, but they actually did; the premise promised a big dude working in a coffee shop, but we actually only got a couple chapters of that before Plot Happened and he ended up exiting stage right pursued by bears (literally). In retrospect I think the book those readers wanted to read would have been a fascinating book, and maybe I should write that book eventually.

Anyway, I don't really have a point here so much as ... I don't think this should be treated as any kind of a hard-and-fast rule, but it's another tool in the toolkit for editing and tightening a flabby plot. If your story feels flat, maybe you need to lean into the premise a bit more.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That is so true. Failure to engage with its own premise is such a common and frustrating problem with stories.

I don't mean misleading covers/titles, like Dragons in the Waters or The Young Unicorns, neither of which feature dragons or unicorns but which never suggest that they will in the book itself. I mean when the book promises to be about something, and then never really engages with or features it.

Season 4 of Buffy disappointed me because after three seasons of magical metaphors for high school experiences, I was really looking forward to magical metaphors for college experiences. But there was very little of that in the season. It instead had a Big Bad that had nothing inherently to do with college, and while it did have a fair amount of stuff about living away from home, there wasn't much that was specifically college. I wanted demon roommates and tests that will kill you if you don't pass them and vampire professors and parties where everyone gets possessed and haunted dorm rooms, and instead I got Frankenstein and government super-soldiers.

On the flip side, Wiseguy really, really leans into its premise. It's about an undercover cop, and it leaves no undercover trope unturned.

Dick Francis never, ever fails to lean into his premise.

I don't mean misleading covers/titles, like Dragons in the Waters or The Young Unicorns, neither of which feature dragons or unicorns but which never suggest that they will in the book itself. I mean when the book promises to be about something, and then never really engages with or features it.

Right, exactly! It's not a failure of the book if the title/cover is clearly metaphorical, and if some offhand reference to something the author never meant to be important sounds more interesting to me than the entire rest of the book, it's probably just that I'm a poor fit as a reader.

But Wiseguy is such a good example of a show that never fails to use its premise to the fullest. If there is ANY opportunity for Vinnie and Frank to pretend not to know each other, or for characters sneaking around in which each of them has about 1/3 of the relevant information, or for Vinnie's ordinary life to collide headlong with his undercover life, they are gonna ride that as far as it'll go. The writers clearly love undercover tropes, and mafia tropes, and you never get the impression that they've pulled back from something interesting that might otherwise have happened.

As opposed to, say, that Mrs. Pollifax book where she hides out in a carnival and they joke about having her go undercover as a fortune-teller and then everyone's like "haha, but of course we wouldn't do that" and she goes and does something way less interesting instead. WHY DO YOU TORMENT US, DOROTHY GILMAN.

Yes! I was literally thinking about Mrs. Pollifax at the carnival when I was typing, then forgot to post it. Gilman does use the carnival as a setting, but she suggests that she'll really engage with it by having Mrs. Pollifax pose as a part of it - and in a really revealing, juicy, stakes-raising way too - only to not do it and do something boring instead. WHYYYY.

Or all the many books that are about people growing wings or horses born with wings and then NOBODY EVER FLIES.

Yeah, I think the Pollifax book would be at least 50% less frustrating if she didn't tease with the possibility of something way more interesting and then doesn't do it.

and in a really revealing, juicy, stakes-raising way too

.... actually, that might be one reason why it's so frustrating when books fail to do this, because those missed opportunities generally would raise the stakes quite a bit -- expose the character to danger, threaten to reveal something about them (or force them to confront something about themselves), etc. As readers, I think we unconsciously respond to the possibility of that and then feel frustrated when we don't get it.

Also, from your comment above this one:

Season 4 of Buffy disappointed me because after three seasons of magical metaphors for high school experiences, I was really looking forward to magical metaphors for college experiences. But there was very little of that in the season. It instead had a Big Bad that had nothing inherently to do with college, and while it did have a fair amount of stuff about living away from home, there wasn't much that was specifically college. I wanted demon roommates and tests that will kill you if you don't pass them and vampire professors and parties where everyone gets possessed and haunted dorm rooms

Okay, NOW I REALLY WANT THIS and I can't actually think of anything out there like it. (Magicians might be, for all I know, but I don't really get the impression via osmosis that it's doing it in this particular way.) If there is not already a series like this, there really needs to be.

It does exist! It's a Diana Wynne Jones book called Year of the Griffin. It's further removed from our context than what I'm describing, as it's a world where griffins and other magical beings exist and go to college, but it has professors worrying about their grants getting yanked if their spells don't work and griffins pulling all-nighters and so forth. And it's really funny.

The Magicians is similar but not quite that. I will say that among its many problems, failure to lean into its premise is not one of them. I just find its premise aggravating as it's so close and yet so far from what I actually want to read.

Oh right! I have read that book, a long time ago. It doesn't surprise me that DWJ wrote something like that.

failure to lean into its premise is not one of them. I just find its premise aggravating

Hahaha. A problem of a slightly different nature.

If you are looking for Harry Potter But At College, the entire PNR Academy subgenre has you covered. :-) I’d say A LOT of people are looking for exactly this thing, which makes it odd that a tv show hasn’t gone there (apart from The Magicians, which is reeeeeaally not leaning into its tropes so much as pulling them apart to show how shitty and terrible everything is)

I don't know if it's precisely what Rachel's talking about, though! From what I've seen of the genre, which admittedly wasn't a whole lot, I've gathered they're more like what she was saying S4 Buffy was, where the college is a backdrop but it's not really about the College Experience, so much as it's a gloss of college over a romance plot (in a similar way to how Bearista is a gloss of coffeeshop over an action plot).

Or am I wrong about that? I could be wrong!

I do think it's weird there aren't more TV shows set in college or with early-20-somethings in general; it's a weirdly underserved niche in fiction, especially with New Adult taking off as a genre category.

The Magicians books, or at least the first one, did go into quite a lot of detail about life at a magical college. It came off rather grim and cheerless. The series leaves the school behind pretty quickly, but they make the urgency of defeating the Big Bad part of the reasoning for it. There's a lot of ironic distancing from the magical otherworld in both books and series. The series is more blatantly campy about it.

Buffy had a few good episodes about college early on-there was an actual demon roommate, haunted frat parties, some shitty freshman hazing, and of course the professor who turns out to be a secondary Big Bad-- but then life intervened. I didn't mind that so much--it was at that point less about college as such than making the slow turn into adulthood.

hmmmm. . . .

Thinking deep philosophical thoughts.

My own A Diabolical Bargain takes place (mostly) at a wizards' college, and there's a fair amount of college life stuff in it, including the magical.

Right, exactly! It's not a failure of the book if the title/cover is clearly metaphorical...

Tell that to my nine-year-old self who was extremely disappointed by both those books after reading those titles!

Okay, yes, to be fair, my nine-year-old self was too. (Possibly in part because this is an author who DOES have that kind of thing in some of her other books, so it's not unreasonable to expect it!)

Yeah. Some consideration has to be given to the target audience's capacity to handle symbolism and metaphor.

Also, "failure to engage with its own premise" - yes, exactly. I really don't think I've ever seen this discussed in writing advice, as such -- aspects of it, maybe, but not really held up as a specific thing.

It really should be. It's such a common failure mode. Just by clicking on my own "book review" tag, I can come up with these examples just on the first page!

Dead and Buried, by Barbara Hambly. The book that is ostensibly about Hannibal's past coming back to haunt him has less Hannibal than multiple other books in the series.

Danny Dunn and the Automatic House, by Jay Williams. Not enough automatic house.

And, by the same method, it's so damn satisfying when books DO lean into their premise:

Bones of the Earth, by Michael Swanwick. Promises dinosaurs and time travel, provides exactly that.

Money Shot, by Christa Faust. Noir suspense about a porn actress on the run is centrally about the porn industry.

Witch in the House, by Ruth Chew. It is in fact about having an upside-down witch in the house.

Danny Dunn and the Smallifying Machine. Immensely satisfying book that is all about being smallified.

And, by the same method, it's so damn satisfying when books DO lean into their premise:

Yes, exactly. I just went and took a quick look at my bookshelves, and then realized I'm probably not going to find very many dramatic examples of books that don't lean into it there, because I don't tend to keep them! As opposed to the ones I do hang onto and love and reread, which are bursting with all the potential of their premise. Watership Down: RABBITS RABBITS EVERYWHERE. Amber: Not without flaws, but you sure can't say the author doesn't use the premise of a dimension-traveling hero in a full-out war over the throne of a fantasy land to its absolute maximum.

I guess that series books can be all over the map with this ... most of the examples we have for books that miss the mark are later books in series that sometimes really nail it. Come to think of it, I wonder if some of the later Ben January books didn't work for me as well as the earlier ones because she's more consistently failing to do this, whereas earlier she generally embraced the details of whatever it was she was writing about, whether it was an opera company or a riverboat or a Mexican estate. The next book also really leans into its slightly bonkers premise in a satisfying way, come to think of it.

On the flip side, though, arguably? Moby Dick.

Obviously, mileage varies. But.

I did in fact think of Moby Dick when I mentioned the Aubrey-Maturin novels elsewhere! Aubrey-Maturin deals in excruciating detail with a topic I couldn't care less about, in a way I found fascinating! Moby-Dick ... not so mjuch. (Though I did actually really enjoy the descriptions of Nantucket life in the early part of the book! I've never managed to read anywhere near the whole way through, though.)

Yeah, me neither. I think there are probably fewer people who finished the thing than went all the way through.

Oh god, I have never been able to finish that. Never.

Another example I remember from grad school is Far From the Madding Crowd. You learn all about sheep-shearing! I had actual dreams about sheep-shearing while I was forcing myself through it. And the characterization and scenery were neat! But so much sheep-shearing.

ahaha. I guess at least it sounds...soothing? Maybe not.

I think this is what I liked about those big 1970s-80s airport thrillers - you got to learn all about how the skyscraper/airport/hospital/hotel/cruise ship worked before it all went horribly wrong!

YES. When they're well done, I really enjoy that kind of book and for that exact reason! (Ken Follett does well at this, for example.)

ETA: And also, the problems that go wrong usually incorporate the setting to a very large degree. It would be much less interesting and exciting if you got a few chapters telling you all about the airport and then the entire plot took place in one small room!

Edited 2019-12-04 04:00 (UTC)

No one can say The Poseidon Adventure fails to lean into its premise.

Leaned so hard it went all the way over!

Hahahahaha!

Yeah, I remember reading books in the 80s that were all about the setting too -- Clan of the Cave Bear was a big example, about the tribes and stuff like toolmaking and finding herbs and hunting. Thorn Birds was about the forbidden romance &c &c but also had a lot of Australian background in it. Writers would work up a topic and do heavy duty research into it, although that often led to heavy-handed exposition and page filling (which in turn could lead to stuff like plagiarizing facts about ferrets). Of course people are still writing historical books today but yeah, it seems like the settings and history are more in the background? idk.

Yes, I enjoyed that about Clan of the Cave Bear and sequels, too! Even if the school library copies were permanently creased open at the sexy pages!

Colleen McCullough, who wrote The Thorn Birds was actually a neurologist, but her novel was such a success that she retired from neurology to more to Norfolk Island and write full time about her true research love, which was the early Roman Empire. Those books are absolutely crammed with detail, and also well-written, until she gets up to Julius Caesar as an adult whereupon he becomes a terrible Mary Sue!

A friend of mine who did archaeology at university said one time their assigned work was "read Clan of the Cave Bear series and identify all the sites referenced" :-) How you know the author Did Their Research.

I think that book and its sequels -- which I read at probably much too young an age -- are at least partly responsible for my interest in archaeology as an adult. It was really mindblowing in my mid-to-late teens to start looking all of that stuff up and realizing that she used a lot of real archaeological sites, actual artifacts, and anthropological remains in creating her characters. Looking through books of actual archaeological information and going "oh, I know what THAT is!" -- having a genuine emotional connection to it -- was really helpful in keeping me focused and interested.

(And of course sometimes the Big Historical Novels are done by men, and considered classics, like East of Eden or whatever. Or women do it too, like with Susan Sontag and In America, but I still think men get more respect for it.)

I'm constantly surprised how much people are into coffeeshops XD

.... although you know, relevant to the above discussion, I think most coffeeshop AUs are not actually about coffeeshops at all; the coffeeshop is just a backdrop. Which was basically what I did with Bearista, and it turned out that at least some readers actually want the coffeeshop!

I saw a post on Tumblr a little while back that was about writing coffeeshop AUs that are like actual coffeeshops instead of idealized ones. Which of course I either didn't reblog or didn't tag in a findable kind of way.

Hmm, I don't read many of these but the ones I've read leaned into the coffeeshop fantasy somewhat! Granted it takes a lot to get me reading about coffeeshops in the first place so I probably looked at a specific selection of recommended AUs.

I want to find that Tumblr post, but I probably have it tagged "inspiration" or something equally useless, and as that's the tag I use for all the things I want to turn into stories someday, I am afraid to go into that tag for fear I'll never come out.

I think it wasn't that they wanted a coffeeshop in general but that they wanted all the tropes of "Manly bodyguard forced to go undercover as barista."

Oh yeah, agreed. Which is what I meant by writing that other book someday. I think a more domestic book about a Big Manly Guy in the hometowny frame of a coffeeshop would be fun, and it's definitely not what that book is.

I know I've ranted about it before, largely from spending A LOT OF YEARS working as a barista and just no. Okay?

Know how many romances were ever started via coffee shop in the ten years I worked as a barista in multiple different shops? ZERO.

Know how many times somebody flirting either behind the counter or as a patron was ABSOLUTELY AGONIZINGLY A PROBLEM?

A lot.

/grump

As someone who actually worked in retail, man, I never ever want to read about it. There was one hilarious Stucky fic I read a while back which was set in an awful coffeeshop that was a front for the Russian mob somehow. I did enjoy that one. And I like reading books that go into detail about how industries work and what people do! Just....not retail.

The coffeeship-is-a-mob-front one sounds fun, not gonna lie. XD

True fact: what gave me the idea that turned into Bearista, the utterly ridiculous romance novel that's made me mumbletymumble bucks, was inspired by a fanfic with an incredibly incongruous character as a barista -- I'm no longer 100% sure what the pairing was, but I think it might have been Cable/Deadpool, with Cable as the really unconvincing barista. I had already come up with the title just on a general punning basis, but that was what tipped me over the edge into turning it into an actual book and a series that I've been writing for the last two years: an utterly ridiculous, borderline cracky coffeeshop AU.

I have a feeling it's a form of "write what you know." It's a lot less work than, say, writing a steampunk novel set during a version of the Boxer Rebellion (just pulled that one out of the air).

Weirdly enough, this very thing came up in a tangent during a logistics (yes, logistics) panel I was on whose most notable panelist was the editor Ginjer Buchanan. I quipped that Americans are into Tom Clancy novels going on and on about weapons systems "because Americans," and Ginjer correctly me (gently, nicely) that actually, these novels are about getting into the gory details of whatever they're about--Dick Francis novels and...whatever they're about (I have never read a Dick Francis novel), or Tom Clancy and weapons systems, and this is a distinct style of novel that may not be of particular literary value but readers love them and they sell like hotcakes.

Of course, as a writer I find it impossible to tell when the thing I really really want to lean into is actually completely boring to readers, and the thing that I really really didn't want to write about is the thing the readers were clamoring for, but that is, I think, a separate problem.

Yeah; I think to some extent the difference between "absolutely fascinating" and "oh god make the infodumping stop" just comes down to is the reader's interest in the thing being infodumped (which isn't even necessarily a matter of how interested they were before reading the book!). I find the Tom Clancy variety generally unbearable, and yet, a lot of novels that really go into their settings or specific aspects of the characters' lives are absolutely riveting to me. I used the example of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels above, because I went into those books with absolutely zero interest in the Napoleonic Wars or naval warfare, and yet somehow he made it so fascinating that I devoured the series like a stack of pancakes. I think you're right that it is a particular thing, though. Along similar lines, I really love a certain type of SF that I think of as "problem-solving SF" -- The Martian is a really good recent example, and I saw a lot of criticism around for its writing style, but I didn't care; I was utterly fascinated by the problem-solving, technological aspect.

just comes down to is the reader's interest in the thing being infodumped (which isn't even necessarily a matter of how interested they were before reading the book!).

You know, that's not entirely my experience. And--sudden example of a carnival/circus!--The Night Circus comes immediately to mind. I LOVED the premise, and it absolutely leaned into it as a central focus, the details, both practical and sensual. I wanted to go there. And yet--well, okay, I liked it a lot more than I probably would have liked a similar length and writing style book about rock climbing, I admit it. But, the characters were pretty flat, and the plot was thin, and I ended up walking away with "that was just okay," rather than the LURVE that so many people seem to have for it.

A book that started off with fabulous world building that I had to put down because I was like "when the actual plot start? who are these people? I -want- to like this but dear god:" Gormenghast.

I really love a certain type of SF that I think of as "problem-solving SF"

Fair. I guess for me, it always comes down to whether or not I'm interested in the people. And/or, to a lesser extent, the plot. I can do -fairly- thin characters and an exciting, easy to follow plot in a setting I'm interested in (and readable writing style)--the Dresden Files comes to mind. They're also funny and fast paced, and at least some of the characters are likable and relatable, and grow over the course of the series.

An example of a book I couldn't finish that leaned in with a vengeance and was obviously brilliant writing: The Left Hand of Darkness. Yeah. It just took too long for me to get into the actual people, and I strongly disliked at least one of them.

tl:dr I mostly read genre, but high concept alone almost never does it for me, no matter how richly and well done it is or even how interesting the premise was for me.

Edited 2019-12-04 19:05 (UTC)

I love circuses and expected to love The Night Circus, but I DNF'd it because I was so bored. It did engage with its premise! But as you say, the characters were flat and the plot was thin, and the prose, setting, my inherent interest in the setting, and its genuine engagement with the premise were not enough to overcome my utter lack of caring.

This is not the point of your post, but damn Bearista is a good title! Mucho kudos on coming up with that one. :)

Hahaha, I'm not gonna lie here: I am convinced that Bearista is the best title I've ever come up with, in any genre, in 30 years of writing. XDDD I will go to my GRAVE knowing that was Peak Writing right there.

Man, titles are so so so hard. They are the second hardest part of writing for me. I don't think I've ever hit the apex of Bearista in any of my titles. :)

Definitely agree with the advice - one of the current books I'm finishing I got really stuck on until my editor/first reader/excellent friend nudged me to lean into The Hero being a really super big classics nerd. (I mean, he is actually a classicist.) Once I did, his voice actually worked, and the book got a lot better really fast.

(Ok, so, leaning into Greek concepts about colour terminology, also just fun.)

In terms of avoiding the infodump, the thing that works for me (both as a reader and I hope as a writer) is use the context to make it how people think about what they're experiencing, and putting it into that situation. And then, as necessary, adding enough detail that a reader who doesn't know the thing can get the relevant stuff from context.

The trick with it is - as other commenters have noted - leaning into it, but also having enough knowledge to get it right. A lot of the YA/New Adult books at boarding schools and colleges completely kick me out of the narrative, because having worked at an independent day school, a college, and a university, as well as having gone to boarding school, people keep doing things that make absolutely no logical sense (and have no plot benefit) if the institution is going to survive for more than like, a week.

(Hogwarts mostly gets a pass, because house elves, magic, and because clearly no one is actually applying necessary details of health and safety concerns consistently, and that's actually a relevant plot point. But if you have a theoretically functional institution, then there's a lot of stuff that has a relatively limited number of options for how it can work at an institution of any size if people are not dying all the time, and getting regular meals, and so on.)

"In terms of avoiding the infodump, the thing that works for me (both as a reader and I hope as a writer) is use the context to make it how people think about what they're experiencing, and putting it into that situation. And then, as necessary, adding enough detail that a reader who doesn't know the thing can get the relevant stuff from context."

Yes, this. Well-written leaning-in details don't just give the details with disinterested omniscience, the story - by way of the narrative voice/focus and/or the characters - shows the reader why the details are interesting or relevant, how to think and feel about them.

Soooo much this.

I have a really big competence kink, but, most centrally, it's not just for stories proclaiming or even showing that Character Is Super Competent At Thing. Rather, it's for storytelling that reveals the great depth of knowledge and intense familiarity about Thing that the competent character necessarily has in order to be competent. And so the writer must have at least a significant fraction of the knowledge and or fascination with the topic, in order to portray it convincingly and make it interesting and relevant to the audience.

Failure to lean in to the premise is one failure state (my guess is half the time failure to lean in happens, it's because writer had an idea they thought would be cool but not enough personal knowledge to fill it out, nor enough personal fascination to build the knowledge just for the story). And fumbling the lean-in is another failure state that happens when the author has more fascination/enthusiasm than actual expertise or discernment about what parts are relevant. So they infodump detail that's not relevant -- stuff that an expert immersed in the Thing wouldn't even notice or care about, let alone a reader approaching it cold -- or they give only attention-getting details without sufficient context to show why, apart from sensationalism, they're interesting and relevant (and may misconstrue/misrepresent or actually get details flat wrong enough to aggravate readers with some expertise. (Why I'm leery of much 'historical' fiction especially romance, why I despair of writing realistic modern paramilitary-flavored action-adventure)). In either case -- failing to lean in, or leaning in but fumbling it, the 'good bits' end up feeling shallow and pasted-on rather than integral to the characters or the plot... because basically they were.

OH! Reading your comment elucidated for me why I bounced hard off Kowal's Calculating Stars, where I never got the "knowledge and intense familiarity," as you say, that I would have expected of the heroine.

stuff that an expert immersed in the Thing wouldn't even notice or care about

Heh, I've had conversations about this about writing grant proposals -- when one is writing a proposal about something one doesn't know much about, it's a hard thing to get right and a fairly big tell that one doesn't know much about it.

Ha ha grant proposals. My dayjob is administrative support for scientists at a research university, including editing grant proposals--mostly copyediting, sometimes more substantive. Proposal writers have such a hard task, in that they have to address multiple audiences with differing needs/expectations and levels of expertise (often the reviewers who will judge technical validity and feasibility are subject-area specialists completely separate from the nonspecialists or even non-scientists who will judge cost effectiveness, broader impacts, application to the funding org's mission and whether they want to fund it), and they have to address the 2 distinct audiences within one coherent document with a strict page limit. It's a tightrope walk, to be sure.

For fiction that hits my particular competence kink, I feel like exploration/discovery/sense of wonder, fish-out-of-water or learning/growth situations give an opportunity to write the depth of detail (and highlight one character's familiarity/competence in contrast to another's) in a way that can feel more integrated to the story. But an author has to be willing for at least one major character to be, hmm not sure how to put it, ?unfinished? un-self-possessed? enough to not only notice things but to show on the page thoughts and feelings about them and so model for the reader how to think and feel about those details when they're interesting and relevant.

I love stories that really lean into their premise - that kind of all-in enthusiasm for something specific is the kind of thing I'm super here for. Even if the premise that's been gone all-in for isn't one that ends up being For Me, I still appreciate the dedication. (Eg, a book I read a little while back which is about trans Peter Pan, which it turns out doesn't work for me because I don't care about Peter Pan, but I still was glad I read it because it was wholeheartedly doing its thing!)

I seem to be fairly good at finding/reading books that do this, which makes it all the more disappointing when I come across ones that don't.

that kind of all-in enthusiasm for something specific is the kind of thing I'm super here for

YES. Same. It's the same way I'm really, really into books with a strong, specific sense of place; I can read an entire book on the basis of nothing but that, if it does it well enough.

... I mean, to be fair, I generally do need something else going on, particularly for a reread. And I do tend to be a person who latches onto characters and will read an otherwise bland book if I'm really enjoying the people. But specificity and premise can carry the majority of a book for me if it's vivid enough.

This is something to remember should I ever venture into original writing (and to remember for fanfic too, come to think of it)!

I read a lot of historical detective books. Now they really do need to lean into their premise, but even so, there was one I read that felt very 'Roman lite' and more about a silly little girl (sorry, but that's how she read to me!) getting herself into trouble. That one didn't lean in enough for my liking (for instance, she gets married, but no explanation of how Romans got married back then, the whole wedding itself is off screen. Like getting prepared to be married, then cut to the day after the wedding *sigh*).

There's another writer I've heard of who writes in the Roman era, but uses phrases that come straight out of the 50's/60's classic PI genre. I haven't read one of his books, because it's just going to annoy me, I know it is (also, apparently there's an awful lot of the 'f' word used, which isn't going to work for me. The odd 'f' word, fine, but lots of it? No for me)!

Of course, there's also the on purpose misrepresentation of the story. That happens in books about pets sometimes. Like one chap who was apparently writing a book about him and his search and rescue dog, but the book is actually 45% him doing search and rescue without a dog, 25% with a dog, but the dog still in the background. Yeah, that annoys me. But I guess that's a different thing altogether.

I think the dog books are a perfect example of failing to engage with the premise. The premise is "doing search and rescue with my dog." The actual book mostly has nothing to do with the dog.

Yeah, you go in expecting lots of dog and there's very little. The thing is, if the book had been marketed as a story about a man who did search and rescue, I'd have enjoyed it and been happy, but because I'm looking for the promised dog all the time, I ended up feeling cheated.

There are other books supposedly about animals that do this too. It's like publishers and/or authors think 'oh animal, people like animals' and ignore the fact their book really isn't about the animal, and don't care if people are disappointed so long as they get their sales. Yeah, cynical, but probably true.

I came here through Rachelmanija's post, and I am absorbing and contemplating this concept. It so well explains why I love some of my favorite books and a pitfall to make sure I avoid when writing myself. (I just write for fun, but still.)

*makes a note of this*

Per carnivals: there's a YA book I've enjoyed called Pantomime, by Laura Lin, that does spend quite a bit of time with the circus that the protagonist runs away to join. It's also nice world building--not exactly steampunk, more alternate world that's vaguely 19th century England but also has artifacts from a much more technologically evolved, now extinct population. And the main character is--well, overall, it's refreshing in terms of sexuality and gender, that and its sequel, which is more about stage magicians.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29502206-pantomime

Thinking way back: Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg, another other-world book that's got a mix of more classic fantasy tropes and leftover high tech that most people forgot how to build (also aliens and a general colonial vibe that seems only partially conscious (more so for the indigenous population, later on in the series, anyway:)

It's, again, a very classic fantasy narrative--in fact, I'm now thinking the author may have explicitly used a Tarot deck to structure his hero's journey, since the specific images of various major arcana show up all the way through the book, especially at the beginning and end. But, early on, the protagonist joins a wandering juggling troupe, and there is at least some detail about how juggling works and life with the troupe before it all goes to shit and he has to regain his birthright.

Per "leaning in" and world building and general: recently recommended The Thinking Woman's Guide to Magic by Emily Croy Barker,

https://www.emilycroybarker.com/the-thinking-womans-guide-to-real-magic

and your post is making me realize why I liked it as much as I did. Again, it's structured around a lot of classic fantasy tropes, specifically straight-women-geared--there's a Pride and Prejudice romance motif--but, she's got a background in academia which she doesn't stay in long, but actually serves her to some degree in this fantasy medieval world she gets sucked into. And there's just a lot of rather patient world building both in that world and the fairy realm she's in prior to that--not just the world building, I want to say, but how she struggles to be in it. Maybe less "leaning in" than "settling in."

I have no brain for a proper comment, but I wanted to tell you this is an excellent post. So, so true, and it really should be writing advice.

This is such a great post, and there are so many great comments on it. I've never really managed to articulate this concept before, but you're so right! Now I'm realising that so much of my enjoyment of fiction comes from having a premise and really, really embracing it

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You make a good point about a book being "all-in" with its premise, but I think the folks who wanted more coffeeshop AU in Bearista are trying to mix two separate genres. I wonder if those disappointed folks are accustomed to fanfic coffeeshop AUs, where the whole point is to have the characters in a relaxed, non-pressure atmosphere where romance -- or friendship -- can blossom in a kind of tasty bubble where the world doesn't intrude.

BUT! Bearista is part of your Bodyguard Universe; by definition, his job is to guard a particular body. Once the danger appears and he needs to do his job, it would be unprofessional to keep serving coffee and pastry while his client is running from the bad guy!

In other words, you wrote the action/true-mate/romance that the genre called for (very well, by the way) instead of a starry-eyed getting-to-know-you-over-coffee romance. The latter is a lot of fun to read, but a reader shouldn't expect that kind of vibe in an action-romance series, just because a cofffeeshop is a convenient place for the bodyguard to do his job.

And I popped right over to Amazon yesterday to buy Dancer Dragon. Working my way through Shifter Dads right now, then I'll have to catch up with the bodyguards. I like so wait until I have 3 or 4 to read in a row, so I remember who's who. But it'll sit comfortably in my Zoe Chant folder until I get around to it. <g>
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It’s also interesting when there’s a Big Premise that can support multiple leanings (as it were), and the author pics a particular direction. I’m specifically thinking of Neil Stephenson’s Seveneves, which I simultaneously enjoyed and was frustrated by, because I wanted to hear all about the interpersonal issues caused by being the Last Few Humans Crammed Into Tiny Adhoc Spaceships, and Stephenson was far more interested in telling me about orbital dynamics. Which, also an important part of surviving in space! ...just not the one I was most interested in.

It's so fun when the author is also interested in what you're interested in. Every time Adrian Tchaikovsky starts describing new kinden or exploring the cultural implications of shapeshifting I go all *chinhands*.

This is a really good point and is making me think about what I can do with the setting of my embryonic novel.

One series that really leans in like this is the Rivers of London books which leave you feeling like you’ve been on a highly specialised tour of the city.... Also, for all its faults, Pern really goes all-in with telepathic teleporting dragons, which I think is one of the reasons it’s so popular.

Very much so with Pern, although I find that certain details that haven't aged well about the culture (and implications of that culture) kick me right back out of the narrative. I am biased in this regard, in that I'm re-reading and commenting on all the ways that Pern hasn't aged well, so I'm predisposed to find those spots. Someone who is there for the dragons and doesn't particularly care about the world around the dragons will be entirely satisfied with the series.

I was just reading through this post and Rachel's on the same topic, and seriously, this advice has become crucial for me.

I wonder if sometimes authors fail to do this because they think it will result in a rote story? Like, hypothetically, you could have started to make Wiseguy and then decided "people already know what undercover stories are like, so let's just dig into, idk, Vinnie's Italian-American heritage and throw in some financial fraud." But I really feel like there's a key difference between playing out the tropes exactly as your audience could imagine them and letting them point the way for your story to have its own unique life and way of satisfying expectations.

Avoiding it winds up feeling so cheap. Thwarting expectations, in the long run, is certainly as predictable as fully giving into them.

Wiseguy really made me think about this because it was so satisfying to see a story about an undercover cop that really digs into the undercover aspect, and I realized how accustomed I'd gotten to stories that don't deal with what they're ostensibly about.

Yea.. I agree.

I read of lot of cozy mysteries + animals (mostly cats) as my go to. And it's popular, so lots of choices.

However, recently I got one that was inherited bookstore + cat and the person who inherited was pretty... hateful? mouthy? I don't know, but about 3/4 of the way through I gave up and just skimmed to the end. I didn't like how the cat was referred to - if the cat and the bookstore was your "premise" (and there are several in the series with the cat a big part of it) maybe it gets better... but this main character was very negative/against the cat, and I just couldn't read it any more.

Oh my god, how frustrating. If I read a book about someone who inherits a cat and a bookstore, THEY MUST LIKE THE CAT.

They can be annoyed by the cat at times! It may take them time to warm up to the cat! But they cannot hate the cat.

I was thinking about circuses, and about Kurt Busiek's Astro City -- Local Heroes has a story in which a circus appears, but the circus is not really central, even if the hero's name is Roustabout.

But then I remembered -- Agatha Heterodyne! She has a circus interlude in -- ta-da! -- Circus of Dreams. More detail in the book version than the comic one.

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