The Man Who Knew Too Much

I loved school when I was growing up. I was hungry for knowledge and soaked in all I could get. Now I surf the Internet looking for topics I know nothing about and then learn enough to feel I could carry on a conversation about that subject. It's fun.

It's possible, however, to know TOO much. For example, my husband and I went to see the movie Avatar last night. Before we went, we read some reviews of it -- one by an astrophysicist who said he had a hard time suspending his disbelief and enjoying the movie because they broke almost every known law of physics. Personally, I enjoyed the floating mountains, the crazy creatures, and the floating jellyfish critters that seemed to drift down on the auditorium, thanks to the effects of 3D. The reviewer knew too much, and so he couldn't relax and enjoy the movie.

I'm like that myself. It used to be fun to pick up a novel and settle in for a good, slow read. I'd put myself in the shoes of every character and, much like a 3D movie, try to turn in all directions to see the action as they saw it. But that was before I wrote my first novel. Before I spent years studying the craft of writing, read umpteen books on writing, and joined a writers critique group (where we pull apart each others' words to make them better.) I can't just read a book anymore.

I read one this week on my Kindle that involved a terrorist cell that set off some bombs in Washington, D.C., and then vanished. Of course, the main plot was the efforts of the agents trying to catch the bad guys. But the subplot was the interactions between the three remaining terrorists. I was fine until it hit me that I was actually pulling for one of the terrorists. I was instantly yanked out of the plot of the book by the part of my mind that had to analyze and study how the author had done that. "Why do I feel compassion for this guy? He's a killer! What scenes changed my opinion? How could I use that in my own writing?"

It's an occupational hazard for a writer -- no writing is safe from scrutiny, no matter how wonderful. In fact, the more wonderful it is (such as novels by Charles Martin!) the more I have to slow down, go back over it, and dissect it looking for clues and craft-markers. In a way, it would be nice to go back to the blissful ignorance of my pre-writing days and just indulge in the flow and excitement of a novel.

Then again, anybody can do that.