Writing style review

Review: Dan Brown
The Example?? ‘Deception Point’


I read this Author on the advice of a friend. The motivation for the suggestion was to have a look at the ‘formula’ style of writing that is the great white hope of the American Corporate Literary Machine or ‘ACLM’ for short.

This type of book is what one person called an ‘Airport’ book. The type of book purchased specifically to fill idle time when waiting or traveling. It doesn’t matter whether you have time to finish it. “Lose it’ in transit? Doesn’t matter. You will never give it another thought. This gives the ACLM the broadest possible marketing reach with the lowest capital risk.

I began the journey as anyone would, by reading the prologue.

It was clear, concise and exciting. Just the thing to get you hooked as you hurriedly try to make a decision while listening to the announcement of the next flight out of whatever hell you are passing through.

So, filled with anticipation, I jumped into the book with both feet------ only to land knee deep in mucus like sludge that seemed determined to wrest ever ounce of energy from my body for each page I forced my way through.

Forced????

No other word quite so clearly describes the first eighty-nine pages of this book.

Long, twisting, undulating paragraphs of ‘character’ building descriptions that alluded to something going on that the author very pointedly was not going to share with his readers.

Eighty-nine pages of the characters talking around the subject and dropping ‘hints’ with a wink and a nudge that were ‘cleverly’ composed to lead you into the mystery and keep you turning pages. The hints were about as clever as an episode of ‘Threes Company’ on a bad writing day.

I use the number eighty-nine, because it was at that point I closed the book and began pounding on it. Not little taps, but great overhead swings filled with the rage of frustration. Tell—Me—what—is – under—the –ice—you—filthy—pig—bastard.
Yes. I punctuated every word with a hard blow to the book.

If I am anything, I am a civilized man. In an instance such as this the only thing to do is stop and walk away for a while and let things settle down, which I did.

But like a character from a Samuel Beckett novel I found myself once again crawling across this desert moaning “I can’t go on”, “I can’t go on.” “I must go on”.

Reading on, I found that just a short distance, page ninety-six to be exact, the raw and unhidden truth began to be revealed. My hopes rose as my fingers gripped the now bludgeoned covers of the book. There it was. After ninety-six pages of fluff and filler, I was getting ready to start the novel.

My excitement was sustained through page one hundred twenty three where the anti-climactic revelation made me stop and look back a page or two to see if I had missed something.

But it didn’t matter. The story was starting and now I would see the magic of this best selling author at his finest.

I turned to page one hundred twenty four and fell, waist deep into the mucus and found that the filler was starting again.

This was not just filler. This was old mattress stuffing from an incontinent geriatrics ward. The author jumped onto my chest and began stuffing it into my mouth and into my nose and under my eyelids all the while screaming, “I am the author and this is my world. Suck it up”

I trudged on through the book while the author threw out misdirection’s to me as if I were a half blind, lame, cur dog whose nose had been run over by a passing truck. By page two hundred twelve I knew who was responsible for the entire plot, (despite the authors clever misdirection’s) and I knew what clever twist was going to give me the thrill that the author was building to.

This is a five hundred thirty-page book. Here I am, less than half way through the book, and the thin plot had been so difficult to maintain that I was already at the end without having to read it. But read on I did, and found that I was right.

What had gone wrong?

That too, was clear.

The author had ninety-eight pages of story, and five hundred pages to fill.

And fill them he did.

Hello! Is there any paper in that stall? It’s empty in here.

Perhaps I should carry a Dan Brown novel around for just such emergencies.

Best regards

Jim Bronaugh