I read a wide variety of novels. However, I write usually one style. I call it sharp, or straight, cutting. The are told from one character’s perspective and that character has a strong perspective. This is usually their main fault. My novel’s plots usually hinge on one small, everyday, life changing event. A crime, a personality conflict, a bad attitude.
I often fear that my style is simplistic. I would love to write a novel like Tolstoy or Tom Wolfe, big sweeping narratives but, alas, I’ve not been able to do that. Yet.
I don’t often like books like I write. I do find them a bit abrupt, or more action oriented. However, Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader is not like that at all. A teenage boy in post war Germany falls in love with an older woman, and the consequences of that love detailed throughout the entirely of this short novel.
They made a movie of it. I’ll take a watch, but I’m glad I read the book.
