Marilyn's Musings

I recently finished reading a book for a contest that got me thinking about what makes a book enjoyable. The book in question was well-written, had an interesting central idea, a decent basic plot, and a group of potentially interesting characters. All the ingredients that should make for a good read. It wasn’t. In fact, it was a slog to keep going through it. When I tried to figure out why, I came up with one word: shallow. The dialogue was smooth but a little stilted. It advanced the plot but offered very little insight into the characters speaking. The descriptions were reasonable but rather uninteresting. The writing was good and kept the story going but didn’t delve into anything other than surface descriptions of a large group of characters and a rather complex macguffin. It was missing the magic ingredient that turns a competent story, with decent plot and good characters, into an interesting one. Something that’s hard to put your finger on, but you know it when...