A point defended (but a lesson learned!)

SPOILERS BELOW!

One point that has come up in a few reviews (which were otherwise positive) is that Alexis seems to take an awfully long time to realize that her little sister is possessed.

Here’s my response:

In earlier drafts of the book, Alexis actually made this deductive leap earlier in the storyline. But my editor brought up the very valid point that, once she realizes her little sister is possessed, the game is changed–big-time. Consider how things change in the book now, when she finally comes to believe that Kasey is in league with a supernatural force. Alexis immediately goes to find Megan, and the action doesn’t slow down for the rest of the book.

Also, think about someone you know. Just HOW weird would a person have to act in order for you to say, “Okay. Jim-Bob is obviously possessed.” I’ve known some very weird weirdos in my time, but I was never pushed to that extreme. Alexis is a girl who doesn’t believe in ghosts–she’s going to go through every other possibility before she considers the paranormal.

(Contrast that with Megan’s reaction–since Megan is a “believer,” she believes it immediately.)

BUT.

When my editor and I were making these decisions and developing the narrative progression, we sort of didn’t think about something huge:

The marketing.

Up to this point, anyone who had read the book (friends, family, agent) just sort of picked it up and read it. I didn’t say, “Here’s my ghost story!” I said, “Here’s my book.” And they would read it and give it back and say, “Oh my gosh it was a GHOST story!”

But the book was (rightly) marketed as a ghost story. Nobody read along without knowing that there was something supernatural going on. So Alexis’s slow trip on the belief-train may have struck some people as being too slow in the face of what was obvious–although I maintain that if you picked up the book without ever having read a review, or an ad, or heard about it from a friend, you would be right there with Alexis–wondering what’s going on without necessarily arriving at the correct conclusion a few chapters before she does.

What I learned from this is that when a reader picks up a book, s/he has not been wearing blinders and earplugs. It’s not just about what’s between the covers. It’s also about the popular perception of the book, and what has already been given away. You really don’t get to surprise people with something they already know.

I’m curious to see how this changes with book 2. Now that the ghosts are clearly out of the bag.

Of course, most reviewers didn’t have this issue. But enough did that I thought about it and have wanted to address it for a while.

Thanks for reading! Would love to hear your thoughts.

September 12th, 2008 Katie Alender