If there's one thing that irks me, it's a story that doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter if it's a news segment, local gossip, a movie, television, or a book; things just don't land well if they don't make sense. There's a piece of information that almost distracts me from accepting whatever I've been told. I get stuck on it and question the reporter/storyteller involved because things just aren't piecing together.
Recently, I read a (fiction) book that had quite a few distractions that didn't sit well with me. By the time I finished, these distractions seemed to grow and become more undeniable, to the point that I felt the author must've rushed through the ending without really thinking it out. And I'm not going to lie, it kind of turned me off. Now, I won't go into all the issues, but I will discuss one example in this article, then explain why it bothered me.
So, the main character was a small-town girl who lived several years in a city that wasn't the largest nor the smallest, but had enough danger that a young woman would need to be aware. She returned to her small town, went to the house of someone she didn't trust with liquor in hand, then allowed him to 'fix' her a drink out of her sight. He put something in her drink, which she seemed to realize after feeling a bit woozy, while the reader probably figured out long before that she was hardly smart to put herself in this situation at all, or at least without being prepared.
The first thing that bothered me was that this sudden decision came at the end of the book, indicating to me that the author was just rushing to finish it. There was no clear thinking or plan, but instead the protagonist put herself in an extremely vulnerable and stupid situation. It wasn't even a plot twist where something happened that caused a huge emotional response, which would be a situation where someone might act erratically, without thinking clearly. Furthermore, this was a character who lived in a city that has some pretty dicey areas, where you'd be cautious and on your guard, but this woman didn't appear to think the same rules applied to a man in the country, whom she suspected may have killed in the past. And if nothing else, hasn't every woman been told, at some point, to never leave your drink unattended, especially with someone you don't know and, I might be going out on a limb here, but also that you suspect might be a killer? I mean, if someone kills, something tells me that they might also put something in your drink to either knock you out or just fucking kill you. 🤷♀️ Call me paranoid, but that's just my logic.
And that's the problem. This whole situation (as well as others in the book) had no logic. When writing, you always have to consider what makes sense, both for the character and in general. Do people act that way? Replace a character in a book with yourself or someone similar in your life; would they react that way? If so, there would have to be extenuating circumstances. For example, had the character been drinking before deciding to pay the potential murderer a visit (which I don't believe she was), it would make more sense.
I also want to say that this book was a Canadian book that had the Canadian Council for the Arts logo (which means if you're a Canadian taxpayer, you helped pay for this) inside the cover, and whenever I see this logo, I always expect that the book will check more DEI boxes than it will necessarily make sense or entertain, since that's what seems to be more relevant these days. Without making a list, the book covered many of them.
That aside, though, this is something I've seen in various books, movies, etc and I always find it distracting. In fact, I've even worried about the same with my own books. (and God knows, I probably have made the same error if I look closely) Intuitively, we know when things just don't add up. And so does the reader.
