I’m reading The Light Fantasic, a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. It’s his second book, written in 1986, when he must have been about 35 years old. I’ve got to the point (fairly early on) where I don’t care what he does with the story, the plot can go nowhere and I’ll still be contented, because he has made me laugh. He’s demonstrated very witty word play, and some images that are just so damn funny. He’s poked a finger at things everyone has been foolish about (like the tooth fairy) and by making me see how ridiculous they are, I have been won over (what’s she live in, then, a castle made of teeth?)
It makes me realise that readers just want to enjoy the book, that’s all, and if you can’t write something the reader is going to take delight in, its not going to work. It can be dark, it can be scary, but it must be delightful, wonderful; attractive.
He’s got scenes in there which are such sidebars they are only linked into the story because those characters were present in one of the earlier core-plot scenes, they don’t move the main plot forward, they do nothing to raise the bar or heighten the tension, but they are wonderful, like the old wizard who was scared of Death constructing his elaborate defences and climbing into the coffin with the locking lid with no airholes …
and a voice beside him saying
DARK IN HERE, ISN’T IT?
That was pure storytelling. Indulgent, damn funny, so memorable. He’s got a very simple plot in the centre, everything is elaboration and sideswirls, fleshing out a simple idea.
He’s probably made huge plot bungles, things which would have made me agonise for days, and I don’t see them, because I’m a reader, I’m not looking at it critically if he’s won me over and continues to reward my sense of humour with cleverness. He’s probably re-directing my attention with these little side-stories too, and I can’t see it, because my mind is occupied by their delights, and then I’m back to the main thread without a hitch.
