I just finished reading Suzanne Collin’s “Catching Fire”, the 2nd book of The Hunger Games trilogy, last night. I read the book for only 2 weeks, wow.. not to mention it’s during exam weeks. I just practically couldn’t get my head off the book *except when I’m studying for exam.
I’ve realized this thing from a long time ago I guess, but I’ll try to write it once more in this blog *I’m not sure if I hadn’t brought this thing up before.
For me, there are 2 things that determine the quality of an author:
- The originality of the story. Of course, who can trust an author who plagiarize someone else’s work? Originality is a very important thing. Even if the plot is predictable, what the author makes of it will attract more readers. For example, this Hunger Games trilogy is not that original. I believe some mentioned “Battle Royale” from Japan or one of Stephen King’s novel to have similar idea with Hunger Games story. However, people are still amazed by The Hunger Games because it’s still different to the others. I didn’t read Stephen King, but I watched Battle Royale – I even thought the stories will be pretty similar at first [I wrote it in my blog before watching the movie, read it here] and Collins really did her work at spicing up the story.
- The way to engage the readers to the story. Even though I mention this point as a second point, I always think this is the most important thing. Here in the Hunger Games, I like the way Collins described things around the characters, it made me feel like I was really in the spot itself. There are certain authors who are my favorite and successfully engaged me in their stories: J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Cecelia Ahern, Dewi Lestari [an Indonesian author – if you’re an Indonesian I suggest you read her novels], Jodi Picoult.. 🙂 Some big names in authorship just don’t amaze me because they didn’t really put me inside their stories. I like feeling involved in the story itself.
This is just my opinion 🙂
BABYRABZ 