I'm finally reading World War Z.
It's a clever book, worth reading. I don't know that I was completely aware of the epistolary nature of the book. It's a useful technique, which I utilized in "Led to the Slaughter." When I got the Donner Party to the Sierra Madres, I realized that the rest of the book would be a long steady decline and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do that without making it dull.
So I settled on journal entries, which worked perfectly. A different little story with each chapter from a viewpoint character.
That's what WWZ is really, a series of short stories, short shorts and longer shorts, but all connected to one event. There's almost no character follow-through. It works great.
How they thought they could make a movie out of it, I don't know.
Anyway, I'm currently struggling with the plot a new story and couldn't quite figure out how to accomplish my goal. An epistolary approach maybe the answer. I'm pretty good at having each section of the book have it's own little conclusion, which is what is needed.
WWZ also works because there was obviously some research done, which adds to the verisimilitude of the action.
I'm pleased that the book was good, because too many times lately highly lauded books...well, kind of sucked. This one was fun.
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