Musings

There are things I like to think about in the history of novels. I'm no expert, so these are just random thoughts.

• Average sentence length of a 2010 novel compared to one from 100 or 200 years ago.
  
  
• Use of first person and/or present tense now versus then.
  
  
• Repetition of ideas. The say that all great stories come from other stories, but are we in an age where access has decreased originality? Or is it that access had led to more imitation? Or is it just that there is more of the same, so that a few ideas can dominate a market?

I guess I've been thinking about the last idea frequently lately. Many of the books that I read are really good books. Good prose, good story. But familiar, and not in a sense that you would expect. What do I mean? Well, in a series you would expect to find a familiar story line and characters. But so many books feel so connected. If I were to read only books from, say, the 1830s, would common threads run through many of them? I don't know; I've never done such an experiment. Perhaps it is because I read a lot, and I tend to read the YA market (which is heavily weighted towards girls).

Anyway, I just posted this because I'm two pages into The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (a 9th grade summer reading book), and I'm already thinking this:
"Hmm... an isolated and secured village? Haddix's Running Out of Time --> Cronin's The Passage --> M. Night Shymalan's The Village --> Perhaps even Lowry's The Messenger. (BTW, I do believe Haddix's book predates them all.)