The Time In Between

The Time In Between is an international bestselling novel (historical fiction) by Spanish author María Dueñas.  Written in first person, the story is set in 1930s Spain (initially) and follows Sira Quiroga, daughter and apprentice to a seamstress.  By her twenties she’s learned a great deal about the business which, unbeknownst to her, will help her immensely in the near future.

The novel opens splendidly: “A typewriter shattered my destiny.”  Immediately you want to know how this could possibly be.  From there the story is completely engaging.

Sira is already engaged to a government clerk at the beginning, but things go terribly awry when she meets a particularly charming salesman.  Unfortunately, she decides to leave her fiance for Señor Suave and her life is completely turned upside down.  She later ends up stranded in Morocco with her father’s inheritance in the hands of the conniving salesman, who’s gone off to God knows where.  Though, perhaps this was a blessing in disguise; back home there’s a civil war a-brewing, and WWII is just around the corner…

With no means of leaving Morocco, fate has left Sira with no other choice but to depend on the one thing she knows well: how to sew clothes.  With the help of a weary commissioner and a landlady of questionable repute, Sira decides to reinvent herself and open her own haute couture studio.  Word starts to spread about her work, and before she knows it she’s developed quite the reputation.

What she wasn’t expecting by now was to become a target of a British intelligence recruiter.  And that’s where things get really interesting…

Why I Love This Novel

First off, Dueñas really knows how to keep you turning the pages.  There were several times throughout the story where I simply did not want to put my e-reader down.  Interested writers could learn a thing or two on where to end their scenes and chapters from this author.

Another thing I mentioned before that was done well was the characters.  Sira doesn’t especially grab me until the latter half of the book–which is, btw, over 600 pages long–but initially the secondary characters were what really caught my interest.  Some are smoldering, some are quirky, and some are suspiciously plucky.  In any case, these characters add a lot of spice to Sira’s adventures.

Something else I liked was the way Dueñas tied in the whole espionage thread.  It developed slowly over time so that when it finally came it made sense.  Sira’s skills as a seamstress were brilliantly incorporated into the plot, both in the methods she passed on coded messages and her cover story for relocating to Spain in order to spy on a certain businessman.  Overall, I thought this was done well.

There were very few things I did not like about this novel.

The Nit-Picky Cons

Genre writers are forever encouraged to “show, don’t tell”; put the reader in the center of the story rather than making them watch.  It’s practically been drilled into our brains.  But The Time In Between is historical fiction–and to be honest I’m not sure if that’s really under “genre fiction”.  In any case, historical fiction tends to follow different rules than, say, fantasy does.  I tend to see a lot more telling with historical and for some reason it seems a bit more acceptable there than it would in sf/f.  (But maybe that’s just my skewed opinion.)  In any case, I think The Time In Between does a lot of telling, but you know what?  I actually didn’t mind it, for the most part.  At first I was aware of it, but over time it didn’t matter because Dueñas tells the parts that need to be told, never more.  And she does it interestingly.

This is really comparing apples to oranges, I realize, so it’s not so much a criticism as it is pointing out an observation.

The only real “con” I can think of with this novel is that sometimes Dueñas makes unnecessary long lists of things that have already happened–I presume for the purpose of reminding the reader.  But we really don’t need to be reminded of all the details, just the major ones.  And even then not all that often.  I guess it’s just a matter of balance, is all.

…And maybe Sira could have been more interesting in the first half, as the secondary characters fairly out-shined her.

Though, besides that, I pretty much loved everything else about this novel and would give it 5/5 stars.  Or how about hearts.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

(Ha!  So much for “brief”…)

Has anyone else read this novel?

If so, what did you think?  Or, if you haven’t, does this sound like something you might read?

I told myself a few weeks ago that I wasn’t going to read while trying to edit the rest of my novel (ha!) because sometimes it becomes distracting or discouraging.  But sometimes…I want to compare apples to oranges, you know?  See what’s happening in other genres.

Infodumping in Historical Fiction

Despite what I told myself, I’ve been reading a couple of novels on an off (because apparently I don’t just sit down and read novels straight through anymore; I either think too much about them or they bore me before they can get on a roll…100+ pages into the story).  Both are works of historical fiction with espionage elements in them because that’s what I’ve been craving of late, and I find myself getting frustrated because both do something that is highly frowned upon and typically attributed to the science fiction and fantasy genres: giving too much exposition at once.

And it’s not just any kind of exposition; it’s that tediously dry kind that seems to just carry on and on and on…because hey, it’s history-cal fiction and I have to tell you about the history of this setting, doggonit–even if it is done in the most boring/irrelevant manner ever.

Now, when a fantasy writer tries this it’s called “infodumping;” when a writer of historical fiction does it it’s called “lush period detail.”

Okay, maybe I’m just being cynical now.  Or maybe I’ve just become an impatient reader.  Or both.  (Lord, help me.)

Objective Subjectivity

Personally, if I have to sit through more than half a page of information that seemingly has nothing to do with furthering the immediate situation at hand, then I’ll get bored.  “Immediate relevancy” is kind of my litmus test as to whether certain information belongs in a particular scene–something I’m trying to live by in my own writing.

Key word “trying.”  (Sometimes you just want to hold on to bits of info because you’ve somehow managed to make it all nice and shiny.  Sometimes it’s just hard to let go of such golden nuggets.)

However, I’ve also come across longer stretches of information in novels that don’t bore me at all because they are told in a voice or manner that I personally think is interesting.

Anyhow, I get the feeling that labeling anything as an infodump is a partly subjective process because there aren’t a whole lot of quantitative guidelines out there (if any) and people always have different ideas about what’s interesting and what’s not.  I’m curious about what others think of infodumping, so here’s my question(s) to you all:

In your opinion, what qualifies as “infodumping?”

What doesn’t?  Is there a certain length or amount you just won’t put up with?  That you will put up with?

Also, how do you gauge what stays and goes in your own writing when you come across something that just screams, or maybe even just whispers, infoduuuuuuump…?