That one member who timed her applause during a debate

At our April meeting in Portland, we debated whether unreliable narrators are a cop-out or a craft choice. This woman named Diane pulled out her phone and started timing every pause in the discussion. When I said I didn't like a twist ending, she stopped her timer and announced, "That took you 14 seconds to get to the point." We all just stared at her, and then she explained she was testing if our arguments matched the book's pacing. Has anyone else had a member turn a book club chat into a bizarre experiment?

1 comments

1 Comment

sarah8181mo ago

Honestly, I kinda love that she did that. It sounds weird, but maybe she was just trying to see if the book's slow pacing actually worked in real conversation, which is a pretty interesting way to judge a craft choice.