What I'm Reading: Origin by Dan Brown

I read Dan Brown’s latest release, Origin, over two weeks while travelling Hawaii. I read it on planes, at airports, by the pool or beach, and in the gardens of the Honolulu Zoo.

To quickly summarise the premise, one of Robert Langdon’s past students, Edmond Kirsch, is now a famous computer scientist, and is about to announce a discovery that will shake the foundations of religion, by answering two questions: who are we, and where are we going. Kirsch gets shot and killed, however, during his announcement, and Langdon gets caught up in trying to release Kirsch’s pre-recorded message to the world.

There’s a reason Brown’s books are bestsellers – they’re just so darn entertaining. But while I was entertained, I couldn’t help but have my writer’s hat on while reading. There’s so much to learn, especially about pacing, structure, and the way information is given to the reader.

I listened to a webinar a few weeks back from the Digital Writers Festival on ‘narrative traction’ by C.S. Pacat. Essentially narrative traction is what keeps readers turning the pages – what makes them want to keep reading. The strategy for this is very simple; create a desire for the reader, and then withhold it.

Brown does this multiple times throughout Origin. From the beginning, the main desire of the reader is to find out what Kirsch’s big discovery is; and this is withheld until the very end of the book.

As well as this desire, others pop up along the way (spoiler warning for those who haven’t read it!): who killed Kirsch? who is the Regent? is the Bishop or the Prince really involved? And so on. More and more questions keep popping up, and the reader is motivated to keep reading with the promise that these questions will be answered by the last page.

Is it possible to withhold for too long? I personally found the build up to Kirsch’s big announcement a little too long-winded. It got to the point where I found there was a lot of build up but not much plot progression; however, once Kirsch was killed and it became apparent that the discovery wasn’t going to be revealed anytime soon, and the story continued along, then I was happy to have the question floating in the background.

Origin’s structure adds to the feeling of a breakneck pace – the chapters are short, and constantly head-hopping between characters, which gives different perspectives of the action as it moves forward. This also allows Brown to feed information to the reader through the different characters, without the protagonist (Langdon), necessarily knowing everything. The reader can start trying to piece together the mystery ahead of the protagonist, which is pretty cool.

Popular quotes from the novel

I did find that the red herring of Bishop Valdespino became slightly too obvious – readers familiar with Dan Brown expect plot twists or new information to emerge as the book progresses. The evidence stacked up a little too neatly against Valdespino early on, which I think would make most savvy readers aware that this isn’t the answer.

So whether you’re a Dan Brown fan or not, I recommend reading Origin (even though you've been well spoiled!). I’ve certainly only touched on one aspect of it here, so there’s much more to discover for yourself while reading (alternatively, take off your writer’s hat and enjoy the ride :) )

Happy reading!