To me writing style/structure is more important than what the characters saying or doing. Once you figure out for example how the author describes things or the way the author tells you key details then it changes your whole perception of a book.
Take GGM, he does something not many writers can pull off, he gives you major plot points ahead of time/key information early on without build up to it. Take Chronicle of a Death Foretold, on the first page he tells us Santiago will be killed, very early on he tells us who committed the murder….basically the opposite of a who-dunnit, but he still keeps you hooked with jumps forwards and backwards in time. To some this may be very disjointed but like a who-dunnit novel (whereby the detective uncovers information bit by bit and in the end you get the big ta-da reveal of the killer) GGM like the detective in those novels gives you the information but he does so sometimes jumping forward in time and sometimes backwards.
Even in his most famous work 100 Years of Solitude he starts with ‘many years later as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia…’ so already you have something major that happens to the character at the end of his life told within the first sentence. I did see a post on reddit from my browsing someone saying they disliked GGM telling you the information (they felt somewhat cheated of the climax to the moment) but i think this style is key to how GGM wants to structure his narrative. For example in Chronicle of Death Foretold he tells you the reader that Santiago will be killed, the story goes on and we uncover that many other characters knew he was gonna be killed so it puts you the reader with the other characters and isolates Santiago even more.
Do you guys focus much on structure? Or not so much because I don’t see many people focus much on structure unless someone does something very unique or obvious
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