"Creative" Plot Devices: What Makes Them Work or Not?

Two books that I just finished have set me to thinking about "creative" plot devices and why some work and others don't (though they seem like good ideas).

Given the current popularity of podcasts, it's not surprising that they are showing up as plot devices in novels. I had read at least two other novels that used fictional podcasts as a source of text for a novel before reading Conviction, by Denise Mina. In the latest title from mystery-writer Mina, on the morning that Anna McDonald learns her partner is leaving her for her best friend, she has just started listening to a true-crime podcast (she's an aficionado). To her surprise, the podcast is about the death of someone she knew a decade ago, a man named Leon Parker. She decides the conclusion reached in the podcast can't be right and sets off on a madcap road trip with her former best friend's husband Fin (an anorexic over-the-hill rock star). As they investigate Leon's case, they are also pursued by hit men from Anna's past, who believed her to be dead but are alerted they were wrong about that by a picture posted on social media. Fin decides they should start their own podcast about the case, which only leads to more trouble.

Conviction has gotten some very positive reviews, but I found it to strain credulity. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems unlikely someone who has been trying to stay anonymous for a decade would, on the day her partner left her, set out on a crazy investigative road trip (with someone she barely knows) that is bound to stir the beehive. And the links between Leon's case and the trouble in Anna's past are also rather difficult to swallow. In this case, the podcast just seems like a way to get out a lot of information about the case--and it's not particularly effective. I didn't hate Conviction, but I don't think the rave reviews were justified. 

Lorna Landvik, in Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes), uses an analog device that might seem dated in today's digital news environment. but I found it much more effective. Haze Evans has written a newspaper column for 50 years. When she suffers a stroke and lapses into a coma, the newspaper's editor Susan decides to republish selected columns and reader responses from Haze's long career. She enlists her teenage son Sam to assist with the job, and the process turns out to be transformative for Sam--and for others in the community. It's a little bit corny but also funny and moving. The newspaper columns are an effective device because they create a distinct voice that makes a nice counterpoint to Susan and Sam's perspectives. And they offer Landvik the opportunity to comment on virtually anything that has happened in the past 50 years that she wants to opine about.

So what's my conclusion about why some "creative" plot devices work and some don't? I guess the main (and perhaps obvious) reason is that if a book has other flaws that cause you to discount it, a clever device is not likely to redeem it. In addition, if the device doesn't serve a particular purpose for which it is uniquely well-suited, then it's not really functional and not likely to be engaging. But I could be wrong!