Oh how she chips away at my foundation

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Oh for the love of all that's holy!



LKH: Italics
Me: Regular
My Emphasis: Bold

In A LICK OF FROST what I made notes for was, names of characters and physical descriptions, especially of eyes. When I first created my version of the sidhe, the high court of faerie, I had this neat idea. I read one account of a man who had met one of the sidhe. He described her as beautiful, then said she had three eyes. Now I'd read all sorts of true accounts of people that had interacted with the fey. I studied reports of people from the 1700s and before, and after, that said they'd been abducted not by aliens, but by fairies. They do not describe anyone as beautiful that has three eyes, or any extra bits. That is like considered a sign of being 'evil'. So, how to reconcile beauty with three eyes?

I walked around for a day or so, trying to decide what it meant. I passed a news stand and saw a cat magazine. It had a gorgeous cat on the cover with a closeup showing it's eyes. Eyes that had three distinct rings of color in it's iris. I knew what I thought the man had meant when he said the beautiful woman had three eyes.

So I gave most of the sidhe multi-colored irises. Great idea, very visual. Problem, it's sometimes hard enough to remember who has gray eyes, or brown, or blue, but then also to remember who has three rings of different shades of blue, and who has grey rings, or which of them has eyes that are just green. It makes a small problem that most writers have with a large cast of characters even harder. Yes, yes, if I would just keep that running list of physically characteristics on file, I wouldn't have to worry about it. I've been meaning to do that for years. I just never quite do it.

There's more to this blog. So much more. Stuff about dyslexia and her two degrees blah blah wankcakes blah beer blah. But this is what makes me scream:

ARRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH

The following rant will be quite rambly and may be somewhat incoherent.

Do we need reminders that vampires drink blood? No.

Do we need reminders that weres shift shape? No.

Do we need reminders that the fey use magic? No.

Why then, if she's properly introduced the concept of tri-ringed irises does she feel the need to continually remind people, over and over again with description after description that she can't even keep straight?

If it's not important enough for her to remember, if in fact she finds the concept confusing, how can she not think that the readers aren't confused. If her own characters don't impress themselves into her memory, how can she not understand why some readers don't really give a damn?!

I know I could well be missing something, much in the same way I read the first Merry book and I don't remember the tri-ringed irises at all. But this whole thing strikes me akin to the long haired men in the Anita Blake books. People can't keep the men straight (no pun intended) because they're all beautiful and long haired and pony-tail wearing.

And now having seen her solution is to write NOTE CHARACTER B _ INSERT HAIR COLOR / EYE COLOR; I 'm all no wonder men in both her books come across as empty shells.

I'm not going to get into the couch pop-psychology about why LKH can't hold onto the characterization of a male character; his personality, what makes him tick, etc. Because I think she can't hold onto any characterization. And this is why it's so much easier for her to have all other women as bitches, all major character women defined by the crown on their head, or their physical appearance and all the men just walking dicks with long multi-coloured hair and eye colour.

When I was a little girl, I think I wanted to meet a mer-man with sea-foam green hair and green eyes. I've now been on livejournal for going on almost six years now and my participation in fandom has helped me place that childish longing in it's place. It was the infantile longing for the exotic that's created to be tamed. It was my first fantasizing about a magical universe. I don't really remember much about my little mer-man, but I knew we were going to save the world together from a great evil (Blame Tolkien).

I have been actively straining to learn all I can about writing and characters and world building and various nuances of writing for the past six years. I've written fan-fiction and done rpgs and called it all my Outside The Classroom College Writing Experience.

I've seen myself grow.

How the hell is LKH managing to move backwards? She started off with characters who've stayed in my mind precise and clean for years ( Edward, Rafael, Ronnie, Olaf, Jason). Now, however, everytime I read reviews I have no idea who's being talked about. People go 'The one with the hair and the eyes' but it all gets jumbled for me because they all have 'special hair and special eyes and special penii'.

My personal memory can suck, for a shitload of reasons (stuff I can safely say would make LKH run screaming). But as books were always my comfort, I could and can remember storylines from books I read when I was 5, 6 and 7. I can almost always remember the characters involved and what they were supposed to look like and more importantly what they felt like.

LKH's 'progress' in writing, terrifies me now. Because I can't remember the characters, the people she's writing about anymore. Which means I can't remember what I was doing at the time I read the books. Which means I can't remember parts of my life, because her work has no hook.

I'm sure that's not the way it feels for everyone else. I know I have a unique mental take on things. But surely I'm not the only one thinking that her characters have become soulless. It's more than they're now pod!people. They seem empty inside. And the knowledge that she just sticks in 'HIS EYE COLOR IS WHAT?' just makes things creepier to me.

http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2007/05/taking-my-own-advice.html

Comments

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

I think it's very clear how LKH has managed to regress. She used to thank her writing group for their help on her books. That was back when she still believed she was a mere mortal, and her work could actually benefit from criticism by other human beings. Back when she actually solicited criticism and considered it (however ungraciously I suspect she did so).

This was back before she became a Big Name Author and could dispense with them (and with editors). And to the degree that she has cut her ties with anyone and everyone who was willing and able to provide guidance, her work has increasingly sucked.

At this point she doesn't even take her OWN advice. She _knows_ she ought to be maintaining a bible for her series. But she doesn't.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

So hubris?

I hadn't thought of the fact that the lack of an actual bible for her series pointed out her pride. I take making a bible for granted - it's usually how I start creating a world.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think hubris covers it. The rants she's posted about the haters and how people don't like her recent works because they're too edgy (hah!) and make the readers think too hard pretty much demonstrate that, I think. There seems to be no room in her worldview for the idea that her work could be less than perfect, or that it could be improved by actually obtaining some constructive criticism.

As for the bible issue--laziness probably has something to do with it, but I think it's mostly hubris. I suspect she thinks that relying on a series bible would interfere with her Creativity (insert charicature of joint-smoking, beret-wearing Artiste here). I don't doubt, based on what she's written in the past, that in her view creativity must be spontaneous, pouring out of her subconscious (in the inimitable phrase Ayn Rand used once) "like vomit out of a drunkard."

Note how often she complains about the characters being uncooperative, and how "forcing" the plot doesn't work because that's not how the story wants to go. (Alternated with claims that she puts more of X into her books just to flip the bird at haters who object to X, put shhhhhhh!) Note the complete lack of ownership of her fiction. She lets her "friends" (for whom she supposedly buys presents, thinking they're real) do what they like; she avoids plots that endanger characters because the other characters would be unhappy. Ad nauseum....

I find the incessant chatter about "muses" by fanfic writers on the internet mildly amusing*, but they're not being paid big bucks to produce an (allegedly) professional product. LKH is, but she refuses to listen to criticism, won't maintain a series bible, and purports to have characters dictating plotlines to her; that's the behavior of someone who believes (consciously or not) that her subconscious can squeeze out perfect fiction without any editorial direction, like a goose laying golden eggs. Hubris.

*I write fanfic myself, but I never lose sight of the fact that it's fiction and _I_ am responsible for it, whether it sucks or not.

[melaniedavidson.livejournal.com]

Um... good try, LKH, but having rings in your irises is not even close to having three eyes. What the heck?

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Privately I think she couldn't handle the thought of the Fey not being attractive by regular human standards. Merry was started to get away from death and I suppose that's her thinking that sex = life and the opposite of death (let us not talk about climax as the little death it shall only muddy the waters)

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

And here I was thinking she'd had a garbled recollection of the description of Cu Chulainn:

"His hair was black at the roots, blood red in the middle, and gold at the ends, and said to either be very smooth or sticking up in the front. Seven pupils of seven colors were in each of his eyes, with the light of seven diamonds in each pupil. Each hand had seven fingers and each foot seven toes, with the grasp of a hawk in each."

(Strangely, most artists depict him as quite human.)

[slayra.livejournal.com]

I have tried to read 'A Kiss of Shadows' three times now. I dread what is to come, so I never got past page 50. *sigh*

I've read 14 AB books and the characters were never LKH's strong point. At first there weren't that many (and, wow, she actually killed a semi-important character, Phillip) but I never much cared for their development. They are too two-dimentional for me. Anita, JC, Richard have a number of automated responses to situations a few character traits that are repeated book after book. They don't grow much as characters (unless you count their superpowers), they don't get deeper, they stay the same.

When she started adding more characters (male) it got worse. All her characters are automats, with little or no personality (and the little personality they have is horrible). It's a problem that comes from having way too many characters. I honestly have a hard time remembering names and hair colors and eye colors... I just can't connect with the characters as they aren't fleshed out... they don't seem real and most of them are little more than sex dolls.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it might be more apt to say the potential for their characterization stuck in my head. But I do think she had good bones. I think she had such good bones, in fact that it took several books for me (and others) to realize she never built on them.

JC as master manipulator and as a male using his sex appeal.

Richard as the small town boy mentality, with a school teacher's idealism and suddenly a position of power and demand. At first it seems natural to me that he could handle things and then you saw cracks. And I thought those cracks in his personality would be like fissures that when healed make the bone stronger - but not so much.

Edward as a true monster but legal and safe because he walks in human skin. Matter of fact about who is and what he is and always stating things clearly. And maybe it was only in my head that he seemed to peer and poke and prod at Anita to see if she really had humanity, believed in humanity, held on to her humanity of if it was all some act that purposely slowed her down.

Jason as a legitimate look at what it could mean to live in a world of abuses that had supernatural stuff on top of it. His whole scene with the vampires who could rot just felt like emotional nightmare turned reality turned insanity.

And in the beginning I liked Anita. I say over and over again that for me, Anita's arc ended at OB butterfly when she had a chance to start all over again in a new town, with a new guy but she realized she had to let go of her fears and prejudices and deal with what she had back home. Maybe it wasn't an arch showing the growth from one step to another. But for me it was an arch of a character realizing she needed to grow.

And then.....

Teh Sexors Dolls O Cocks O Doom - CrotchMonster!

[stefflebug.livejournal.com]

Ok, this woman breaks my brain.

I agree with her first paragraph : he advice I give beginning writers is not to get bogged down in the first draft. The example I usually give is from my own first book, NIGHTSEER. There was a moment when I had to get her undressed for the night, and I had no idea what a society equivalent to about 1300 to 1400s would wear under their clothes. But I was smart. Instead of running off to the library and researching 14th century underwear I just typed, "NOTES; WHAT DOES 14TH CENTURY UNDERWEAR LOOK LIKE," and kept writing.

This is fine advice, it doesn't break the flow of writing and lets you get the points of the story down before you lose them. Then you go back and fill them in.

But then she starts wangsting, and going on about how now it is details like name and eye colour that she needs to fill in, just no. You make a character list, you plan things like that, or they all end up penii with pretty coloured hair (I love that description).

Oh and : I am dyslexic. .... It made so much sense. I can't spell because the blasted letters in the middle don't stay still.

Does anyone else think that she is using this as an excuse for not being able to remember the spellings for the ardeur, raphael, etc?

Sure, dyslexia can interfer with things, but then you have someone who is not dyslexic to help you out. Like, I don't know, an editor.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

She's never said exactly what happens with her dyslexia until now, as far as I've seen. If I'm wrong, someone please do correct me.

I'm not sure what she's going for when she says she has it. Is she saying she's brighter than we think, but she has difficulty getting things down on the paper in the proper form? In which case, why doesn't she have more editors and take time to have her writing group go over things?

Is she saying we should praise her for working through having dyslexia when she didn't get special organizational assistance like her daughter? But then why doesn't she have a bible and something more concrete than sticky notes?

I'm dyslexic. I've not been officially diagnosed. I figured it out when I was doing research in college for a psychology class. Suddenly all my years of difficulty paying attention to teachers but yet being able to learn fine from books had a reason. I understand what a huge revelation it can be. At the same time, however, it allowed me to realize I had coping mechanisms and allowed me to improve upon them.

So is there something wrong with me for using spell-check faithfully and loving that the new Firefox shows me in the midst of typing where I've gone wrong?

[amamelina.livejournal.com]

Ok, I am the first person to admit that Dyslexia can be a problem, but I think she's laying into it too hard. Personally, I think that she would try harder. I know that I try harder, and I'm not as bad as she is. I rely heavily on my spell-check (and it hates me for it) and I have friends who read my stuff. Difference between us is that if my friends find something they don't like or understand, I listen to them.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Do note I could only flog part of this one. The one that made me the most infuriated or perhaps the part that infuriated me first.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

"I read one account of a man who had met one of the sidhe."

Says it all, really. She believes this waaay too much.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

sdfkjasd;fsdkfj;aoeih n;

*deep breaths*

Now I'm suddenly glad that I keep character profiles of DOOM (no, seriously, the proforma is like 5 pages long and asks you everything about a character and their preferences in kitchen sinks) and files on world babble/building so I can help cobble together a coherent timeline and evolution of people.

But oh, LKH, back in the 18th century, people did not know what aliens were! They would have described them as otherworldly beings, and indeed, fairies. *headdesk* I DON'T THINK JOE CITIZEN WOULD HAVE RUN THROUGH THE STREETS YELLING, "OMFG! I JUST GOT ANAL PROBED BY LITTLE GREEN CHEESE MEN!!! AND THEY TURNED MY COW INSIDE OUT!!!"

Though, I don't see why she had to try and "reconcile" three eyes with beauty -- a chick can still have three eyes and be hot, Third Eye open, or like, an extra eyeball on her cheek, or hip, or whatever. The thing that's probably irking me the most about this is that LKH is focusing on the Unseelie, who are meant to find all manner of perversities and deformities as beautiful, and she's prettying them up and then pointing out that the Seelie are so damned vain and all LA LA LA WE ARE SO GREAT! *prisses in front of mirrors* Because right now, there's no difference between the two courts. Both are dying, both have omgsocrazyanddangerousperverted rulers that are in denial, both have the same sorts of prejudices and court systems. It's like pretty much everything else -- please insert name and description here, move to next sex scene.

I'm just waiting for the Wild Hunt to just ride along and inadvertantly flatten the Sithen, then get drunk and dance on the rubble while the hell hounds eat the corpses of Merry and her harem. It'd be better for everyone, really.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Now that I know about the fate of Rafael I don't have the energy/strength to wish up an AU any longer where things suddenly turn right. Wishing for the Wild Hunt in the books won't fix things. Wishing for the Wild Hunt to come tap on her window and say hello....

That's another story.

[catskin.livejournal.com]

It's like her blog about 300 where she harps on about the "pretty" Spartans. *shudder* Oh, she makes me so sad.

[nightangel486.livejournal.com]

I think what irritated me more was one of the previous blogs where she talkes YET AGAIN about how unique and innovative the AB:VH series was and how she was the FIRST ONE to do paranormal romance/urban fantasy. I distinctly remember reading other urban fantasy series which came out either before or around the same time as Anita Blake. This if anything really demonstrates just how egotistical she is.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Well I 'loved' how she threw Charles de Lint in there. Some of his stuff I can read and some of his stuff I can't. It's a matter of personal taste. But his landscape is incredibly rich and purposeful.

I've only read Charles de Lint in the last couple of years. I did read Anita Blake first. But she was hardly the first one. I'd say that Robin Cook and Michael Crichton got me prepared for the idea. And I think P.N.Elrod (or someone very like her) had me thinking of vampires living among humans in more modern times.

But now it hits me as I think of this, that she says how the publishing houses wanted her to write things about the vampires not being known to society and yet she's the first one to do xyz. I can give her that she might have been the first one to portray modern life plus supernatural life plus the politics of modern living; laws, statues, all night blood banks. I don't believe she was the first one to do paranormal romance. And I don't believe she was the first one to blend genres.

Straining to think of other books, I just end up going Gael Baudino and Misty's Diane Tregarde books (not to mention the Bard ones in the city - Bedlam's Bard?) Then there's Susan Cooper and I can't think of anymore names, just the stories. Maybe she discounts those people (the ones I can't remember), however, because some of the wrote YA.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

The bit that annoys me is that the more she says it, the more she will be believed!!

[lyo.livejournal.com]

Yo, LKH:

Is this why Nicca was PURPLE in the firstbook and BROWN in the second?



>_> That's been irking me for a while. I just needed to get it off my chest.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

No kidding, I went through the books looking for the descriptions just to straighten it out in my head because I thought I was mis-remembering something. I couldn't believe such a glaring inconsistency got by.

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

Huh. I kinda have that problem with left and right, or used to: if someone just asks me where left is, or right is, I can answer. But if I have to think about it, I get muddled, though not nearly so much anymore. I also don't drive much, if ever; when I started to seriously do so to work on getting my license, I mostly solved the problem, because I just never needed to worry about such directionals otherwise.

I do tend to flip numbers around at work (like telling someone they have $10.40 instead of $10.04, or telling them their paid amount instead of their change), but I still usually give them the correct money. But I'm also horrible at math, so there you go.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Me and my dad are the same sort of way with numbers as you are -- it makes for remembering PIN and phone numbers all kinds of fun. The irony is, I went on to do pure math in high school (okay, so it's all agerbra, very little numbers) and was still horrible about it, but I'm great at working out money in my head while at the check out.

[catskin.livejournal.com]

How, how, HOW can you have written a 14-book series WITHOUT ever making ANY kind of notes on your characters' physical appearance? That's surely the BARE MINIMUM you'd need to keep up consistency? I'm two books into my series and there's already loads of stuff I couldn't keep track of without my bible. Not just looks, but dead characters and how they died, magic systems, places, types of monster, who's dating who...

Every time I read something like this, it just makes me incredulous that LKH is a bestselling novelist.