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

[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?

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

There is only one area in which I throw up my hands. It's not wank, I just go 'eh, don't tell me all the ways I can try to get around it'.

I can't tell left from right. If someone says look up, I can do it. If someone says look down, I can do it. If someone says look left, I have no idea what they're talking about.

I've tried wearing jewelry and other subtle cues. But the only thing that really works is writing left and right on the back of my hand. And then of course, I'd look down if someone told me to look left and then I after I'd figured left out, I'd look there.

I am not the person to navigate a mine field. :)

But this part of my life which I just accept, doesn't seem anything to me like not using a bible, or having a chalkboard drawn with lead up, climax, resolution or other things that'd help someone tell a story. And I given the fact that I go into say, getting directions by asking for landmarks, I don't understand why she's chosen to write a cast of thousands if it's so hard for her to retain (that is more difficult than for regularly comprehending people).

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the reason for the cast of thousands is
A) She can't bear to kill any core characters, so she needs new Red Shirts to kill off every book;
B) She wants another lover for herself. Remember how she talked about how she and Jon were "looking for a third?" That desire drives her to write in new men for her (characters) to have sex with.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

Remember how she talked about how she and Jon were "looking for a third?"


...I had not heard that. Suddenly, a whole bunch of things are explained...

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

What Horsedoovers said. You're doing fine.

The problem with being dyslexic and arrogant both at once is that when such people run the spell-checker, and it notifies them of errors, they think "What's wrong with that? It looks fine to me. Must be a problem with the machine," and click the Add to Dictionary button. That's why LKH keeps messing up words like ardeur: instead of trusting authority, she put misspellings into the machine, and undercut her own safeguards.

[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.

[panicqueen.livejournal.com]

I have tons of friends who are dyslexic, and they don't make near the same mistakes that she does. Also, they know where and when to use commas. Just sayin'.

Difference between us is that if my friends find something they don't like or understand, I listen to them.

*applauds you* :)

[catskin.livejournal.com]

I have dyscalculia, which is a similar thing but with numbers. I constantly misread numbers, sometimes to the point where a completely different number comes out of my mouth to what's on the page. I can't add or subtract for shit and multiplication make me cry.

However, I discovered this amazing invention called the calculator that alleviated many of my problems. I believe there are similar inventions for people with dyslexia, called dictionaries and spellchecks.

[jycaegima.livejournal.com]

I have that, but I never knew there was a different name for it.

I have never had any trouble with words or letters, but I constantly transpose numbers, so much so, that phone numbers make me want to cry and hit things.

[catskin.livejournal.com]

Lol, you should see me at work, constantly giving people phonenumbers back to front and putting them through to Chinese takeaways instead of police officers like I should... Oops...