Why the downfall?

[easol.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm new here. ;) Please don't toast me.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask if anyone knows why the Anita Blake series crashed and burned so dramatically. I've seen basically two types of series crumbling: the slow, steady variety (Anne Rice, Patricia Cornwell), and the kind where the author keeps things interesting for maybe two books, then suddenly crashes down into tedium (Robert Jordan).

But I have NEVER, EVER seen an author continue more or less steadily, with some improvement, and then very dramatically change the entire GENRE of the storyline while crashing artistically. The authors I mentioned always more or less maintain their own style; even when they deteriorate, they are remaining within the original parameters of their series. But LKH didn't just descend into tedium or bad writing, she threw out the very bones of the series.

Did she have some sort of midlife crisis, or a mental illness, or something of the sort? Does anyone know why she changed everything but the character names?

(By the by, a little "hi" and wave to anyone who posts over at the LKH Harlequin board on amazon! Snark forever, luvvies!).

Comments

[denouement16.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that the downfall of the series coincides with LHK's divorce from Gary Hamilton and her subsequent remarriage to fan boy. Also, LKH has said in her blog and elsewhere that publishers told her sex couldn't (maybe shouldn't) be done from a female first person POV, so she decided to add more sex just to be contrary.

That's what I've heard anyway. Maybe some others on in the community can offer more/better insight than me.

[coffeehouse.livejournal.com]

I read all of the books through NIC and ID straight through. And the Gentry novels right after.
Stoke of Midnight pissed me off.

I just got done reading Danse Macabre. Read it all today.

What I found was that the earlier novels appeared to have been written by an educated person, or at least someone versed in grammer and plot, someone who had a neat little universe with rules and surprises. The earlier novels allowed for a few subplots and the characters seemed pretty well-thought out, perhaps even well-rounded in that they had a life and their having a life contributed to the lot and the novels that followed.

The later novels seemed to lose that, but there were faint glimmers, and the Gentry novels were a good premise, the first ones were pretty good, new world develping, etc...

The thing I see in her later novels is someone devolving into paranoia and losing track of what a friend is vs. what a sychophant is.

The thing I saw in Danse Macabre was an outline filled in by someone else.
I don't think LKH wrote it.
I think that she may have dictated an outline, perhaps even went so far as to have plotted out each chapter, but I think that Jon or Darla or both actually wrote it.
There are flashes of LKHs voice here and there, but the overall feeling was that it wasn't hers.

I noticed that the voice had changes in OB and NIC, but not to the extent that DM has.
I did not read Micah so I can't comment on that. DM was $5 at BJs, so I figured it'd be a good beach book.

Her grandmother did die last year or the year before, so I'm sure that has something to do with a lot of this. No more voice of reason to reign her in.

I really thing she's being ghost written. That why the books rely so heavily on sex. You don't need to know the story if you can fill in fifty pages here and there with sex.

It's quite disappointing.

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Gary-theory seems to be the most likely (and is my favorite of them haha). There's some speculation as to just how much he had to do with helping to write the books, and also if he was keeping her more grounded.

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

Except that in her blog she's constantly talking/whining about how many pages she writes per day etc etc. So she's not really being ghost written... honestly I think if it was ghost written it'd be better written.

Her personality did shift, though, somewhere in there. I think the divorce theory is more spot-on, however. Just my 2 cents in whatever currency you want it in ;)

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

crap forgot to add...

Also, I think she doesn't care about the craft of writing anymore. To her, it's a job, not a passion, not a calling. It's a droning job, it's a responsibility. So I'd speculate the joy has gone out of it for her, and instead she just does what she can to get it over with faster and keep up with her deadlines. Most authors I enjoy put out a book a year. When they go up to several releases a year the quality starts to suck (witness: Misty Lackey)... so I think it's a combo of lack of passion + divorce bitterness + hypercrazy deadlines.

[wonderbink.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that she had an editor and a writer's group who helped shape her work into readability. When she got it in her head that she was The Great And Mighty Laurell K. Hamilton and could do no wrong, her sloppiness seeped out for all the world to see.

Same thing seemed to have happened with Anne Rice. Never underestimate the power of a good editor.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

I think she's also over stretching herself, and that is showing her flaws more clearly. I, too, think the earlier books must have had someone else in tighter control, because the later ones are just a ramble of desires with nothing to hold them back.

[arclights.livejournal.com]

Word. My ex-roommate pretty much forced me to read them when I moved in with her, and seriously, her writing in her first few books was atrocious. Short, choppy or incomplete sentences that all were basically same length with a few deviations -- but her story was interesting, and I liked her characters and the situations, so it was okay.

And then, in between the first books and NiC onwards, they were actually pretty decent.

Once she stopped thanking that writing group, and got the divorce and all that ... just eeeeek. Maybe she hit menopause or something, and Anita's whore-mongering is to make up for that, like Napoleons in ridiculously raised trucks.

I really want to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that it's probably the contracts tearing her up and she's lost interest, but it's really hard to extract her craft from her personal life when she's constantly shoving it in our faces, you know? I want to be sympathetic towards her, but then she's a 'orrible bitch to anyone who doesn't think she's queen of the universe, and I just can't.

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

Not just female authors. Robert Heinlein's work declined tremendously in his later career. Part of that was he suffered from a severe health problem, and part of it was he no longer felt he should be edited, and he was a big enough name that publishing houses couldn't insist.

[coffeehouse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're right.
sigh.

It could have been a totally amazing series.

[denouement16.livejournal.com]

I keep reading that she stopped thanking her writing group, but in most of my books she continued to thank them. They're mentioned in the acknowledgements in TH "As always thanks to my writing group" (then she names them. I don't have the other books with me, but I checked awhile ago and they were almost always thanked even in the latest, most awful books.

I don't know if the writing group actually reads her stuff though, but I hear that LKH is incredibly resistant to making changes even when they're constructive, important points.

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

Do you know which book Robert Heinlein stopped being edited at?

[dinpik.livejournal.com]

IMO, two things:

1) She listened far too much to her writing group, which encouraged her to go for more sex'n' powers, whether or not doing so made sense to the plot.

2) She believes her own press.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's some of both. I think she probably listened to her writers group while she was married to Gary--most likely because she listened to _him_ and he told her she ought to.

Once they got divorced and he became Evil Incarnate in her mind, well obviously, his advice--listen to the criticisms--was anathema. Add a swelled head because she was selling well, and you get a writer who won't listen to anyone or anything but unstinting praise.

[roguetailkinker.livejournal.com]

That would make sense to me. There's no question that people who aren't getting sex think about it more. If Anita really is just an avatar for LKH's fantasies, then it's just reflective of her change in priorities.

Also, releasing two books a year means a lot less time for editing and fine-tuning. It's not just a matter of writing; often the finished product is far better if the author gets it down in the first rush of writing and then goes over the whole thing again to make sure it all flows. I know I've dashed things off in the hurry to get the ideas down and then gone back and found bits that seriously need redoing.

Also, LKH has said in her blog and elsewhere that publishers told her sex couldn't (maybe shouldn't) be done from a female first person POV, so she decided to add more sex just to be contrary.

If that's true, I'm with her on that one.

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

re: sex from female POV

I think I saw that blog too. I agree that LKH said that somewhere. I think she might be fibbing. Sex from a female persepctive is not that uncommon in books. Romance titles are swooning with sex from the woman's point of view and have been for a while. They seem to sell quite nicely also.

Sorry LKH, try another excuse.

[missamii.livejournal.com]

Its true. Even the first person POV arguement doesn't really hold, because while not many romance authors utilize it, some do experiment with it. I know for certain that Maggie Shayne's Wings in the Night series had one book that switched between first person narration by the heroine and third person. The first sex scene was written from the heroine's POV. Back in the day, before Shayne revived the series and the books were out of print, they frequently sold for over fifty dollars on eBay per volume.

[jdemorae.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure which book he stopped being edited at, but he did have a serious stroke in the middle of writing Number of the Beast. My SO is a Heinlein fan, and he says the change happens almost literally in the middle of that book.

The same thing happened with the last works by the late Marion Zimmer Bradley--the one that stands out to me is The Shadow Matrix. Gods. That was horrid. By then, she'd had several strokes, and admitted in the editor's notes in one of her anthologies that her brain was "pretty much granola".

What I'd have an interest in seeing is if LKH can manage a *real* genre change--some authors, like C.J. Cherryh, write in multiple genres and the quality takes a noticeable change. (IMO, Cherryh can write splendid sci-fi, but her fantasy, historical or otherwise, qualifies as punishment reading.) I don't mean, let's see her jump to writing real romances/porn/erotica, I mean a *real* change. It's not a fannish thing--I don't care if she spend the rest of her 'career' writing condom ads. It's more like observing a literary experiment. ;)

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

Have you read Cherryh's The Paladin? It is one my all time favorite books: an alternate China with a great hero. Most of her other non-SF, I agree.

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

I was a big Heinlein fan-I say was because I really haven't read any of his work in ten years-but I remember Number of the Beast as being okay. It has a great premise, but he'd probably planned out the book before he had the stroke.

Didn't LKH write both fantasy and SciFi before AB?

[jdemorae.livejournal.com]

Have you read Cherryh's The Paladin?

Hmm. I've heard about it, and may have seen it here and there on the shelves, but was too leery to pick it up. (After being stuck at work manning phones that never rang with only Rusalka to read... ::shudder::) I'll look for it. :)

[easol.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I heard the same. But her response doesn't seem entirely realistic to me -- if you were told that female sex scene perspectives can't be done, you might do a few to prove them wrong, not transform the ENTIRE series into nothing but.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she wrote a dark fantasy of sorts a few years before, and a Star Trek novel.

[were-lemur.livejournal.com]

My guess is that she's fallen down the id vortex. She writes her own pr0n to her own kinks, and the hell with anybody who'd like an actual plot.

Which is perfectly accpetable and understandable when someone is writing fanfic and posting it on the internet for free, but to actually charge for it?

(OTOH, if she's still making enough money, I imagine she's thinking, why should she change a damn thing? I know I only work as hard as I have to at my money job.)

[easol.livejournal.com]

If that's so, then she has a rather childish perspective on the world. "I hate Gary now, so his advice must be rotten too."

[easol.livejournal.com]

What is "pr0n"?

[nightangel486.livejournal.com]

I think the ex-husband theory probably has some amount of weight to it. I mean you take a woman who already has issues and difficulty handling things, and put her through a divorce, and suddenly the books are her way of coping, not just with the death of her mother or insecurity about her appearance or writing, but with whether she, as a darkity dark person, can be loved. Anita has so many problems with trust and so many supposedly satisfying sexual relationships with mens she "loves" that it's pretty obvious that the divorce just switched the books from her dealing with past problems to dealing with the ones her divorce created.

So yeah basically I think the books were kind of always about LKH finding a way to try to cope with things, but not succeeding, as as more issues cropped up the books became more and more about her working through them or trying to satisfy herself.

[dan-lian.livejournal.com]

Misty, at least, took a break from Velgarth. I know she's still putting some stuff out, but i think most of them are collaborations now.

/loves the Misty stuff, and was happy she walked away from velgarth before it got much worse

[mardelwanda.livejournal.com]

She actually does still thank her writing group, but she also adds that they don't get to see the work til it's finished - due to time restraints. So they probably don't get a chance to give her any feedback. Her cast of characters are just too stubborn to listen to anything she has to say, much less what a writing group suggests.

The proof of her "child's perspective" is in every emo dedication to JON, of her books, and in every single sullen,"if they could see me now - I'm showing them" tone of introduction to her short stories in Strange Candy.

If her books aren't being actually ghost written, then her two cronies (jon and darla) do have way too much imput into her books. They do help her "edit" them.

[relmneiko.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if this is a joke or not so I'll take it seriously...

porn -> pron -> pr0n. It's like net-lingo if you don't want to actually say 'porn'.

[drisoscele.livejournal.com]

Having an editor doesn't necessarily mean said editor can "edit for content" on any of Hamilton's manuscripts. I seriously doubt Hamilton's editor has the leeway or power to tell Hamilton what to take out or improve in anything that Hamilton's writing these days. The only editing going on is basic line editing and even then they're glossing over the Hamilton's poor grammar and sentence structure.

According to reports, Hamilton's first novel "Guilty Pleasure" went through 18 rewrites before it was polished enough for her agent to market it. When you compare the writing from that first novel to her more recent stuff, it becomes VERY apparent that there's little to no rewriting going on. Her current work is so crude, rough and unprofessional that were Hamilton not an already published name, she'd be getting rejection letters left and right for the current dreck she’s turning out. Hence, my theory that there's absolutely no "editing for content" going on with her current writing.

Public buying habits have pretty much convinced her publishers that they can package and market Hamilton’s drivel and the deluded public will foolishly spend their hard earned money to quickly scarf it up

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

Not this member of the deluded public. I try to save my money for authors who can actually produce a sentence that doesn't cause this former English major to wince: Kelly Armstrong and Patricia Briggs as examples.

[ladymina.livejournal.com]

I am with the group that thinks that her divorce started the downfall (of the storyline, the plot and even characters) part of the problem is that some characters were meant to represent people in her real life (gary ~ Richard , Jon ~ Micah - which actually tells a lot)
Part of the problem are her insecurities and the real blow is her new marriage to the president (or vice-president something like that) of her own fanclub - since that moment, she has the yes guy who adores her work and her and freaking took time to deal with a fanclub before catching her and as he is supposed to be the likelyness of Micah we can also deduct that he would do anything, say anything, endure anything just to stay with her ...

Though she is also publishing with a too tight timeframe and that might account for a part of the grammar, spelling and content problems

[drisoscele.livejournal.com]

I don't think her publishing schedule has any bearing on the grammar, spelling or content problems. There are a ton of other writers who are much more prolific than Hamilton and they each have a constant stream of works coming out and yet their writing is of a much higher quality that Hamilton's. The problem is Hamilton is not that strong of a writer in the first place. She's allowed her ego to get in the way and has become too lazy to submit her work to multiple rewrites to rework and polish the story. As a writer, she's been devolving and the story quality and content has degraded with each subsequent novel she's produced. Obvious, her publisher has no concern for the reading public as they’ve continued to allow Hamilton to turn in such piss poor writing.

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation. I've been so burned by the Kenyons and Wards that I rarely pick up a supernatural themed novel now unless I hear very good things about it indeed.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

I think that's what's most shocking and dismaying about AB's downward slide. She went from not even wanting to sleep with Richard until they got married, to banging six guys on a semi-regular basis with the occasional total stranger. That's a huge about-face.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

I liked "Unshapely Things" and "Magic Bites" as well. From what I've seen of both writers in fangs_fur_fey and their own journals (Mark is on my friends list because he's actually semi-local for me) they're cool, down-to-earth people, too.

Kim Harrison's Hollows series is pretty much a duh, if you haven't read it by now.

I also really enjoyed Rob Thurman's "Nightlife" and "Moonshine". Some very interesting twists on fantasy stereotypes, and an especially cool shift in "Nightlife" that I won't spoil here.

Man, I could recommend so many books. I still read a lot of urban fantasy, and if nothing else, LKH has spawned a horde of writers determined to prove that she's an exception to the genre, not the rule.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

Nah, everyone has their preferences. I like to recommend everyone who liked old Anita Blake at least give Kim Harrison a try, but to each their own. :)

I definitely understand where you're coming from on the protags, too. It seems like a genre staple to have a kick-ass heroine, often from a first-person narrative...some are well done, some are horrible Mary-Sues, some fall in between at varying points along the line. I struggle with it a lot myself as a writer, keeping characters balanced with flaws that are realistic, not just "Oh, she's a super-kick-ass whatever, but she's also lactose intolerant".

As an aside, I thought I'd mention that some publishers have very very strict guidelines for every step of the story from the characters' personalities to the ending. We were discussing this in another community just a few days ago, a conversation that started with a publisher's super-strict formula for their urban fantasy line...a formula that encourages super-ass-kicking heroines who always come out on top in the end. It's basically a romance formula applied to urban fantasy setting, and it's very irritating, though it's nothing new. It just discourages writers, imo, from stepping outside that formula and doing something different and exciting.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Well, the publisher that demanded that particular formula mostly publishes romances to begin with and is simply branching out from paranormal romance to urban fantasy, and it's pretty well known fact that the romance industry is insanely strict (romance almost invariably demands that the writer follow a very, very specific formula as to the morality and traits of the hero, the heroine ("must be, if not virginal, then pure and inexperienced"), the nature of the conflict, the protagonists, the ending, basically every step of the way because "readers expect a certain type of story, that's what they turn to romances for"). So...at least it's not a general thing, but very genre-specific. But still. Ick.

The sad thing is, writing formula romance pays really, really well, if you're any good and can stomach their rules. I have a friend who was considering changing her novel to make the romance elements stronger because she could get up to five times the advance money for a romance that she would have gotten if it were a simple paranormal mystery.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

As long as we're recommending -- Oh my GOD is Kit Whitfield fantastic. (The book is "Bareback" but the US/Canada title is "Benighted" because "Bareback" would make us giggle too much. The origian title makes more sense, though -- the word "bareback is used as an epithet.) Not only the best book involving werewolves I've ever read, but oddly enough, probably up there in my top ten books that deal with racism, reverse racisim, and prejudice. It's barely a sci-fi novel, it's not about the special trappings, it's about people. I have to stop talking, trying to explain this book makes it sound less cool than it is.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

"original," dangit! "Original"! (It's late and I'm sleepy. ^^)

[drisoscele.livejournal.com]

Hamilton would be well served if she heeded and followed the sage advice and insight Hemmingway imparted on the creative act of writing:


“The first draft of anything is shit”

“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it."

[queenbetsy.livejournal.com]

I know exactly why LKH's books are riddled with spelling errors and screw-ups. LKH and MaryJanice Davidson write for the same publishing house.

Well, MJD said something to her Yahoo group earlier this year, about how UNDEAD AND UNEASY was finally turned in, AND she'd turned it in late and felt bad about that, but that she was glad it was finally done and she hoped we liked it, blah-blah.

TWO WEEKS later, I read on LKH's blog that The Harlequin was "almost" ready to be turned in. So. These books had the same release date at the same publishing house, and MJD turned hers in late by her own admission. And at that time, LKH had yet to turn hers in at all!

Now, take a look at U&U, then The Harl. U&U is much, much shorter. LKH is a monster, like all her hardcovers are. That poor editor...bad enough to get a monster manuscript riddled with screw-ups. But to get it late? Not just a couple of weeks late, but MONTHS late? They obviously had to jam just to get the book into galleys. I guess niceties like spell check and making sure Sylvie hadn't gone straight just went right out the window.

Oh, also? U&Uneasy? Rocked. But then, I am an admitted fangirl, so you must take that with a grain of salt. ;-)

[easol.livejournal.com]

Have you read "Die For Love" by Elizabeth Peters? It's basically a relentless skewering of the romance novel industry, its hypocritical formula, agents how it wants more sex than the story demands, etc. Got a great murder and a funny heroine too, at a goopy romance novel convention. :)

[dinpik.livejournal.com]

Got that from a friend of mine, who knows someone in LKH's writing group.

heh

[sexthings.livejournal.com]

I just found this group and i feel exactly the same way. I've read about 10 of the books so far (all out of order since i like reading interesting ones first) and completely see the difference in writing between books. While reading the Harliquin I remarked numerous times to my girlfriend how it must have been written by fans. Fans must have kidnapped LKH and hid her in a closet and were now writing under her name. I feel like she had the story idea (if a little overused by now) but that the writing of it wasn't her own. Looking at a book like Obsidian butterfly where it takes five pages to say one thing, then at the Harliquin... where within the first twenty pages the big bad is already scaring Jean Claude sh*tless (which is also really out of character when there is no buildup of why its such a big bad.. i mean, it took how many books or pages for Mommy Dearest to really impress the reader into thinking she was a big bad?)

that was a huge parenthetical sentence.

Anyway, I really hope she either comes to her senses, the books had such potential!

Oh and instead of posting a new thing and im sure it's already been mentioned but WHY does she insist on explaining everything over in every new book? We all know why Micah has green kitty eyes. We know what gun Anita carries and why. We know how many people can fit down the steps to the circus of the damned. We know that the stairs weren't built for humans. We know what colour eyes jean-claude and asher have and why asher has scars! Seriously! Ive started tallying it all for a drinking game or something. lol

[lannamichaels]

The Number of the Beast is pretty inconsistent, yes. But he *was* being edited. Stranger in a Strange Land was edited heavily. It's shocking to compare the edited and the unedited (released something like four years ago). Totally different books.