Blogity Flogity

[the-other-bec.livejournal.com]

A slight flog of LKH's two latest blog offerings, in which our author confirms suspicions she just can't be bothered following through with research - even into her own universe.

Wednesday August 22 - http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2007/08/rereading.html - permalink
LKH in Italics - bold emphasis added by me

Threw out the two pages from yesterday. Pretty sure what's wrong. Rewrote a page, then spent the rest of the day researching.

Does the constant reference to just how many pages she produces each day annoy the hell out of anyone else? I know she's the queen of over-share but perhaps if she just STFU, sat down and didn't angst about how many pages she was producing the quality would rise... Who am I kidding - it's the quantity not quality, must remember it's all about the size with Miss L.K.

But not in an outside source. Researching in my own books. You guys reread the books. I do not. Some of you tell me that you reread all the books from the beginning every time a new book comes out. Wow. That is why you will win at Anita Blake trivia and I won't. But when I said in an earlier blog that plot threads from an earlier book are going to be followed up on, I wasn't joking. I had to find scenes from four different books today before I could be prepared to finish the current scene tomorrow.

Oh. My. Sweet. Darkity-darkness... is she going to use a plot? Is she going to use a plot with cohesive foreshadowing (is it even foreshadowing if you have to research to find it)?! Don't hold your breath Lashers because the very next day...

Thursday August 23 - http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2007/08/sometimes-you-have-to-give-up-to-get.html - permalink
LKH in Italics - bold emphasis added by me

I started the day in a bad mood. I didn't get to my desk until nearly two o'clock in the afternoon. That's never good. Then I sat there and stared at the screen and thought, why isn't this working? Why have I stalled out completely? Then the answer came to me? I had been pushing myself for days to finish a scene, maybe I didn't need the scene.

So, as much as I hated to do it, I dropped back nine pages, kissed them good-bye, and started this chapter over. I wasn't sure it was the right thing to do, at first, then I began to pick up steam. I realized that everything I'd been attempting to put on stage could be found out in dialogue, and it moved the plot ahead a lot more quickly. Yea!

That's right that intensive day of research to strengthen the plot was all for naught, what a shock! So much easier to just rely on our good friend Exposition!

She doesn't care at all anymore - the books aren't ever going to get better are they? *cue the tiny violin*

Comments

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

I realized that everything I'd been attempting to put on stage could be found out in dialogue
... ow, my head. I thought the rule was that you should show and not tell. Doesn't dialogue just... tell?

At least now we know why everyone has to spout exposition constantly: It's easier than showing you. Nevermind the pages and pages of insanely boring dialogue that ensue.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

And by "dialogue", we mean:

"We have to do this now!" Nathaniel was eager like a puppy and smelled of vanilla.
I was confused. "Why?"
Jean-Claude was wearing a lot of leather. [...3 pages omitted...] "Why, ma petite, we must do it now because of this."
I remembered this. It was all because of [...3 pages of internal monologue omitted...] "So that's why we have to do this?"
"Yes," said Jean-Claude. "Shall we go?"
We headed for the limo. We were travelling by limo because [...3 pages of internal monologue copy/pasted from Incubus Dreams omitted...]

As opposed to a difficult, complex scene where stuff actually happens.

[pearkiwi.livejournal.com]

I'd almost prefer insanely boring dialogue to insanely boring repeaitive sex scene after sex scene. Almost. At least, *snerk*, the plot is finally moving on, right?

[sadlikeknives.livejournal.com]

This is kind of fascinating and horrifying to me. I mean, my god, how often does a writer get, "Show, don't tell," hammered into their skull? That's Creative Writing 101. And here we have a published, successful, bestselling author going, "Fuck it, showing is hard, bring on the exposition!" With the unwritten but still present addendum of, "So I can get to the bad sex faster!"

And the 'I never reread my books" thing always boggles my mind. "I'll never win an Anita Blake trivia contest" my ass she's the fucking author and fuck trivia she doesn't even remember important character traits. Like oh, I don't know, Sylvie suddenly not doing girls. God, it makes me want to spit. And she seems so proud of it! What the fucking fuck.

[reticentric.livejournal.com]

Does the constant reference to just how many pages she produces each day annoy the hell out of anyone else?

Now that you mention it, it really does. When I write I don't even bother to look at page count honestly. I usually go by how many kb the word doc is and if I think it's big enough then I wrap things up because you can have 45 pages but they can all be crap. And we know she knows about producing crap.

Also for as deep into Anita as she appears to be, you'd think she would know everything about her or at LEAST keep the important things written down. I know teenagers who are more organized than she is.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Same here. I don't CARE how many pages you can churn out a day -- give any of us no responsibilities, and I think anyone here could churn out a drecky plotless vampire sex novel in about a week. Even sadder, it would be better than LKH because it would not have blatant misspellings, sentence fragments, etc.

It's not like we're keeping count, or really care how long her novella has turned out to be (On a side note: what does it say about her tripod that he couldn't sustain a glorified short story with his sparkling peenie... uh, personality, but Jason's is stretching into another long book?)

Quality, not quantity! Susanna Clarke took ten years to write her opus! Okay, it's a big fat chunk of a book, but guess how many pages a day (on average) that comes out to when you calculate it.

[ravenhaley.livejournal.com]

researching in my own books

Ten bucks says, LKH is copying and pasting scene from older books. Look at MICAH, the scene with Micah and Anita talking about his big "tool". Remind you of the scene in ID, where Richard is talking to Anita about his big "tool"?

Did it once and will probably do it again.

You guys reread the books. I do not. Some of you tell me that you reread all the books from the beginning every time a new book comes out. Wow. That is why you will win at Anita Blake trivia and I won't.

This is the reason why LKH can't remember how to write the characters. This is also the reason why she makes someone gay over five books and "forgets" that said character is STILL gay.

I had to find scenes from four different books today before I could be prepared to finish the current scene tomorrow.

COPY AND PASTE

[tybalt-quin.livejournal.com]

You guys reread the books. I do not. Some of you tell me that you reread all the books from the beginning every time a new book comes out. Wow. That is why you will win at Anita Blake trivia and I won't.

You know, I'm not asking her to have every detail of the Blake-verse worked out in Excel spreadsheet format. I'm not demanding that she have instant recollection of every single fact there is to know about everything in her books. But I don't think it's too much to ask, given that she's writing a fricking series that she have some Goddamn continuity. It's not difficult - it just takes a little preparation so that she has a good idea of what she's already written and can make sure she's consistent with it. Professional writers do that - it's called "Respect for the Craft and Respect for the Reader".

God, that woman is such a fricking hack it makes my arteries throb.

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. Isaac Asimov wrote his Foundation series one novella at a time, each building on the previous. As the series grew he started rereading the series-to-date before writing the next installment. It was tedious, but he put in the effort to make sure he wouldn't contradict himself.

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

I don't get how she could have written a 14 book series and not have any notes at all on her universe. Okay, so she can't be expected to recall all the minor details off the top of her head. I'm cool with that. But seriously, she doesn't have any kind of note system apart from her oh-so-reliable post-it notes? Wrong!

I'm only two books into my series and I have an entire folder dedicated to "trivia," or, as I call it, all the important facts I need for continuity purposes. But hey, each to their own, I guess.

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

That is why you will win at Anita Blake trivia and I won't.

She admits she doesn't know her own continuity?

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

See, LKH says "x number of pages" and I just want to know the size of the margins, the font size, and whether it's double-spaced.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd be more impressed with a stright up wordcount. At least that's not ambiguous like pages. ¬_¬

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

You'd really think she'd get some character sheets by now.


...But that would probably make too much sense.

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

That's disappointing, but one thing I will say is if Marion Zimmer Bradley can forget her character's height in a book, then LKH who is a much worse writer is allowed to make an occasional mistake about minor things (although I'm thinking a character being gay isn't minor).

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone would care (at least I wouldn't) if LKH made small mistakes about her characters IF SHE COULD STILL WRITE!!!!!!!!!! How the bleepty bleep does a person have 22(?) professionally published novels and actually have rapidly deteriorating writing skills? I understand flogging a dead horse for money/running out of ideas but her descriptions, dialog and sentence structure are getting worse. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? I'm a safety engineer for a construction co and I can get complacent and burnt out from time to time, but it isn't as if I don't know where to place fire extinguishers or how to fill out a hot work permit. How does she not know what a fucking sentence is?

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

And to think, I used to mock Anne Rice for not remembering if Armand's hair was straight or curly from book to book. *is boggled*

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Hey, Lestat's eyes went from grey to blue. At least once she changed that, she kept it.

Am I still the only person that liked the Vampire Chronicles?

[alondra-del-sol.livejournal.com]

I just want *head-desk* when I hear about such idiocy. I took Intro to Creative Writing the semester before summer and Jess' (my teacher, she was cool) favorite words were definately 'Show Don't Tell' whether it was poetry or fiction. Once you say 'screw showing it' (like LKH has done here) then the whole story just becomes 'info-logue' and infamously LKH 'info-dumps' time after time. It's not a wonder she continues to repeat obvious information throughout the series. It's not because she thinks we're dumb it is due to her ineffective note-taking, note-keeping, and the fact she has no idea what her own canon even is. Of course it can't stop at info-dump its about to become, if it wasn't already, full blown info-diarrhea. The whole book is going to be one entire digression. People don't want dialogue they want to be shown. They want tangible scenes, something that will make you reel back in horror, sigh romantically, get your blood pumping, so on and so forth. (She's failed miserably on all these accounts and more.)

Of course it seems LKH is above this petty form we like to call 'novel' or 'novella' writing.

"Novel-lite" should be drug out into the street and shot (as my favorite cartoon cat used to say) totally not a real word. {/end mini-rant}

I don't remember who said it before, but I'll point it out again. This series is turning into a soap opera. Talking, wangsting, talking, wangsting, smidgen of any content worth seeing/reading.

*Sigh* One day she'll be stifled under the deluge of better writing her failures of novels have inspired. No doubt they'll be full of delightful snark about how things should really be, subtley jibing her all the merry way. Then we can all rejoice.

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

Actually I like how some authors use dialog to progress the story, but LKH isn't one of them. You can do a great OMG that's the villain scene as everyone gets together to pool their info.

LKH just makes it wangsty

[stefflebug.livejournal.com]

I thought she couldn't sink to new levels of crappy writing. Then she comes out with what essentially boils down to "I can't be bothered to tax my poor little brain to show you what's going on, I'll just have the characters tell you instead."

OMG!!!

*headdesk*

She completely fails as a writer. Completely and utterly.

I mean, I can understand a scene not working but you don't want to give up what you've already written so it seems to halt you in your paces. I can agree with scapping those pages, but not so you can tell it. No, you scrap the pages so you can try the scene again from a different angle or with a different slant on it.

It's called writing LKH, look it up.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

If only she wouldn't ADMIT it so blatantly...

[misora.livejournal.com]

"Trivia". As though keeping track of your characters' qualities and keeping a dogmatic consistency to your work and the world you've created was all just for fun.

I need a drink after reading this, and it's not yet 10am.

[eiluned.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. Please, gods of decent literature, save us from the pages and pages of expository dialogue dumps.

[etherealtb.livejournal.com]

WTF? (*sigh*) At least this explains SO MUCH!

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

maybe since it started as a "Jason-novel".. >_>

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

>_> I actually LIKED the idea of a guy with blue hair and a Cookie Monster tattoo... and then he turned out to be a jerk.

But yeah, this is ridiculous. If it isn't somebody giving a mini-bio of himself/herself/itself, expository dialogue is annoying. I should know. I WROTE some when I was trying to write a story... whenever I try to look back at that story, I have this horrible urge to claw my eyes out. In my defense, I was about ten. XP Internal monolouge is SLIGHTLY better... then again, if internal monologues were realistically portrayed, it would start with worrying about Jean-Claude and ending up thinking about the presidental election or Hawaii. XD Unless I'm unusual, and internal monologues don't usually resemble Wikipedia-surfing binges... :P

Point being, this is just... IF SHE ALREADY _HAD_ A SCENE, SHE SHOULD HAVE STUCK WITH IT INSTEAD OF SWITCHING TO DIALOGUE! GAAAAAAAH!

[nekojita.livejournal.com]

... okay, I've written several novels worth of fics, and I do have a word document to help me keep characters and things in order, not to mention a beta whose main purpose is to point out all the little continuity mistakes (who I utterly adore for the fact that she remembers all the little stuff that I forget or get swept away from). I also routinely read through my old fics to keep plot-points et all straight in my head, especially after switching from one series to another. Gee, all that time and effort wasted, just because I never studied the great art of writing at LKH's feet. My life is ruined.

show & tell

[fort-in-bras.livejournal.com]

I thought the rule was that you should show and not tell. Doesn't dialogue just... tell?

Not necessarily. Dialogue can show. ("Piss off, Dolph" instead of "She was pretty mad at Dolph.") But LKH often uses dialogue as just a lazy form of exposition.

At least now we know why everyone has to spout exposition constantly: It's easier than showing you. Nevermind the pages and pages of insanely boring dialogue that ensue.

Yep. Exposition-dialogue can work, but it has to be done mindfully. There's a lot of room between
"You know I'm on leave from Gouts, right? So they're short a necromancer."
vs.
"As you know, for several years I've worked for Gouts O' Blood, where I raise the dead, execute vampires, and assist the police with paranormal investigations. However, I'm currently on extended leave to tend to my harem (which includes Ricky the werewolf, Danny the werekitty, Michael the favored werekitty, Jamie the vampire, and that delicious Ashton). As this leaves Gouts O' Blood understaffed and you're a necromancer too, I suggest you call and offer your services."

Re: show & tell

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

I think that LKH does some of the worst dialogue ever

[gorgeousnerd]

My beef with the page count system is that it tells me absolutely nothing about the actual amount of work LKH produces. I tend to write at twelve-point font with single spacing because I like the way it looks, but she could be writing double-spaced to save time with submission formatting, and who knows what her font size is? Ten pages that I write could be a lot more than her ten pages, or vice versa.

If she used word counts instead of page numbers, it wouldn't bother me as much. Still, pretty much everything else about her bothers me, so it wouldn't really improve my view of her.