Blog flog

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Link: http://www.eridine.com/blog/2005_02_01_archive.html#110752752857369474
Title: "No rest for the wicked"
Date: 4 February 2005

Oh. My. God. I don't think it's a good idea for me to copy the entry and insert snarks throughout, because some of the things I want to say are things that genteel young ladies just shouldn't know about, let alone write. So I'll just pick out the pertinent points.

1. The rewrites will be back in two weeks, but that's not my complaint. My complaint is they aren't coming back next week. I need this book to be well and truly dead,

This comes as a shock - given the complete lack of the simplest spelling and grammar check of the first three Merry books, and the last three Anitas, I've been wondering if the manuscript ever passed in front of an editor. Or, if it did, the editor went mad and gouged out his / her eyes just to stop the bleeding. Though, the scariest thought I've had is that the manuscript has been edited and it's the "improved" version that goes to print. It's scary because a high school student really ought to be able to spell and construct sentences better than what was found in that volume.

As for wanting the book dead, I'm pretty sure that a large section of the fans want it to die too.

2. The long weekend is, for me, a cleansing away of the old, and a preparing my mind for the new. The new being the next Anita book.

Christ. in10sity probably hit the nail on the head with her theory. A weekend off isn't going to recharge the brain or soul. Writing with any intensity for a long period of time is physically and emotionally grinding. The last time I got worn out writing anything was only for a couple of hours but with an incredibly intense character. I spent the next two days taking it easy and doing non-thinking things, simply because I didn't have the energy or capacity for thought and reason to do anything more.

After finishing a complete novel, simply taking a three day weekend probably won't do anything to help refresh her. Take some serious time off, get the capacity for brain activity back up to strength. Then tackle the next book. The fans can wait. The publisher can wait. Your advance can wait. Spend some time with hubby and kid.

3. It's the difference between the war being over, and only the battle being over when you know that there is still more ground to be won, more enemies to be defeated, more dangers to be lived through.

See point 2.

4. LUNATIC is the fourth Anita book. I remember feeling that LUNATIC was one of the best of the books so far, and that I really knew the world and the characters, at last.

To me, Lunatic Cafe heralded the turn of the books from preternatural crime mysteries to preternatural soap opera. Richard played a huge role, and Anita spent more time going over her relationship with him and the triangle with Jean-Claude. I can understand that it's a pivotal book, but it set the tone for the next few books where Anita was angsting over her relationship with both boys and built up to the rather traumatic climax of things with her and Richard, and the start of something new with Jean-Claude.

But basically, the books went from Anita Blake : Vampire Hunter into Anita Blake : Charmed. Not that there's anything wrong with Charmed - I know I watch the show compulsively, though I have no real idea why - Alyssa Milano may have something to do with it. Stuff happens to the heroine, there's some valuable lesson to be learned and bad guys with funky powers are going to try and stop her from getting that lesson. Along the way, there's demands from cute love interest # 9 who wants to know if she can commit and there's angst over telling him the truth over why she can't be with him all the time. Bit more discussion over why she's really the man and he's the damsel in the distress, defeat bad guy, have warm, fuzzy ending, roll credits. Repeat next week.

5. For Merry and her gang, this was the first book where I cried for them. I cried when Galen got hurt. I cried when Doyle finally found something that made that calm captain-of-the-guard exterior crack wide open. I wept with and for these people, which I had not done before. For me, it's as if the fourth book in a series is when I finally give myself up to the world. It's like the first three books are foreplay, or dating, and somewhere in the fourth book, kicking and screaming that I don't feel that way about any of them, I finally give it up. I finally, for better or worse, fall in love.

Part I) [snark] Woah, she knows what foreplay is? So why can't any of the fictional fellas know too? I mean, something more than just a drop of the pants and a pretty smile? [/snark]

Issues with this part of the blog entry - honey, it shouldn't take four books for you to be immersed in the world and be in love with it. Granted, book one is all shiny and new and you're getting a feel for it - and the readers have to adjust to a new world, new characters and new style - but after that, you're in there and you ought to know exactly what's going on. You ought to know how the characters will think and react to things, and not finally let it dawn on you four books in.

That said, I'm not especially surprised it's taken this long for her to get the hang of the world. I mean, given the short turnaround on pumping out books, she's had no time to sit and reflect and plan things out. If she'd taken a break between series (what exactly is the plural of series? Serii? Serieses? Seriesessess...my precious...) and books, then maybe it wouldn't be such a shock revelation.

Part II) I cried when Doyle finally found something that made that calm captain-of-the-guard exterior crack wide open.

...why the hell does that have to happen? Why can't he just stay stoic Doyle? Not every guy in the universe is going to have a soft, gooey centre where he's really just a senstive soul that wants a hug. Can't a single man in the series keep a pair? - I have major issues with this stuff, like why did Damian have to get "prettified" from the Belle-mojo that Anita mysteriously can bestow. I mean, there's nothing wrong with him having a broken nose and thin mouth - not every girl likes soft, pretty men. Not every girl likes the big eyes and soft mouth. Some of us like the manly men in full bloom of manly manhood.

I'm also concerned about her emotional attachment to characters, but that'll be covered in point 6.

6. The fourth book is the place where the lady doth stop protesting too much. The place where I finally cuddle down between the sheets and admit that I love them all, and I want to keep them safe, and that the thought that eventually, for Merry, we are going to loose someone we care about . . . I cannot bear it. I struggled with my cast of thousands in MIDNIGHT, and complained loud and long that there were too many men. We've actually added some new ones, again. It is a lot of characters to try and play fair with, but there is no one that I want to loose. There is no one that I am willing to sacrifice to make my job easier. They have, in a way, become real to me. I have shed tears for them. I have feared for them. I have watched them grow as characters, and Merry and I both are sorry that all of them can't win the prize. When you care about someone, you want them to be happy. I realize now that not everyone is going to get a happy ending from all this, simply because there is only one girl, and far too many men.

Okay, while it's nice to know that it's finally dawned on her that there are far, far too many men floating around - this actually disturbs me.

These are characters. They're not puppies, or children, or saints. They are figments of your imagination, and while you may craft them to be real, while you may breathe life into them and they reflect a good chunk of who and what you are - essentially, you, the author, are their God. It won't kill you to kill a few of them, or all of them. It's not that difficult. You write a nice, heroic/touching/dramatic/quiet/whatever moment, and you kill them.

What makes it hard is the emotional attachment. Ask any writer, and they'll probably tell you that they have favourites. I know I do. And the idea of having to kill off a favourite is a scary thing. But out of the cast of what? Twenty blokes? They can't all be the favourite. They can't all be the main character - that's Merry. They are, for all intents and purposes, secondary and tertiary characters. They're easy to kill off - you just write in a bomb blast or sniper and bammo, Robert's your uncle. Problem solved. If you're getting emotionally attached to your secondary and tertiary characters - the ones that serve no other purpose than to take up space and just stand there and look pretty - you have a serious problem. And you need to deal with it ASAP. You need to get rid of them, or else they wind up wasting your time and the reader's. We don't really care about the supporting cast. They come and go. We care about the core group, and what happens with them.

Just kill them, Laurell. Kill the extras. Nobody but you will cry. And you'll feel better about it afterward, and *gasp* it'll create something we in the trade, like to call conflict, which can lead to resolution - also known as "plot."

Alas, plot remains elusive, same with the emotional maturity needed to axe superfluous page-fillers. Ms Hamilton is really old enough to know better.

7. And please don't ask me who will win and be king, because I don't know. I've told people before that I don't know, but please believe me, I really don't. I know the overall story arc, but some mysteries I do not try and predict.

Is it just me, or is that writing hubris?

Look, I'm fond of not knowing what's going to happen next until it happens - but that lead to a couple of really, really crappy novels (never published and never to be seen again) I wrote back in high school. It's a good way to wind up with a series of random crap that's hastily pasted together and doesn't make sense to the story as a whole.

I'm trying hard this time to actually sit and plan what happens.

Laurell, if you don't know what's going on - you're in big trouble. If you don't know how the series is going to end, if you don't know how it's going to turn out, you're going to wind up waffling on for endless volumes and not doing anything of significance.

If you follow a basic plan between here and there, everything else sort of writes itself. If you know how it's going to turn out then you can sit and contemplate the journey. You run the risk of being obvious about the way it turns out, but a skilled writer ought to be able to pull it off and leave the reader surprised that "Ohhh...it was HIM that betrayed them?!?! I never saw THAT coming!" and prompt them to go back and re-read things to see if there are any signs along the way. I know I"m that way over The Usual Suspects and Fight Club movies. I don't see why books should be any different.

8. Anita has taught me that if I push too hard for any one man romantically the story is almost certainly going to diverge and go in an opposite direction. So I try not to push. As I writer I need to be fair to all the men, so again, it behooves me not to pick anyone.

Holy crap, Laurell. You're the writer. It'll go the way you tell it to go. Anita may be stubborn or whatever, but you know what? You're ultimately the one that makes the decisions. I know I'm wrestling with a stubborn character, and plotting out ways to make him go the way I want, and I know I'm going to win. It's just a matter of figuring out the right path to take with that character. If you push, yeah, it'll turn out to be completely out of character - but if you do it right, if you persist and have some patience, eventually the solution will present itself.

You don't need to be fair to all the men. It's okay to be a complete bastard to them. In fact, it'd be better if you were a complete bastard to them - because not all of them are going to be a beautiful butterfly on the inside that only Merry can see and release on the world. It's fine to just not like them, it's fine to not like their attitude or methods, or even their penis size. It creates tension. It creates interest. It can generate plot.

Isn't this in English 101? Conflict creates interest? Isn't this one of the first things anyone who studies writing learns?

Conflict over which bloke to bed with that night doesn't really count. Having them get huffy or sullen over not being picked is not a character development. Having them go and kill the guy that was picked and then having to deal with it is.

But no, killing off the superfluous eye candy is too difficult.

If I could afford it, it'd be nice to go over to the US and have a nice sit down with Ms Hamilton and talk to her about all this. If it doesn't sink in, I'm sure my copy of Incubus Dreams will. Those hardcovers hurt when they connect with your skull.

On the upside, this is one of the reasons as to why I'm a writer - I know I can do better than this.

>:)=

"...she'll make you cry, I'll sell my soul to be back in her bosom..."

EDIT: Terribly amused that some people on LJ don't seem to realise that the feed isn't Ms Hamilton's actual blog.

Comments

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

I love you and want to have your puppies.

Also, one series = series. Two series = series. Spelled and pronounced exactly the same.

Let me see if I have this right...she just finished struggling through a 400+ page novel, and she's taking a THREE DAY WEEKEND before going on to the next one?

I think *head* is now on good terms with *desk*, here.

And please don't ask me who will win and be king, because I don't know. I've told people before that I don't know, but please believe me, I really don't. I know the overall story arc, but some mysteries I do not try and predict.

Okay. I, currently, am writing a book. I have no idea how the book will turn out, I have only the faintest sketched-out concept of a plot, and that plot keeps warping whenever I come up with a shiny new thread.

But you know what? I'm not a New York Times author writing a closed-ended series.

This book is something that I am doing purely for fun. I may shop it around some day when I'm done, and if it gets published, great. If not, meh. My career and my livelihood, not to mention my reputation as an author, are not on the line. And I'm certainly not writing this book with the plan of tying it into a multi-arcing series that leads to a Grand Finale.

And yes, I damn well intend on killing off characters. Significant ones, at that. A well-written death is better for a character than a badly-written life.

While I get the whole "characters write themselves and go where you didn't intend" thing, it doesn't mean that you lose sight of your original intentions (unless, like LKH, you didn't have any original intentions and are merely pulling things out of your arse at lightspeed for the sake of your next paycheck). If your characters want to take a little fork in the road before moving on, fine. If the characters go ahead and blow up the fucking highway, NO.

As a writer I need to be fair to all the men...

I don't even know where to start with this, except NO. You don't need to give the men equal screentime, or screw-Merry-time, just to "be fair". LIFE ISN'T FAIR. You're the one who had Anita quote Inigo Montoya an age and a half ago, you should know that. If you felt like it you could dress Doyle in a tutu and crown Uther Squarefoot king. IT'S UP TO YOU.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

...sure, you can have my puppies.

And ta muchly on the series thing. Note to self: series is like sheep. No need to turn into Gollum.

She only mentions a long weekend - I'm used to those being a three or four day thing (it's a joke - New Zealand = Land of the Long White Cloud, Australia - Land of the Long Weekend. We have oodles of public holidays) so I could be wrong, though any longer time off would then equal "a week" or even "a holiday."

I wholeheartedly agree. Mostly.

[saadiira.livejournal.com]

Yes. Conflict. Kill kill kill! Get rid of a few superflous men. Create a few superfluous WOMEN for them. Let someone else get laid for a change. Maybe pick one, and then give his happy ass to someone ELSE!

However, I can see not knowing what will happen next. I seldom do. Unless FORCED to outline, in fact, I don't. (Or if I think I do, by the time I'm done, I often have a better idea, and go with it.) But then, I also don't neglect plot. And I can be a right bitchwad to my characters. Even when I don't kill them. I think I've made that pretty clear.

It's what keeps things interesting.

As for the last couple of books, I agree wholeheartedly. I can do better, too. We both can. Hell, considering that I've seen you write, *WEG*, I'd say you could do better than some of those that happened a hell of alot earlier than that (I did so adore her earliest works, they were fun. But then, so are you.). Plus, HUGE points for originality. Heehee.

-Dira-

Re: I wholeheartedly agree. Mostly.

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

Create a few superfluous WOMEN for them.

Notice: the only woman who isn't completely submissive to Anita and doesn't get killed is Sylvia. The lesbian (and it's even hinted SHE likes Anita).