(no subject)

[othellia.livejournal.com]

With LKH's recent wank on how the Merry book wasn't ending right, Merry isn't/wasn't listening to her, and how she didn't how the Merry book was going to end for the longest time, I've been wondering...

Does she think at ALL before she writes. I know some writers use outlines, and other's don't, but I thought it was kind of a universal thing that you know which way you want the book to be headed when you start to sit down and write. It should be even more important when you're writing a series because if you want to set something cool up in a future book, it should comply with what you're writing in the current one. This is, of course, slightly different if the series has a bunch of single book arcs, like a mystery series with no overall villain, plot, or character development... hey!

But really, even if that's the case, LKH has deluded herself into believing that her characters evolve, the MoaD will wake up one day and do... something. And if she thinks that way, shouldn't she have some idea of how she wants it all to end? It seems like common sense, but I don't think Laurell does any of it, based on the recent turn her newest "novels" have taken.

LKH has said that she wants to keep writing Anita Blake books until she, LKH, is old and wrinkled. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but I don't think she'll be able to because, personally, if you want to write for that long, you have to have something to write about. And that requires some planning and thinking ahead, which LKH has demonstrated that she doesn't do.

Comments

[slayra.livejournal.com]

I think she doesn't plan it at all. She just writes random scenes and connects them with sex scenes. Bah.

LKH has said that she wants to keep writing Anita Blake books until she, LKH, is old and wrinkled. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but I don't think she'll be able to because, personally, if you want to write for that long, you have to have something to write about. And that requires some planning and thinking ahead, which LKH has demonstrated that she doesn't do.

Ah! Why do you think she included so many characters in the books to begin with?? It was carefully planned! That way she can write a book about each guy and voilá! You have 100+ AB books. *snort*

[phyrra.livejournal.com]

Ergo Proxy was awesome. It has such great use of color for impact!

[slayra.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite anime!! Except for yaoi hentai... nothing can beat that. ^___^

[spittingfish.livejournal.com]

ROTFLMAO at your "Mood: Productive".

Oh the irony, how it stings!

[kuzunoha.livejournal.com]

The books used to cover chunks of time and stuff happened "off screen" between them. Now a book is only covering a couple days or in the case of Merry one evening and there's little to no "off screen" time. The pacing keeps getting slower and slower... Like a Soap Opera.

I'm betting the books are going to keep slowing down. A book will eventually only be an hour in the Anitaverse. The MoaD will probably never do anything therefore providing an overall "plot" goal for the series causing it to go on forever.

LKH will be probably die before Anita hits 30.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Yes! Absolutely. The series has become a soap opera! In soap operas, an entire episode can span half a day, jumping between scenes and characters and conflicts. I'm starting to feel like each AB book is now an episode.

[kuzunoha.livejournal.com]

A general rule for soap operas:
Just watch Friday's episode.

That's when everything happens.

I wonder if I should just start reading AB every five books.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Well, theoretically that's OK, because she's trying to keep it open-ended enough for her to keep writing the books. BUT! It would work a LOT better if she created books in which Anita deals with a case - beginning, middle, end - and the character arc issues like the ardeur are woven into that, rather than "ardeur ardeur animals sex, oh, maybe Anita needs to go to work today."

I actually get the impression that the ardeur has gotten her into a terrible corner. How do you get out of a situation where a main character has to have sex constantly, and in increasingly nasty and fucked up ways, without killing her?

[plum-arden.livejournal.com]

I think that because she knows what the big plot devices are for both series, that she doesn't need an outline. She just needs to write little things that, in her opinion, develop the characters and furthers the story. At this point we all know that Anita is going to fight the MoAD and win, we just don't know if she'll become the MoAD or what (ooooh, suspense!) and that Merry is going to have the child that saves Faerie. The only suspense there is will she bring sunshine and light to the Unseelie court or not? Honestly, I think it's beyond stupid to think that Anita could go for another 15-20 books. Otherwise like was stated, action will slow down to a point where it'd be faster to just walk through a vat of molasses. I find that insulting to the readers, troos and us. Even if she just sat down and just wrote, just do something to further the action and not just wander aimlessly.

[deadroman.livejournal.com]

This is how I see it: LKH sits in the chair and spends about five minutes meditating on what she feels like writing. The first things that pop into her head she starts to write.
"Let's say a bunch of nympho vampire strippers from Las Vegas attack St. Louis because... well, who the hell cares. Too much brain strain. Vampires find Anita, they want to screw... cue ardeur and rampant sex. Vampires get jealous because she screws better. They have a screwing competition! There's a big metaphysical orgy which emits such powerful magical sex waves that it causes rainbow fireworks to go off and all the corpses in every cemetery within a 200 mile radius wake up and start trudging towards Anita, their master. The vampires are also all under Anita's control. And so are the wereanimals. Everybody is possessed by the rainbow sex magic and they are all slogging zombie-like towards Anita.. Anita.. Anita.. and then they tear her into pieces because they all WANT HER. The end."
Woops, so I got carried away with my own little fantasy there. But anyway... LKH's "outlines" are probably as thorough as that little paragraph of mine up there.

[othellia.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I think that's even more thorough than what she has. At least with yours, it has a definite ending. With LKH, it's like she gets towards the end of the book and goes, "Dur... What happens now?"

[deadroman.livejournal.com]

"Dur... What happens now?"

Rofl!
But LKH said she did have an idea in mind for the ending of the Merry book. She wanted gore, death, fierce revenge, but Merry refused to obey or something like that. o_O

[this-here-girl.livejournal.com]

I had something similar to this cross my mind when I still read her books. After reading chapter after chapter of an enjoyable book, there was this scene where after they do thier magics, Anita thinks something like 'We're all definately going to have sex' and then the story just tapers out.

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

I agree - I know series writers personally, and i read the blogs of a lot of Big Name writers - and even if they don't have outlines of each individual books, they at least know the basic structure of them (beginning, middle, end) as well as the structure of the series. True, many of them have what one of my author friends call the "muddle in the middle" (both of the book and the series), but it happens precisely because they do KNOW where the character is going and they need it to get there. And most authors are required to turn in books synopsis to their agents, even if the contract is signed for multiple books.

She does seem to be writing blind, and just keeps hoping for this silent "muse" to guide her. I am guessing she is not required to write a synopsis, or else it simply reads as "Merry meets more Fae and has bad sex with them. There might be some other action."

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Much as LKH breaks my brain, I don't think she's the first or the only writer who has issues with the "muses" misbehaving. I imagine she starts with a loose outline and tries to get into it, but has difficulty getting the story to actually *happen* the way she wants it to.

I can't help but wonder whether she's being quite heavily exploited, actually. I presume she makes a bit, but writers really don't make all that much, unless they are JKR with film deals etc. And she's supporting a PA and a husband and "security staff" and a child. Why doesn't JonBoi get a job?

[kuzunoha.livejournal.com]

They just gave her a seven figure advance for the next 3 books.

[wonderbink.livejournal.com]

My first proper NaNo didn't need an outline as such because the plot was a simple Girl-Meets-Boy, Girl-Freaks-Out-At-How-Wonderful-Boy-Is, Boy-Assures-Girl-That-He-Really-Likes-Her-Anyway type deal. It's been done again and again, so the question of "where is this going" was practically written in stone. (It was enormously fun to write and I still enjoy re-reading it sometimes, the way I still get a kick out of the wish-fulfillment fanfic I wrote in my reckless youth. But I wouldn't dream of inflicting it on anybody else!)

The two more recent NaNos I did (one being a sequel to the other) were written with a plot outline sketched out, but occasionally I'd get in a state of "wait, I'm here . . . I need to get over there . . . how do I do it?" Sometimes I'd plow ahead and muddle my way through, but if I was really stuck I'd dig out a notebook and pen and do a little longhand head dump where I'd 'what if' a bunch of possibilities and then figure out which one would work best and chart my course from there.

Judging by LKH's whining, she subscribes to the "plow ahead" method. And judging by the results, it doesn't work.

[easol.livejournal.com]

What is a NaNo?

[othellia.livejournal.com]

True, but that's NaNoWriMo. It's, for most people, quantity for the sake of quantity. I don't make detailed outlines for that either... then again, maybe that's why I've never finished. Last year I reached 23,202 words by the middle of the month, in which there was a total plot change and 3,000 word long rant worked in, and then I found out I was getting a D in Physics and my priorities quickly changed. XD

But I did learn something from the experience at least; the "plow ahead" method was definitely not for me.

[tamjenic.livejournal.com]

The only 2 writers I have heard talk about their series are JK Rowling & Diana Gabaldon.

Both writers had an ending point planned when they started their series. I am pretty sure JK Rowling had it planned to be about 7 books.

Diana Gabaldon (Outlander series, whose blurb on the covers of the Anita Blake books caused me to start reading these), I believe wrote her first book as more of an exercise in learning how to write a book. I don't think it was initially conceptualized as a series, but she also has an ending planned. She has just miscalculated how many books it is taking her to get to the end. (I believe it has morphed from 3 books to 8)

Diana is a much better writer than LKH, I can see her maybe endorsing the earlier books, but I don't think it does her any credit to have her name attached to any of the more recent steaming piles of tedious porn that the AB series has turned in to.

Outline? SHE don' need no stinkin' OUTLINE!

[cherose.livejournal.com]

Aw, c'MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN, sweetie!

lkh doesn't use an outline. THAT would be the mark of a fully developed, truly mature and very self-disciplined ADULT. Besides, INMAGINE THE PRESSURE that having to THINK about making up an outline would put on poor l'il Laurell.

Why, I'd bet that she would have to give up fucking the boytoy, or writing her blog, or watching where she walks, in order to THINK about making the outline in the FIRST place! HORRORS, she might EVEN had to (GASP!! SHUDDER!!!!) FOLLOW the outline! That's TOO much like work for l'il ole lkh!

SHAME on you for usggesting that lkh WORK at doing what she DOESN'T!

Blessings,

-,'-,'-,'--@

Re: Outline? SHE don' need no stinkin' OUTLINE!

[easol.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that an outline probably wouldn't help. It would probably look like this:

1. Complaints about job, Richard, evil clients who want to hire her to reanimate. Phone call about somebody being horribly butchered, and Anita not caring.
2. Condemnation of jellus haterz/women/Christians/sex-in-a-bed people/tap dancers/Stephen King etc.
3. Sex scene with _____, ______, _____
4. Infodump with JC about evil vampire in town.
5. Sex scene with JC and Asher.
6. Argue with Richard.
7. Sex scene with Richard.
8. MOAD causes ardeur sex/beasts rising.
9. Weres take beasts.
10. More ardeur sex.
11. Argument with Richard. Richard stomps out.
12. Dolph being douchebag.
13. Sex scene with ______.
14. All the men talking about how much they want Anita/politics/childish dominance play.
15. Anita is injured by evil vampire.
16. Munin sex.
17. More munin/ardeur sex with _____ and ______.
18. Anita acts like she's going to hunt vampire, only to be informed he took the train to Chicago so Harry Dresden could whup his ass.
19. Sex with somebody else.
10. Recap of everything.

[easol.livejournal.com]

I betcha she thinks it would stifle her precious muse to use an outline like that.

[xarra.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, now, I do get muses. The problem is I care about them too much. And a few of them are too real to me to be able to do anything with them any more. It's a bit like they've become grown up imaginary friends and while I have got imagined scenes that are unpleasant for them, it wouldn't be nice for me to write them.

If I ever do write a book I will try damn hard NOT to realism-ise my characters to the extent that I don't want to go down a scene 'cause the voices in my head don't like what I'm doing to them. I think LKH has basically made Merry & Anita so, real, to her that they are people to her and she can't do anything meaty-plot (NOT that way!) without them doing it themselves, if that makes any sense whatsoever? So it's easier to just write the sex 'cause it's not making the muses be affected horribly.

Also, just lack of imagination and not knowing where to take the muses next doesn't help... *grumbles*