Tweet flog/Bullet update, Barnes & Noble forum Q & A

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I posted this on my journal first, so I'm sorry to the people who get this twice, but! News fresh in from Twitterland! So fresh, rigor hasn't even set in!

LKHamilton: I've finished crying over my imaginary friends, but I'm left empty and sort of numb. Stunned with the turn of events. Jan 18 8:44

LKHamilton: I've spent days trying to save this character. I pulled a major metaphysical event to save the day & in the end not enough. Jan 18 8:46

LKHamilton: Death will come, final and complete, and the light in their eyes dulls until the windows to the soul show nothing but emptiness. Jan 18 8:47

LKHamilton: The body is still warm, the flesh still soft, you can still hold them, cradle them in your arms and smell the sweet scent of their skin. Jan 18 8:49

LKHamilton: Death comes soft at first, lay a last kiss on their mouth while the warmth lasts and before the cold comes. Jan 18 8:52

LKHamilon: I'm out of here. I have not the heart to stay. Time to find someone real and get a hug. Should have known what was coming. Sometimes . . . Jan 18 8:55

LKHamilon: . . . even in fiction you can't save everyone. I fucking hate that. Jan 18 8:56

SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE IN BULLET! This is doubly amusing because not three days ago, in a Q & A for Barnes and Noble, she said this:

Ok, this is a spoiler if you haven't at least finished Guilty Pleasures then please do not read this message. Ok, I've done the warning bit. Anita and I were both traumatized by Phillip's death in Guilty Pleasures. I promised her after that if she cared for a man I wouldn't kill him off. Her way of getting around that was apparently to care for every man we met in the books from that point on. Talk about unforeseen consequences.
 
I honestly think my subconscious is responsible for the low death count among major and major/minor characters. People dieing, or leaving, when I was very young have left their mark. In real life you can't save everyone, but in fiction, sometimes, you can. We may actually have some deaths at some point, but I think my muse and I would rather not.

Bold emphasis is mine.

I was talking to a couple of people over the weekend and saying that if LKH wanted to keep things as real-to-life as possible, as she claims she does, then she'd have to let some characters die. In my opinion, you can't really have it both ways; either you keep things gritty and real and deal with the tough breaks the story gives you, or you can make it a fancy fictional la-la land where nobody dies and everyone's sparkly and happy. Trying to fudge one just hurts the other, and...well, the books are a really good example to that with the random metaphysics and miraculous saves. So it's nice to see that someone's biting the Bullet.

Umm, on a related note, I went through the B & N forum and copied out the Q & A in more readable format, so that LKH's answers are right after the question and you don't have to scroll around to try and find what she's talking about: Part one and part two. I'm sorting through the Facebook chat in a similar fashion, but I'm going to add more blog links and commentary to it.

Comments

[alondra-del-sol.livejournal.com]

OMG I CRIED WHEN ROBINTON DIED TOO!!! Sorry for random fan flailing, I feel like I never run into anyone who reads/has read those anymore. :)

I think JKR killing off Dumbles was one of my most traumatic book reading experiences ever, but it was still amazing.

I take fiendish delight in killing off my characters also, so the wank is just kind of like "*forehead-palm*; however, classic LKH response.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

To be fair, she did ask Twitter first whether or not people wanted to know about the scene she just finished, so she's aware that some people don't want to know about spoilers.

However, the "MOAR PLZ!" obviously won out and we got this. I'll be surprised if there isn't a blog, or mention of a blog that was written but had to be deleted either to Heavy Emotional Stuff or Because It's Spoilery and she can't talk about it without her publisher being >:( at her.

[alondra-del-sol.livejournal.com]

Haha, I still have them too. They are all in a place of honor on my overstuffed bookshelf.

I guess it wasn't the actual death part that shocked me. I mean it was in there that he was probably not going to make it, but it was like the funeral scene that did it for me. I'm a self admitted sap, however.

Sometimes I'm just too shell shocked to cry, but another one that did it for me when I was younger was The Chronicles of Narnia.

I love Data too. He's an amazing character, and I like caught that part when it was on TV. I think I seriously had it on just a few minutes before that happened, and at first I was like, "That did not just happen." Then they were talking about it afterward, and that crushed a bit of my soul. I also liked Seven of Nine a lot in Voyager, because she reminded me of Data.

I'm pretty sure that if I were to blog/tweet about killing off a character then a) I would do it privately, and b) I really wouldn't want to even hint at it in the first place. Sometimes I feel like the internet gives way too much away, and I want to be surprised.

[alondra-del-sol.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. Especially since LKH is well known (at least on this community) for her "oh woe is me" posts.

I imagine that the initial outpouring is going to be huge, and then she'll be able to use it until the book is released.

[alondra-del-sol.livejournal.com]

XD, it's true. I mean... she did kind of tell the ones that weren't living up to her expectations to stop reading and go away, maybe we were starving her.

[alondra-del-sol.livejournal.com]

Tee hee. :)

[yaoihuntresse.livejournal.com]

And it makes her come across as an obnoxious teenager who wants attention.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

You'd think if you're writing about people who deal with crime all the time, there'd be deaths all over the place, wouldn't you.

One of the great adages of writing is "murder your darlings". LKH needs to learn that one.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and that's why there is no emotional impact. Killing off a character who's important is a *powerful* thing to do in a book. That's why you do it.

The Anitaverse is clogged with lovers right now. It's like MG with less anime hair. She needs to off several and get back to paranormal investigations IMO.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Kitty's House of Horrors was deliciously well-written as far as making you love characters and then having them offed. And worked well just as a "murder in the house you can't leave." plot. Generally those are hard to get to work any more. Most people have cars and cellphones and other means of escape. Very rare to be completely cut off believably.

[karmyn75.livejournal.com]

I almost bought that one the other day, but haven't read past book three yet so put it back. But it's on my list of books to buy. Carrie Vaughn knows how to write urban fantasy and have bad things happen to the characters.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

This one is almost stand alone. It does have characters from earlier in the series in, and there's a couple conversations that deal with the overarching plot, but there's really not much movement in that direction.

If you're reading through the whole series thought, certainly do it in order.

OTHER first-class authors killing off characters

[cherose228.livejournal.com]

Hi, all:

FINALLY out of the hospital! Wow, what a dip lkh is.

Sherrilyn Kenyon has killed majors, so has Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, and now Carrie Vaughn. ALL of this so that the plot will move, the storyline mature, and the characters develope. This has been the biggest problem with lkh and her "writing".
Take out the tensions and you kill the characters.

I SURE didn't want Arielle OR Jeffrey Miles to die - but wow, think of the possibilities here, especially in view of Jeffrey's channeling abilities. I can't WAIT to see where Ms. Vaughn takes this. Mrs. Harris has killed off several of her majors, and that's just made the entire series better. Ditto Kim Harrison; killing off Kisten did NOT make me happy, but oh, MY, where everybody went from there was exhilirating in terms of plot/storyline/character development.

Sure, lkh killed Frost off, sort of, and then brought him the frack BACK. What do you all want to bet that that's what's going to happen here? And that's the biggest problem with lkh. She's so invested in her imaginary friends that they aren't allowed either to grow or die. C'mon, y'all - she buys them CHRISTMAS PRESENTS. This is a LOT too invested in too many interchangeables to make any kind of sense in any way.

Sheesh, my second book, which I HOPE I'll be through with sometime before the heat death of the universe, has already killed off three of the major protagonists. NO, they're NOT coming back, either. Handling grief and rage, not to mention denial of the event with the inevitable acceptance, is a powerful device that makes both you the author and your characters grow. Anything else is infantile. YES, I know that this is just fiction, and lkh can write it any way that she chooses - her world, her rules, her sillines. That's what's driven a lot of us away. That's also what's keeping *ME* away, too.

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

Re: OTHER first-class authors killing off characters

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Ummm... spoiling the just released this month book is maybe not such a good idea for those who haven't read it and may be thinking of giving Vaughn a try.

Re: OTHER first-class authors killing off characters

[cherose228.livejournal.com]

Woops. . . sorry about that.