The problem is that it has gone on too long, and if this is the case, the author has done a poor job of using the first person narration to hide the plot completely rather than giving cues that Anita has become an unreliable narrator on this point.
I had to deal with this recently on a different issue. I was advising an author who wrote a character with a huge blind spot for his godchild. The problem was that it wasn't coming across in the first book that the godchild was anything but what the POV character said (sickeningly sweet). So instead of a complicated relationship and character flaw, what the reader got was seemingly a Wesley.
The solution is simple: Use dialogue and events to SHOW that the POV character might be wrong about something and might be flawed. Make it okay to question the POV character.
But that's not what LKH is doing with Anita, and the impression of Anita's perfection according to the view presented in the books is backed up by the comments of the author and her staff on her own boards.
Also, if that were a plot point, it has been going on too long. That is a 2-4 book story arc. So if nothing else, her timing is way off.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-08-23 04:33 pm (UTC)The problem is that it has gone on too long, and if this is the case, the author has done a poor job of using the first person narration to hide the plot completely rather than giving cues that Anita has become an unreliable narrator on this point.
I had to deal with this recently on a different issue. I was advising an author who wrote a character with a huge blind spot for his godchild. The problem was that it wasn't coming across in the first book that the godchild was anything but what the POV character said (sickeningly sweet). So instead of a complicated relationship and character flaw, what the reader got was seemingly a Wesley.
The solution is simple: Use dialogue and events to SHOW that the POV character might be wrong about something and might be flawed. Make it okay to question the POV character.
But that's not what LKH is doing with Anita, and the impression of Anita's perfection according to the view presented in the books is backed up by the comments of the author and her staff on her own boards.
Also, if that were a plot point, it has been going on too long. That is a 2-4 book story arc. So if nothing else, her timing is way off.