A writing query for you all

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

Hiya. Long time lurker, infrequent commenter. I have a question poking around on the squishy grey shelves of my brain that I'd like hear some answers to that relate to our shark-jumping heroine and the deterioration of her storyline.

What lessons have the post-Narcissus in Chains novels taught you all?

I ask because I am a novelist and I've written four novels so far, working on getting them published, which is hard. I've heard bits here and there that suggest some of you are also writers and so I wanted to know if you too have been taking notes on what to do and what not to do based on the crap that Hamilton pulls with Anita.

For the interest of brevity, I'll toss my lessons into a list. Feel free to add yours below if my post strikes your fancy.



1) Avoid a sausagefest. This one was a bit difficult considering my novels have to do with pre-established characters (the archangels of Heaven, who are almost all male), but I've made sure that my main character has a healthy spread of supporting female characters. None of them are crazed judgmental bitches or jealous haters. Anita's vendetta against feminine women has taught me to make sure to show all sides of each woman's personality, from the sweet to the vengeful to the tomboy to the girly girl.
2) Do not force in extraneous love interests. I admit there's a love triangle going on in my first novel series, but I've made it clear that it's just two guys. No one else in my main character's life is in love with her, they do not worship the ground she walks on, and they don't compliment her every single time she walks in a room. Unlike Ms. Blake, who must be worshiped by the opposite sex pretty much all the time in the post NiC novels, to my continual disdain.
3) Keep the main character humble and grounded. Anita's got the worst case of high horse syndrome I've seen in a long, long time. I hate how up her own ass she is sometimes, so I've made a point to have other characters point out my girl's flaws and call her out on things when she's being unreasonable.
4) Conflict needs to be in every single scene. Whether it's internal or external, conflict is absolutely necessary in every scene. This does not fly in the post-NiC novels. A particularly horrific example is Cerulean Sins, where there are literally chapters and chapters of nothing but exposition and info dumps that are boring and have absolutely no conflict whatsoever. If you don't believe me, read the first three chapters. You'll probably gawk at the unabashed lack of conflict there.
5) Everything is not about her. There are other characters who have problems, desires, and inner turmoil, and I try my best to allow them to develop throughout the course of the story. Anita's complete lack of sympathy for her poor sex slaves astounds me sometimes. Consider Nathaniel's background. Or hell, Asher's. Both of them should be receiving oodles of love and support and should have character arcs, but Anita and her magical vagina are clearly more important so they just keep getting kicked off screen like red-headed stepchildren.
6) Try to stay modern and do research to keep the details realistic. Many of you brilliant folks have pointed out how behind the times Anita is, especially when it comes to long term birth control and keeping herself clean before and after sex sessions. I've made sure to pull my glasses on and research everything that I possibly can to avoid the dreaded "Did Not Do the Research" label that other writers and readers will be happy to slap on my work otherwise.

Those are the most obvious ones for me. I hope to hear from you guys because I'm genuinely interested and I'd love to talk shop with other writers. Tchau.

Comments

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

I do want to write erotica, but one thing I will be sure to do is keep it creative! LKH's sex scenes all sort of blur into each other, which really is not the point of erotica :P

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

Oh God, yes. I don't write sex scenes, but I definitely learned what NOT to do. Her sex scenes are laughable at best and cringeworthy at worst. Kudos to you for learning from them.

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

I will also not have constant choruses about how tight, tight and wet the woman in question is!

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

"She's wet!
She's tight!
She's tight and wet and tight!
Wet wet wet!
Tight tight tight!
It's the Anita Fucking Shoooooooooooow~!"

-Found here (http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Laurell_K._Hamilton)

[christwriter.livejournal.com]

For some reason whenever I read that I think the woman has a bizzare vaginal mesh shoved up her va-jay-jay. And a switch to tighten things up again.

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

Considering Hamilton's lack of knowledge about lady parts, it's entirely possible.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

LULZ.

[christwriter.livejournal.com]

Well, since I've started posting, and this is one of my favorite subjects...

EDIT! Edit, edit, and edit some more. And listen to people when they tell you that you're wrong, which IMHO is a part of editing. Always focus on how you can make a book better and more interesting, and never ever assume that your book is good enough.

Have as few characters as possible. Thin the herd frequently to keep things light. If you think you need them later, choose a non-permanent way out. Reunions are always fun, especially when another character has just dropped dead.

Stories have a structure. Some of us can do that easy, some of us need help, but regardless of how talented you are at structuring your story, do not reach for the first thing on top of your head to flesh it out. The work doesn't stop once you've got the thing outlined. Micheal Bay and LKH are both highly talented at story structure, but when it comes to fleshing them out they both turn into poo flinging monkeys reaching for the nearest stack of brown. Weigh all your ideas before you put them into play, and never be scared to throw a bad idea out.

Conflict is your friend. Your characters are not.

(And while this is more from working retail/food service than AB, it congealed while reading AB so might as well) The most important part of your book is not the plot, it's not the characters, it's not the word choice or the research. It's the reader. The point of writing is to be read, otherwise you can keep it all inside your head. That leaves a lot of room for you to play in, but never, ever forget that once you start asking for money you stop writing for yourself. Do whatever you like, but remember if the reader is not happy you will not be getting paid today.

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

Bless this comment. Especially the bit about editing and characters not being your friend. I regularly rip my writing to shreds and seek ever more inventive ways of screwing my darlings over until they can't see straight. Thanks for the list!

[christwriter.livejournal.com]

My last project story was a PILL to edit. I hated it when I finished it, I hated it during the first readthrough and markup, I hated it during the first correction...and then during the second read through I realized I had the climax in the middle of the story, and a whole lot of symbolism involving bible stuff and ceramonial ritual stuff --it's a weird book--had crawled in while I wasn't looking, and that said symbolism PERFECTLY matched stuff I wanted to do two or three stories later, and if I just rearranged the scenes and tweeked aformentioned symbolism just a little bit, the book would work.

It was a lot of work, and that doesn't count fixing typos, self-contradictory statements, and the nine bazillion times I used "he" to refer to a sort-of-non-gendered character (the species is gendered, but they are all "its". Two members of this species have survived into the next story. One is not a good guy, and the other one kind of is. The slaves their parent species kept have taken over the island they live on, and having the former slaves interact with these guys is a lot more fun than I thought it'd be.) but I am actually very proud of it. Thank GOD the biggest issue I've had with the current project are reversed statements (Changing "My keys were in the container, I grabbed them" into "I grabbed my keys out of the container") and trying to balance a non-linear storyline.

I guess my point is, most of the time you don't figure out what the theme of a story is until the first, second, and sometimes THIRD time you read through and edit. And once you have that figured out, you have go to back through and fine tune things to match that theme. I don't see how a writer can release work without a second or third draft. To me, those are when the actual writing part happens.

[pearkiwi.livejournal.com]

1. Don't introduce a magical new power/person just when the MC needs one. If your MC is in over their head with whatever, and if they can't figure a way to get out of trouble with what they have on them, or just by running away...well, they suffer consequences. Which leads me to

2. Consequences. Everything should have consequences. Like, in a world where Anita isn't the Author's Sue, she wouldn't get away with showing up to work with the police in six inch high heels, and seven guys in tow. They would totally stop hiring her to consult (or whatever she does now) if she refused to stop bringing random dudes with her to crime scenes and dressing so unprofessional/impractical.

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

Ah, that first one can get tricky if you put your characters in a really tough spot, but I agree with you. The second one is definitely something Anita abuses to no end. She gets away with everything. She does all kinds of crazy stuff but somehow never has to spend time in a jail cell or in a court room or on a psychiatrist's couch. She needs at least two out of those three, imo. Not to mention her One Hour Work Week that she gets paid a gazillion dollars for despite arguing with all her clients on a regular basis.

Great points, thanks for sharing!

[christwriter.livejournal.com]

I've got a main character who has no functional magic at all. I wanted to have one of these supernatural adventure stories where the main character is normal. Mostly because the pulling-powers-out-my-you-hoo thing got really, really tiresome. Fast.

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

Ditto. My character has limited powers. She can't just up and whup the ass of any ole body. Most of the time, she outsmarts them or has enough sense to bring back up. She gets her ass kicked a lot, but she always pulls through due to sheer stubborness and determination, not magical hoo-hah magic.

Which also reminds me of another pet peeve: having the big strong menses saving the heroine too much. Saving her a few times is necessary, but after a certain point, it makes her seem like she can't do anything on her own. The reverse is also dangerous territory: having the men be too weak to save themselves also reflects badly on their characters. It's a fine line to walk, but it's worth it if you do it right.

Normal is underrated! We need more normal folks in urban fantasies. It's a nice change of pace.

[cheeky-duckie.livejournal.com]

Which also reminds me of another pet peeve: having the big strong menses saving the heroine too much.

I read that as menses-the-biological and was like, "Is that a trope? THROUGH THE POWER OF MENSTRUATION I SHALL WIN THIS!" I'm actually a little disappointed now.

(And agreed; I think its a fine line, and its hard to leave out the accidental power dynamic implied just by the act of one character saving another.)

[christwriter.livejournal.com]

...this actually happens in one of my favorite books. Deerskin by Robin McKinley. At the end of the book Lisser Lissar confronts her father and a great many things happen, one of which involves menstruation. It's a weird kind of book.

(Also Sunshine is the anti Anita Blake. Just an FYI)

[cheeky-duckie.livejournal.com]

Excuse me while I add this to my to-read pile. I could g for a weird kind of book.

[christwriter.livejournal.com]

If you'll forgive the fan-squee I'm about to emit...EVERYTHING Robin McKinley has written is good, but Sunshine is my favorite.

It's a vampire book. The main character is a snarky, bitchy baker who has a reason for hunting vampires (mostly, because they're hunting her). There are were-whatevers everywhere, and a police force that has to do things like deal with vampires and demons and part demons who go crazy and were whatevers (they have a special flying unit to deal with wereskunks.)

And the writing is drop dead gorgeous. If I could write like Robin for one day, I'd die happy, but only as long as it was the very next day.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

LULZ so did I initially.

[lucidscreamer.livejournal.com]

/I read that as menses-the-biological /

I did, too. Had a bit of a Clive Barker flashback for a second, there... XD

[dwg.livejournal.com]

That's a really cool list, though I'd argue that conflict isn't necessary in every single scene because then you're just rolling from one thing to the next without getting a chance to calm down and breathe. It's important to know when to take a break before diving back in or upping the ante.

That said, I'd also add:
A) ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. And sometimes they might seem minor at first but can snowball into something massive later. But having a heroine that gets to do whatever she wants because of handwavey laws/superpowers when she demonises (and has killed people) for lesser offenses. I still can't wrap my head around how it's okay for Anita to enslave people to her harem but it's OH SO TERRIBLE for Belle Morte to do it because BM totally doesn't love her sweethearts. And how Anita's defeated MOAD but evidently suffered no side-effects from devouring the power of the oldest and most powerful thing ever or how nobody's really noticed MOAD's sudden disappearance.

Mostly this provides the pay-off for victory -- a character that doesn't struggle for it isn't interesting to me. This is a major problem that I had playing Dishonored because Corvo starts off as the most badassed character ever and only he and his particular skills can pull off these missions, and in the end...he's still the same guy. There's no learning curve, there's a brief moment of being kicked when down but it's okay because he gets his swag back and resumes being the most awesome. (Also the whole thing with the Outsider grates because he's like 'here, have some magic powers because of reasons!' and then turns up to be Captain Exposition from time to time. WHAT IS YOUR POINT, DUDE.)

B) INFODUMPING: look at various ways to do it effectively. In the case of AB:VH the big mistakes are constantly asking, 'What does that mean?' and having information regurgitated often several times saying the same things makes the heroine look like she's a complete idiot. It's a real kicker given that Anita's supposed to be an expert in her field. Plus it grates on my nerves that the author feels the need to coddle the audience and explain every. minute. detail like I'm too stupid to figure something out for myself or read between the lines. Likewise having, "As you know, Bob," lectures between two characters who should probably already know this stuff can get irritating as hell.

The other danger in this is that slabs of internal monologue can break up the pace of a scene. I'm trying to get back into Kiss the Dead and got two pages into the first chapter before saying, "I can't do this right now," and closing the book because there was so. much. unnecessary. waffle about this vampire's hair and how unaesthetically pleasing he was, meanwhile the actual scene was vampire weeping in terror before the heroine and her trying to get information about a missing girl. #priorities (But this is where I'm grateful for terrible writing because I've learned to become a better critical reader?)

But seriously, if we don't actually need to know this information right now...then don't include it. It will probably save on repetitive splurges later when you might have found a place to insert this information in a more organic fashion. "Show, don't tell," is a good rule of thumb, but sometimes exposition is kinda necessary. Knowing when to do that is tough.

(argh, to be continued because I'm too wordy for LJ comment fields)

[dwg.livejournal.com]

C) BE ACTIVE. I've begun to really hate Anita because she never actually does anything. She just sits around and waits for something to happen and then reacts. Then more things happen and she reacts. She never decided to pack a bag and go to Paris to blow up the Council when they were psychically beaming themselves into her house. She never went on some deep spiritual pilgrimage to learn how to control the Ardeur or find some lost temple of monks in Tibet that can tell her what happened to defeat MOAD the first time around. There are a bazillion different things that could have happened instead of staying at home and whining that she has to have more sex with more hot guys noooo. And worse, she's stuck in this cycle of angsting, having someone point out "you always do that, you have so much awesome now!" and she's like "no you're right!" and then does nothing to fix what she was complaining about so she can slide back into complaining again. Case in point of the Ardeur where she's told she has to eat right to keep it in check, but she constantly skips meals or gets unhealthy take-out and then has to go nail someone.

I could ramble on, but then we're just going to get into a list of my personal gripes against the series rather than anything terribly helpful. Except maybe that characters should have their own motivations -- and lives beyond the scope of the protagonist -- "because of reasons!" is very rarely effective.

[christwriter.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD YES I always forget that one. Active. Yes. Main characters should be the main for a reason. If it is a choice between having the MC do something and character X do the same thing, and it doesn't matter which one they do, have the main character do it. If the main character has done too much, have them help. And for the love of GOD let them make some of the choices in their own life. Both Anita Blake and City of Bones had the same damn problem. The main characters never chose to be involved in the terrible situations. They just went with the godawful flow. Sometimes Anita might as well be a stuffed doll the boys lug around.

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

HOLY CRUNCHY JESUSJACQUES YES. There have been so many times where I've reenacted one of Linkara's best gags due to her inactivity:

"Should we DO something?"
"We should DO something!"
"Should we DO something?"
"We should DO something!"

Seriously, the melodramatic whining and lack of solving problems at the source are a pain in the patella. And man, are they repetitive. She spends far more time talking about an issue than actually making the steps to solve the issue. Anita should be a member of Congress. She'd be great at filibusters.

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

That's why I mentioned internal and external conflict. I don't mean literally someone throwing a punch in every scene or anything, I mean that each scene has a relevant sense of conflict. I.e. a problem that needs to be solved or something important that needs to be addressed. Nothing should be coasting in a story, imo.

All of those are legit points. Thanks for your input! :D

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I don't mean throwing a punch in every scene either, I mean having a time-out to eat pizza in yoga pants or walking the dog and having some fun every now and then before their apartment blows up/they have to have that awkward family dinner/whatever. And while it might be boring having a character lying face down on the sofa drooling into an empty pizza box, it could be the much needed break both the character and the audience need before you, say, hurl a severed head through the window or just have the cat jump on top of them and the character is then like "wait, I don't have a cat. @____@"

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Re: infodumping:

This is so hard, because on the one hand your audience is smart, on the other they're dumber than a box of rocks, so who are you writing for-- the ones who solve the puzzles right away, who are vocal but a minority, or the ones who, well, are infuriated that Rue is black and Magnus Bane is played by Godfrey Gao? And while that's a minority, the majority will never notice some things. I've written things that I thought were totally in your face, and only a few people got it.

Beta readers! So important.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, infodumping is hard. But I guess it's one of those things that relies upon the author knowing what the hell they're doing -- you have to know conventions in order to break them, you have to screw up in order to put structure back in.

Word on beta readers. A good beta is worth their weight in gold. I know what I'm doing a lot of the time, but sometimes I need someone outside of my head to go "this makes no damned sense."

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I wish beta readers were easier to come by, honestly. I keep seeing recommendations of having lots of beta readers, and I'm lucky if I can get one who gives really meaty opinions! Most of them are like "I like it" or "it was good but felt incomplete" which is good to hear but not really good to wrestle with.

Though I dunno how much of it relies on knowing what you're doing versus assuming your audience's knowledge base. I had a story about a snake-haired woman encountering a mirror salesmen at her island home after some terrible blind dates, and one person out of the workshop of 20 knew it was Medusa and "that hero guy." Like, I couldn't have made it more obvious-- I just assumed Medusa was more of a cultural touchstone than she is, especially among writers. I showed it to genre fans and everyone got that it was Medusa and Perseus within the first page. I didn't think people had to know Perseus, but I expected knowing Medusa!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

See, I wouldn't be worrying about people who don't get it. They don't get it and that's okay - maybe they got something else out of the story, maybe they'd ask someone or go look things up for themselves and later have a laugh, maybe they'd set it aside and never think about it again. That's something that's completely out of your control and you'll inevitably run into people like that. Your job as the writer is to the story you want in the best way possible.

If you're worrying about how someone might not get it, you might wind up sabotaging yourself or falling into the trap that LKH does of "[quote here]" "omg did you just quote [movie/book]?" "Why yes I did! Let me explain to you how it's relevant!" And, like, I know it can get disheartening when you've got something that you feel is smart and fun while everyone's having orgasms over 50 Shades or Twilight, but I think it's more important to stick to your own style, your own voice rather than trying to appeal to the broadest spectrum.

[zombiegoat.livejournal.com]

Listen to your readers, particularly the ones who have been on board since the beginning.That's not to say you should go down the "give them exactly what they want" school of thought road, but it does mean that if you collected a large group of fervent fans and suddenly they seem to be bailing out in droves, it may be a good idea to find out why. As the writer, you don't always know best. Outside input is important.

[christwriter.livejournal.com]

A writer's job is to screw with the reader. Not to have the main characters have pretty pretty lives or a HEA. My job as a writer is to take your emotions and tie them into a very complicated cat's cradle, jacob's ladder affair. If a story has a happy ending, that's the writer screwing with you. If you are scared that the imaginary person the words are describing will die, that's the writer screwing with you. If you have a cliffhanger that makes you both hurl the book across the room screaming and race to the store/Amazon to buy and/or download the next book in the series, congradulations. The writer has done their job, have a post-screwing cigarette.

Which is why EVERYTHING needs to be viewed from a reader's perspective. Otherwise writing a novel is an excercise in mental masturbation. And the only way to get the right perspective is to give the book to a reader and ask them how they felt during that scene. If it is not what you wanted them to feel, start over.

I believe that LKH lost that perspective several books back from NIC, she regained it somehow for Obsidian Butterfly, and then lost her freaking mind. And her editor.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Many of you brilliant folks have pointed out how behind the times Anita is, especially when it comes to long term birth control and keeping herself clean before and after sex sessions and fashion choices.

I've not read the later books - I come here for the sporkings instead! - but so far as I can see the old truism "murder your darlings" holds fast. You have to get rid of stuff you think is So Kewl a lot of the time. And in LKH's case, some actual murdering of some of Anita's actual darlings would probably help declutter immensely.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I'll try to add a few that I think haven't been said already by others....

- Character flaws that are really flaws. I get tired of the usual 'hot temper, rebels against authority, too honest, cares about her friends too much, etc.' that a lot of novels have. They can be really good flaws if used to their fullest potential to bite the character in the ass (like when Sirius died coming to save Harry from a trap Harry walked into that exploited his 'needs to save people' thing) but they're usually not. Usually they're there to make the character seem more noble and cool. Such is the case with Anita's snappiness--it's technically a flaw, but it's meant to make her look clever and snarky, and she never gets in trouble with her boss or the cops (or, if she does get in trouble with cops, they're the bad guy and it's really because they're jealous bigots)

- Character flaws that are ACKNOWLEDGED as flaws. Anita has SO many things wrong with her, but LKH doesn't seem to realize it, and the narrative doesn't treat any of these traits or actions as wrong, and anytime another character does, they're shown as in the wrong for it. Which brings me to...

- Other characters can be in the right, including ones that disagree with your character or dislike your character or vice versa. And even if they are in the wrong, they are not horrible people for it. They also have their own reasons that probably should not include 'just jealous of your character' or 'is a close-minded bigot' most of the time, because those are reasons that the are designed to pit the reader against them. Making their reasons understandable is a lot better in my book, especially if you're writing for an adult audience that should be ready to see a world that isn't just black and white.

- Your protagonist does not have to be a likeable or good person, but they should be a likeable and good character, or at least fun/interesting to read about. Anita is not. She is not interesting, fun, or enjoyable to read about or from the POV from at all anymore. Probably the BEST example of nailing this that I've ever encountered is Humbert Humbert from Lolita by Nabokov. Written from the POV of a vain pedophile who kidnaps a twelve year old after marrying her mother to get close to her, and said pedophile is an immensely likeable character for most readers and interesting as hell to read about. And his story? Doesn't have zombies or werebeasts or metaphysical powers. But it has him and Lolita. The world is really only as interesting in practice as the characters make it, and Anita's world is amazing in theory, but she's doing zip in it anymore, no exploring and expanding like there used to be beyond the bare minimum for an asspull to give her a new power or lover.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

- If you are writing from the POV of a character, keep in mind what they would focus on, and when. In the first chapter of Skin Trade, Anita has just gotten a head sent to her in a box from Vittorio, a master vampires and serial killer. She is about to call the Vegas police (since the return address was Vegas) but then goes on a very long monologue about the photos on her co-workers Manny and Larry's desks, and who is in them, and what they look like. We learn the names, nicknames, and ages of their kids, Anita insults their wives, and we know the exact color and texture of Larry's baby's hair and how it relates to each of her parents and how it compares to that of Nathaniel. And then she starts wondering if she should have pictures on HER desk and who of. And when she actually meets Vittorio and it's supposed to be a scary oh-shit situation, she notices that his hands aren't as dainty as she likes on her men but are still graceful enough. Neither of these things make any sense for her to be focusing on at that moment. It makes her seem like she's stupid, doesn't care, or has ADHD. Which brings me to...

- Relevance. No one in those photos ever shows up in these books. That baby's hair is never important. That was a big waste of time and words.

- You know what else got lots and lots of description and mentions in Skin Trade? The numerous weapons that Anita brought with her to Vegas. I was particularly excited for the phosphorous grenades. Guess what? She never uses ANY of them. Not a single weapon, be it gun or grenade or knife, all of which we were treated to numerous lengthy listings and descriptions of, gets to be actually used. We also get a lot of scenes of her refusing to put down her weapons to get in somewhere or see someone, and a scene where a cop nearly arrests her because of everything she's carrying. If you are going to include stuff like this and bring it up repeatedly, it better actually see some action. Chekhov's Gun and all.

- Indeed, don't include the promise of cool things in general and then not deliver. In Skin Trade, we got a demon, we got jinn, and we got a team of SWAT wizards and psychics who each had a special power or magic of their own. The demon is never faced because it goes back where it came from on its own, the jinn are sealed away semi-offscreen with no fanfare or challenge, and only one SWAT guy ever uses his power and that's in the same vein as the jinn situation. That's cheating the reader so hard, and they will hate that. It's disappointing. It's a rip-off. Don't do it.

AND PROBABLY MORE LATER, I LIKE THIS TOPIC!

[shimmerfox.livejournal.com]

Hell in Danse Macabre, a vampire Merlin shows up. As an almost unbeatable antagonist? As a wise old mentor with a vital warning for the protagonist to listen or ignore? No, so he can dance the ballet as a background character.

Seriously what is probably the slowest book in the series to to date, and it had Merlin and still nothing happened.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

- Some variety in the villains. Unless they all have reason to have the same motive (like the Death Eaters in HP--and even then, some were more moved out of fear or family loyalty than sheer prejudice) they shouldn't. AB used to be good about this--Nikolaos wanted the vampire murders solved, Gaynor wanted a zombie raised so he could find the hidden family treasure, Zachary wanted to stay alive, Dominga wanted money, Stirling wanted land to build a resort, Magnus wanted to increase his fey powers, Niley wanted the Spear of Destiny. You had some diverse, creative motives there. Now, however, all the motives of the villains revolve around Anita in some way--they're jealous of her, they're in love with her, they want her dead, and/or they want her powers. Chimera wanted her for his queen, Vittorio wanted her for his Human Servant, MOAD wanted her for her new body, it's pretty much all about her.And that's getting boring, predictable, and it's done really obnoxiously to boot. I would like new villains with new interests, please.

- Speaking of variety in villains, also have variety in personality. The baddies in AB are almost always these over-the-top cruel sadists who torture and rape for the sheer fun of it. That was shocking and edgy at first, yes, but it's unimaginative and exploitative at this point. I'm not saying all villains need to be nuanced and sympathetic and have good sides (though some should!) but when they're all super-ridiuclously-eeeevil and all in the exact same way, it shows a lack of creativity and will cease to interest the reader. Different personalities and modes of operation is just as important as different motives when it comes to having multiple villains who are all independent of each other.

- If there is going to be sex, fine. But it should not delay, interrupt, or take over the plot.

- The tone can be lightened or darkened, but it should remain the same color, so to speak. For instance, Buffy and Harry Potter both got progressively darker, but it was still the same general thing---good wizards versus bad, teens/young adults against monsters. AB's tone, however, has just changed completely. It's gone from hunting monsters to just basically being about Anita's personal life and her harem, with some occasional minor monster crisis on the side if we're lucky. It's not that the tone has just gotten less grim and dark, the entire point of the books has changed from action/horror to badly-done erotica and whining. If a series promises to be something for a reader, it should keep that promise, not steadily degrade into something else entirely. It shouldn't get stale or repetitive either, but, in my opinion, the 'color' should still be consistent no matter what shade it's in.

- Speaking of keeping with a theme, remember how each book used to be named after a supernatural-owned establishment that appeared in that book? That should have been kept. I really hate now how the titles generally have fuck all to do with the book. Seriously, why is Skin Trade called that? I've finished it and I still don't know. Flirt makes sense, but it's still stupid.

- The pacing in Skin Trade was painful. It just...plodded. It crawled. I have decided to never, ever inflict that on my readers (if I ever have any)

[duamuteffe.livejournal.com]

1) Overdescribing characters deep-sixes the reader's imagination. I know we generally have a distinct vision of our characters, but we have to give readers room to develop their own mental images tailored to what works for them. Going through four paragraphs of specifics down to flecks of color in eyes tells me that the writer is bound and determined that the reader WILL ONLY THINK OF THEIR CHARACTER ONE WAY and that's pretty egotistical. Frankly unless there is a good in-story reason that hair length down to millimeters/eye shade down to hex code/skin color down to six carefully-selected words from the word-a-day calender is important it is all filler and prevents the reader from the pleasing work of fleshing out the details themselves.

2) That being said, have some interesting locations much of the time, and at least one interesting detail about the location you're in all of the time, or the reader is going to get confused and bored. I realize her job takes her mostly to police stations and strip clubs, but they are all one big blur of beige walls and grumpy cops/neon lights and misogynist lady descriptions. Either come up with more memorable descriptions or start going to more memorable places.

3) It is just fine to care about your characters. It is not fine to swaddle them in cotton wool and protect them from the world. It inhibits growth, conflict, and action, all of which are the point of writing a book in the first place. Just like you have to let your real world friends deal with the issues in their lives, you have to let your characters deal with the issues in theirs. This is what the reader is there to see, after all.

4) Learn to read your own work like a reader and not a writer. If you can't, get an editor. If you can, get an editor anyway. You're a writer, not a god- you might know what you like but you don't always know what is best for publication. If you like something the editor wants to take out, save the original in a separate file and put it away for your own use and go back to work on the editor-approved version.

[collectively.livejournal.com]

Write dialogue that exists for a reason. An occasional quip or bit of something that doesn't advance the plot isn't necessarily a problem (especially if it's used as a way to flesh out a character or add strength to their voice), but these should be used sparingly, and any major conversation should have a point and later ramifications.

And, ffs, make your characters talk like people. People do not talk circles around each other for twenty minutes at a time. Again, a bit of confusion for comedy or plot purposes might be fine, but don't have every conversation be full of people establishing basic information over and over again. It's annoying and makes your characters (and you!) look like morons. Or, worse, it looks like you think your readers are.

[astronauta.livejournal.com]

I remember a conversation in one of the books where Anita is serving coffee in her house (or apartment?) and she's explaining that real coffee needs to be in the fridge, and the cops were skeptical, and she was all like "you really didn't know that?"

It was random and added no value to the plot whatsoever. I think sometimes LKH adds stuff like this to show off what she knows.

[astronauta.livejournal.com]

I think it'll be all right if the character isn't humble or grounded. Harry Potter sometimes suffered from arrogance from being the chosen one. What made him NOT a Gary Stu is that not everyone in the book worshipped him or thought he was all that great. There were students more popular than him. He was bullied. Many felt there were many times where Harry was wrong, and many times, he's been proven wrong.

Anita is this untouchable siren that everyone agrees with or loves. If not, LKH makes it a point to discredit her opposition by making them sexist or racist. Anita needs to be wrong sometimes. She needs to see the consequence of her bad judgement sometimes (e.g., Sirius dying because of Potter). There needs to be people who are more attractive and more intelligent.

On that note, I also learned that villains should be realistic and maybe even relatable. Not everything is black and white like in Anita's world. Her villains tend to be all about sadism and power (I think someone mentioned this already). Gray villains can be more awesome than totally black and evil villains. One villain that comes to mind is Ozymandias from Watchmen. Arrogant, rich, a bit of a know-it-all. He destroyed New York ---- all to invoke World Peace. WORLD FUCKING PEACE. This villain provoked debate with everyone who read the comics or watched the movie. It added a moral ambiguity to the movie, a moral ambiguity that LKH seems to strive for sometimes but always, always falls waaay short.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

- If you want your character to seem intelligent, competent, clever, etc., do not do so by just making everyone else idiots so s/he looks the best of the lot by comparison. I am really tried of Anita being considered the ~expert!~ on all things supernatural for knowing very basic things you'd think anyone living in this world, or certainly in law enforcement in the world, would already be quite aware of in the same way that they are aware milk usually comes from cows, rain becomes ice because of the water cycle, don't make eye contact with an angry dog, and so on.

Which brings me to...

- Think about how the world you're writing would really be. Okay, so it's got all these differences from our world. What differences would those differences cause? In the Anitaverse, there are all these supernatural creatures, and always have been, and people have always known this, yet there doesn't seem to have been much adaptation to their existence. For instance, the whole reason that vampires/witches/wereanimals are executed even for petty crimes such as shoplifting is that there's no prison that can successfully contain them because of their powers. Well, why the hell not? How about, for vampires, a prison staffed by priest? Why aren't there more weapons specifically geared towards taking out monsters? Anita herself complains about this in Skin Trade, asking why the SWAT hasn't come up with anything better, etc. And that's a hell of a good question--why haven't they? Or rather, why hasn't LKH? She basically just dropped a bunch of monsters into the world, but didn't consider how the world would really CHANGE beyond some of the legal stuff. Which is sad, because that alone is a really fertile ground for amazing creative stuff. Not just for ways of fighting and containing monsters, but stuff like history--you have people who were really there!--and media and just SO MUCH. Maybe you'll never get a chance to work it all in, sure, but at least think about it so YOU know if it ever comes up and don't have the fudge it on the spot and fret over it not fitting pre-established canon, etc.

- Keep track of your canon. And not with sticky-notes.

- Keep track of consistency. Anita is inconsistent as all hell in words, opinions, and actions on a regular basis. Not to mention hypocritical in a way I don't think was intended.

- If you want your character to be thought of as cool, have them do cool things. If you want them to be seen as tough, do tough things. If you want them to be seen as smart, do smart things. Just having the character SAY cool/tough/smart/etc things or have other characters call them cool/tough/smart/etc is not enough.

- Have the villains be a challenge, especially if you've been amping them up as such. In Skin Trade (sorry to keep bringing that one up, it's the first one since NiC--and that was back in high school, I graduated COLLEGE this year--that I read) we got a lot of talk about what a threat Vittorio was. He ended up not doing much at all, and not being hard to defeat. Fuck that--the heroes need to really be risking something when they fight the Big Bad, and, if you're writing for an audience that's out of elementary school, sometimes they should not only risk it but lose it. Especially if you are writing a gritty grimdark edgy monster-hunting series, for crying out loud. I am a big proponent of victory only coming at a price.

[the-mome-wrath.livejournal.com]

There can be more than one awesome female character. There is not a finite amount of awesome in the world, you don't have to horde it all for one character. I see this a lot in urban fantasy, the female main character is often the only female character that is allowed to be strong. All others have to be weak, petty, backstabbers, or damsels in distress. LKH is a big offender when it comes to this. Downgrading all the other female characters does not make Anita look better by comparison; it just makes LKH look like she hates her own gender.

Make sure your female characters have female friends and spends time with them. Most people have friends that are the same gender as them. Most people spend time with their friends, even if it's just to get together and gripe about how much work sucks. And on this note, make sure your female characters pass the bechdel test. Love lives are not the be all and end all of existence. The scenes with Ronnie and Anita going jogging and talking about cases did a lot to develop Anita's character and make her more real. Getting rid of those was one of the worst choices LKH has made.

Little mundane moments of life are a great way to ground the reader in the universe. Make sure you have them sprinkled thoughout the story. It's also a great way to show how the supernatural affects the everyday. LKH used to be good at this in the early books. The scene where Anita is trying to get the blood off her penguin collection is a particularly memorable one. Also, what happened to Anita's angelfish? I don't think we've seen those since the early books. I remember a scene where JC was staring at her fish and they had a conversation about them in the Laughing Corpse. Also little details about checking holy items in the entrance to some of the night clubs really gave you a good sense of how vampires being out in the open changed the world setting. There's a huge lack of effective scenes like these in the latter books and while you know what everyone looks like and what they're wearing they might as well be walking around in a void. You know the setting is analogous to present day, but you have no real sense of anything else. You know Anita spends a lot of time in strip clubs, but you don't know if they're seedy or high class. Is the police station well funded or are they trying to scrape by with their budget?

Protagonists are characters that move the story forward. If your character is merely reacting to the events around them, they aren't being good protagonists, they're being passive. Passive characters are very difficult to make interesting and it's really difficult to have an interesting story with a passive character. Those kinds of stories tend to drift aimlessly and things happen around the character since they're not actively engaging in most of the events. This is the core of the problems with the newer Anita books. Everything interesting happens off screen when Anita isn't there because she's busy reacting to the aurdeur, or drifting from pointless event to pointless event. Things take forever to happen because something has to be contrived to get Anita there because she won't do it on her own. She won't take care of herself, others have to do it for her. The bad guys have to pretty much kick down her door to be noticed. Anita does noting to move the story forward on her own. She just stands around and talks about how awesome and edgy she USED to be.

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

"Protagonists are characters that move the story forward. If your character is merely reacting to the events around them, they aren't being good protagonists, they're being passive. Passive characters are very difficult to make interesting and it's really difficult to have an interesting story with a passive character."

This reminds me of the movie War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise, the number one complaint I heard from people was that he was just some dude that was having all this stuff happening to him and he was just there. Not instrumental in doing anything to solve the issues. The tripods were driving the story and he and his family along. I personally don't like Tom Cruise but love sci-fi and I could identify with a dude just trying to stay alive in that situation, and not everyone is always going to be the dude who solves stuff...but it does make it harder to connect with the story or the character. On that note I did like it. BUT I think it's his lack of driving the story that made so many people not like it.

I could have just said...YES THIS...and save a paragraph...but YES! THIS! To your point. haha

[the-mome-wrath.livejournal.com]

In a lot of ways War of the Worlds is more of a survival movie than a scifi movie because it is about a normal guy trying to survive through these extraordinary events. He's not a scientist, he's not a soldier, he's any guy you could pull off the street and there's very little he can do against the alien onslaught, but the inability of humans to fight the aliens is ultimately important to the story. This makes the story compelling when you're reading it since you have his narration to help pull you into his struggle for day to day survival. However it makes him seem more passive in the movie versions since you don't know what he's thinking or feeling.

The difference with Anita is that she isn't some random person you can pull off the street. She's supposed to be a powerful force and her ability to fight the supernatural is important to the story. The early books often explored where the line between human and monster was and how close she was to crossing it at times. Now, she just lets things happen as they will and no greater theme is being served by this. All the themes have been dropped in favor of bad porn. The most Anita will do anymore is go to another city when required after that she just sits back, feeds the arduer, and then waits for the enemy to be killed off screen. In War of the Worlds they might have been hiding in a basement but there was a lot of tension, drama and even a murder down there.

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

If you are doing a POV story then admit in your own head as you write it that your protagonist is always going to be an unreliable narrator of the story. We are all unreliable narrators of our own lives as we want to see ourselves in the best light, even if we don't always do the best thing. And then let other characters point it out when it happens. Anita is always the specialist snowflake, everywhere, every day, till the end of time and none of her 'real' flaws are even acknowledged as flaws instead we get pages long tirades on prudery.

(Someone above mentioned Harry Potter, and I think that he shows the unreliable narrator in a story, he is a preteen child when the book starts he doesn't know about magic, there is no way he can be the best judge of character or understand what is happening in the world. He took his dislike for Snape--who yes was a big jerk--but maybe just needed a hug...haha--and turned that into snape trying to kill him. That's just one example. Rowling didn't fall into the problem we have with Anita. Anita is always right Harry was wrong on multiple occasions.)

Give credit where credit is due. Let 'experts' actually be good at their jobs. Re: Anita and law enforcement, they are always the bumbling three stooges variety and not even one is a highly trained professional. I reject the notion that every single law enforcement officer in the whole wide world is a bumbling idiot. Anita or any protagonist doesn't actually have to be the best at everything.

FINALLY...my biggest pet peeve...well the non squick inducing one anyway. Every single man (I would say woman and child, but lkh doesn't write them) are super speshal also. Crazy eye and hair color, length of hair, prettiest, niftiest, biggest penis' ever on a human male. Let someone be 'normal'. BUT IF they are 'normal' then don't have every single other person in the whole wide world immediately fall in love with/or be jealous of them!

To be fair, I have read and written (heh) a fair few sues in my life. I even think they are fun sometimes, but when the author is so blind to the deus ex machina via vagina then we have a major problem!

[socksonaboat.livejournal.com]

I've learned that setting up a drinking game based on the series will probably kill whoever tries it in one sitting for the books after NiC, via either alcohol poisoning or water intoxication.

Uh, I mean.

- When you mention something about your world that may catch the reader's attention, be sure to actually use it eventually. It doesn't have to be in the same chapter, or even in the same book, but don't go 'oh by the way there are dragons' and then forget it forever. Even a passing mention once or twice will do, since it'll keep the canon's framework stable.
- Authors may have to set examples eventually. Don't call people jealous whiner babies and blither on about being the fluffiest of fluffy bunnies. That's the wrong example. Because young impressionable folk may follow it eventually.
- Be careful if you choose to (for whatever reason) recycle plots. Because that's boring. Sprucing it up and adding new things and solutions in might help a little bit, but you can only do so much.
- Don't forget that canon actually applies to the main character too.
- Varied vocabulary is very vivid. But don't chew up a thesaurus, spit the crunchy bits out onto a bit of looseleaf, and call it literary genius. ...And the word 'sweeties' can go curl up in the hopper of a rusted old wood chipper.