Blogflog - George R. R. Martin is a Steely-Eyed Hard Ass, or I’m a Wimp

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: George R. R. Martin is a Steely-Eyed Hard Ass, or I’m a Wimp
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.
Mod note: LKH.org is currently down, so here's a cached link.

George R. R. Martin seems to kill characters willy-nilly and seems not to suffer overly much from those deaths, or if he does then he is a masochist of highest order, because I killed a character today, and I feel like shit. I figured out that the death was coming earlier today and knew exactly why my page count had slowed to a crawl, it always does just before I have to lose someone on paper. I walked around in dread for most of the day, and then finally sat down to write. I wrote, then a few tears, and then I finished the scene. I wept, no exaggeration, I freaking sat at my desk and wept, and then I realized it wasn’t done. The death wasn’t enough, there had to be the grief, the reaction of those left behind and that made me cry harder. I wrote in near hysterics, and even now the reaction of everyone isn’t finished, because this death will haunt and effect the rest of the book, and any book that comes after it in the series for that matter.

I found the Kleenex box, and used several, then I printed the pages off for my husband, Jon to read, since he’s the only one that’s read the book besides me, at this point. My dogs decided to be amazingly cute at that moment, because they seemed to know I needed it. They made me laugh, then we all left my office and went to the main part of the house, and then I did something that I’ve never done after writing anything. I got a hard cider from the fridge, opened it, and took a swig. I hardly ever drink, I don’t like the taste of most of it, and don’t need anything to lower my inhibitions, thanks, but today I made an exception. It was the most my husband had ever seen me drink at one time, and I still didn’t finish the bottle. I got to that warm, tingly, rush point and stopped. I wasn’t sure it helped, but it didn’t hurt.

Cupcakes next, because almost everything is better with cupcakes. One a piece for everyone in the household. Got something for dinner I hadn’t had in months, maybe a year – Domino’s pan pizza just cheese. It’s been one of my comfort foods for years. I don’t usually give into food cravings, because it totally kills all the effort at the gym, but tonight I indulged in the pizza. My cupcake remains untouched, the pizza seems to have filled me up. Now watching the musical, 1776, with my family, because it’s been a feel good movie for us for years.

I’m feeling more peaceful, not happy, but calmer. But if I killed off characters the way George does, apparently I’d be an alcoholic, and weigh about three hundred pounds. Good thing I don’t write too many death scenes of major and beloved characters.

Comments

[jessica collett (from livejournal.com)]

This made me laugh like nothing else has been able to in ages.

[dagonista.livejournal.com]

I love that Laurell thinks *not* finishing a bottle of cider constitutes drinking. That's adorable. And that she doesn't drink because she doesn't need help lowering her inhibitions...and that she never eats junk food because of her Spartanesque gym routine...and...well. Oh Laurell.

[ashaed-the-rose.livejournal.com]

to be fair I have a friend who totally gets shit faced off of one cider

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I love that this completely misses the point of why GRRM kills off characters.

Also the last time we had this kind of wailing and shirt-rending was when she killed Haven, which had like zero emotional impact on any of the characters (it'd probably help if her characters had emotions to start with instead of just telling us "I feel bad about X") and then everyone swooped in to reassure Anita that what she did was the right thing, for the greater good, and that Haven was Smirky McEvilbad anyway. So what are the odds that this will repeat itself here with some character nobody really cares about?

(Also I made the mistake of scrolling through comments on her FB page and I really, really do not understand the folks who are like "I hate killing off my characters/doing bad things to them! I had to undo it immediately it was so bad!" When I was 15, I was upset about my character possibly dying in an RPG and sobbed like a baby, but my then-arch nemesis gave me a pep talk and I haven't looked back since. I am a great and terrible god to my characters; I will put them through hell - sometimes literally- if they want a happy ending. They need to fight for it. They'll get broken and rebuild, they'll quit and go do something else, but ultimately it's better for them and the plot. It probably doesn't help that I'm currently writing "Terrible People: The Illustrated Story of Bad Life Choices.")

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Did you see the person who claimed George R. R. Martin was a sociopath for killing off his characters? I seriously dislike his books on both a moral and a "craft" level, but that's going waaaaaay too far.

[wanderingworlds.livejournal.com]

Uuuugh. Now I'm remembering the "breakdown" scene Anita had after killing Haven in the shower where Richard had to come console her.

Then JC promptly did her hair up by putting it in curlers.

[duamuteffe.livejournal.com]

Wait, isn't deciding on a character death and its aftermath sort of a large deal as far as how it works in plot? And isn't the manuscript supposed to be done by the end of January? Which is, what, tomorrow? I know she always turns them in late, but sheesh- at least try to look like you're almost done or something.

[cherrypep.livejournal.com]

yeah, but it's ok. This death is going to 'effect the rest of the book'. So apparently it's going to bring her to type 'The End', or maybe write the book for her. Or maybe she meant 'affect'... nah.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Seriously, she should be doing a final polish at this point.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Stop writing, LKH.

I don't say this to be mean.

I say this because if it does this to you, stop. Or switch genres. Just start a new series that is a happy fluffy domestic tone where it would be out of place for anyone to ever die no matter how minor a character they were.

[clover-elf-kin.livejournal.com]

Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, write characters who are, for some reason or another, true immortals--NOTHING can kill them.

...I might just be morbidly curious how LKH would handle anything even close to a "I have no mouth and I must scream" situation.

Admittedly, I can be downright SADISTIC to my own casts, but recently I saw a kink meme prompt that was too much even for me--a story where the main character of the series was diagnosed with cancer (I think) and was decreed too valuable to let die... which is SERIOUSLY ANYTHING BUT GOOD in this case. The specific prompt was that he's in a body that should have shut down years ago, trapped in his own withered husk like a zombie, but he can still feel pain. Presumably his senses still function to varying degrees, and he can speak--but that's it.

[pryzmkess.livejournal.com]

I recently killed off a secondary character I liked in my space opera. I wrote the scene through the eyes of his son, who is a major character I really like. I didn't wail and gnash my teeth. I didn't compare myself to GRRM. I didn't treat myself to pizza or gather my family around me to console me. I think I started on the next chapter.

I just have no clue how someone can invest so much emotion into this process. Or how an author can realize this morning that she was going to kill a "major and beloved" character in a story she's been working on for weeks. I know when my major characters are going to die for books I haven't started yet. I'm just.... GAH!

I don't mean to rant. This just... enrages me.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

I can understand investing emotion in it. Sometimes when you write things to make other people feel something, you get caught up in those feelings, too. But it shouldn't be a source of hand-wringing and wailing. It should be something to enjoy. I've written things that pushed me to tears before, and I enjoyed sobbing like a fucking nit because it's that kind of vicarious emotion that makes us enjoy weepy movies and tragic scenes. But once it's over, you just sigh in satisfaction, note down concerns you might need to worry about later, and then move on, satisfied that you wrote something that moved you. You don't wangst to the world at large about how you've destroyed your heart and how your life is pain because your job is so haaaaaaaard, killing off the fictional people you/your avatar love.

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Read this blog and LOL'd. I'm just getting into GoT and seriously, GRRM kills main characters left, right and center. He has no remorse in doing bad things to his characters. As a result, he's sold more books than...well, you know. I get that writers get attached to characters. Dude, she's got like a cast of thousands! Time to trim the fat. Actually, if she killed everyone except JC, Asher, Edward and maybe Richard, I'd start reading the books again. What was the last book you remember having a plot? I'm thinking Bloody Bones.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

Not a cast of thousands. Probably a few dozen at best. It just FEELS like thousands because she's as FORGETFUL as someone who had a cast of thousands. :\

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

Now that she's broken the seal on character deaths let's have a wholesale culling of Anita's honeys! :) The books would be the better for her doing so much more of this. Some real tension, 'danger' might mean something.

Also her melodrama is always fun, dang she's amused me more this week than in years. First with her quotes and now this.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

Whoo-hoo! Blood for the blood god! Dongs for the dong throne!

...I did not want to imagine what Anita would do with a throne of disembodied dongs. Brain bleach.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Umm... She makes it sound like she knows what's what in the literary world, but she's pretty darn clueless and doesn't actually keep up with authors at all.

GRRM has gone on record talking about how wrenching it was to write something like The Red Wedding (for those no on ASOIAF, a LOT of people died quite horribly). But he did it anyway because it was what had to happen. It served dramatic purpose in his story, and while all the consequences have yet to be played out, it was more than shock value: it changed the entire political landscape of the story and set a couple of the main characters on a different path.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

Good god woman, get over yourself.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

I can't stand George R. R. Martin's writing, and that he kills off so many characters is part of that. I also understand being upset when a character you wrote dies. (Which I think I remember reading Martin is.) But LKH is completely ridiculous.

I figured out that the death was coming earlier today and knew exactly why my page count had slowed to a crawl, it always does just before I have to lose someone on paper.

It's your story. If you don't want to kill someone, don't do it. As much as your cast desperately needs to be thinned, killing someone isn't the only way. If it upsets you so much, send them off to Australia instead. Or *gasp* have them dump your main character. That said, in your genre, and with the rules you've set up, characters should logically die on occasion. Make it a grand and glorious moment for them and make it matter deeply, like Spock's death at the end of Wrath of Khan. Maybe the reason you get so upset is that when you kill off a character, it doesn't matter at all. Remember Noel?

I wept, no exaggeration, I freaking sat at my desk and wept

Just like Anita, she doesn't "cry," she "weeps." Also, big deal. I cried when I killed off a character who'd had one previous scene. I think that if the writer isn't extremely emotional at a character death, there's little chance of the audience feeling anything.

The death wasn’t enough, there had to be the grief, the reaction of those left behind and that made me cry harder.

She hates writing anyone being hurt emotionally, and that's the core of why her books are such crap. No one suffers any consequences for anything.

I wrote in near hysterics

If this is true, she needs help, but I think she's exaggerating and/or using the wrong word, as she so often does.

this death will haunt and effect the rest of the book

When it's a verb, it's AFFECT. English, do you speak it? Also, if this happens, then the book will be much better for it. I don't think it will happen.

I found the Kleenex box, and used several

No, see, you're supposed to use the Kleenex inside the box, not the box itself. I can tell what she means, but the writing is muddy, and this is another problem with her books. Also, the commas in that sentence hurt me.

I don’t usually give into food cravings, because it totally kills all the effort at the gym,

Bullshit. This is a common misconception, but it makes me angry every time I see it. Exercising is not only to lose weight, being thin does not mean you're healthy, and being fat does not mean you're unhealthy. Feeding yourself is a GOOD thing, not something to beat yourself up about. And she manages to beat herself up smugly. Urgh.

if I killed off characters the way George does, apparently I’d be an alcoholic, and weigh about three hundred pounds

GAH. Right, because one swig of alcohol and some pizza is soooo dangerous. Fuck you, LKH, I have an alcoholic in my family. And fuck your biology degree, because apparently it came out of a Cracker Jack box.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Right, because one swig of alcohol and some pizza is soooo dangerous.

Her whole all-or-nothing attitude about being physically fit is just ridiculous. Look--I keep myself on a fitness regimen. During the week I work out for about an hour a day every day, even if some days I'm exhausted so I just do some low-impact tai chi to keep my metabolism going. And I cook healthy things at home, and eat a lot of protein.

You know what I do on weekends?

I veg on the couch, and I enjoy it. I order a fucking pizza and eat the whole thing by myself in one day. I sleep at weird hours and fuck my whole cycle up. I have a drink or two. And none of this has sent me tipping into some crazy spiral of unhealthy weight gain or alcoholism or slothfulness or whatever. It rewards me for having discipline throughout the week, yeah, but as long as it's done in moderation it doesn't cause me to backslide from what I've set as a lifestyle that's personally healthy for me. Emphasis on two things: moderation, and for me, because she doesn't seem to understand not going to extremes about everything; nor does she seem to understand that her way is not the only way, and people's bodies are so wildly fucking different--with different baselines and different needs--that her preaching and sanctimoniousness are entirely goddamned pointless.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

At least she didn't quote herself this time.

I am going to laugh myself sick if she just ended up writing a magic goddess flashback to Essus's death. I really don't think she has the guts to kill any of Merry's babydaddies, and I can't much think of any other important characters that would JUSTIFY this reaction.

I'd feel more sorry for her if I believed she WAS an actual bleeding-heart. As is, this is the woman whose main self-insert's series is all about fetishized noncon. Her heart doesn't weep for anyone she doesn't want it to. And she didn't sob like this over Merry's beloved grandmother - but, to be petty about it, I guess that's because Merry's grandmother was female...

Also... is the rest of this book just going to be hysterical sobbing through the epilogue? Because her deadline is TOMORROW...

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I don't think she's going to go with the flashback. The boy twin, Barinthus, or Galen (Galen, I think, could be a long shot) strike me as possibilities.

And I think you're spot-on about the Epilogue.

[cheeky-duckie.livejournal.com]

It was the most my husband had ever seen me drink at one time, and I still didn’t finish the bottle.

Oh, honey.

Also, I'm so bothered by her food diatribe for lots of irrelevant personal reasons, because it comes off as so... ugh. I actually can't articulate exactly what it is, because she's just

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

'EWWWWWW! Those people who eat PIZZA! This is totally, like, disordered eating! And OMG those THREE-HUNDRED-POUND women, EWWWWWW, that's exactly like being an alcoholic. Because NO ONE ever gains weight like that unless they're like, totally pigs. Good I'm soooo not like that, yea!'

That it?

[contrariwise.livejournal.com]

And yet so many ASOIAF fans say A Storm of Swords--the book with perhaps the largest number of character deaths (certainly the most infamous)--is their favorite in the series. HMMM.

[watersheerie.livejournal.com]

This blog needs a new title:

"George R. R. Martin is a Bestselling Author of an Award-winning Series with a Thriving Fanbase and Successful Television Adaptation and I am a Wimp."

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

Jesus Christ. Now, I've been in hysterics because of things I've been writing. The difference is I have a diagnosed emotional disorder. I have emotional responses that are completely out of proportion to the situation. And I recognise this and certainly don't go on about it like it makes me a deeper writer or anything, or make insulting insinuations about people who drink, alcoholism, or people who are overweight. Fuck's sake.

[jeza-red.livejournal.com]

"George R. R. Martin is a Steely-Eyed Hard Ass or and I’m a Wimp"

Here, Laurell, I fixeded it for you.

[okami-no-yume.livejournal.com]

Well, I will say this. When George kills off a character in one of his books, I actually end up feeling something. He's not afraid to kill his darlings to further the plot. What's more, he often takes the time to develop and flesh out his characters before killing them in an often brutal manner. The Red Wedding? I didn't cry over it, but I read it with a feeling of horror and sick dread. (It was even worse seeing it on screen, oh God.) But he knows how to take a character death and make it positively gut-wrenching.

LKH? When she kills off a character, my reaction will likely be to shrug or wonder who the hell it was. I can guarantee it won't be one of the main cast. The mark of a good writer is when they kill off a major character, it truly makes you FEEL something, if that character was liked or well loved by people. One of the rules of writing is that you need to have the balls to kill your darlings. And if not kill them, at least make them suffer horribly. Or overcome really difficult odds. Because you know, conflict is INTERESTING. Not that Lala would know anything about that. Lala does the literary equivalent of babying and coddling them. Her precious sexy men are always safe from harm and bad things!

Well. All her favorites are, at least. My respect for LKH would go up considerably if she were to kill off Micah and Nathaniel, for example. Heaven knows a lot of us in the fandom have been wishing for that for years.

She just...she's got nothing on Martin. He's so far above and beyond her that she could never hope to compare to him. Those two aren't even in the same galaxy.

Martin knows how to tell a damn good story. LKH can barely string together coherent sentences on a page on a GOOD day.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

That, and the Red Wedding's impact is amplified because you can start to see it coming and then you're helpless.