Pondering LKH's Future Projects

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

So, after reading Dead Ice, I was thinking about LKH's probably-not-rosy future career - especially given the number of current fans who are saying in Amazon reviews that they're tired of plots never being finished, etc - and wondering if she should think about working in short stories.

The thing is, Dead Ice has several good plots.  The zombie porn case, the too-good-zombie case, the Rafael subplot, IMO, could all make good strong short stories.  I don't know that she can really carry a full novel any more, because she keeps getting bogged down in repetitive emotional drama and dialogue that makes people look not smart - especially Anita.

Thoughts?

DV

Comments

[shadwing.livejournal.com]

She's honestly lost her drive and zeal to write a good story.

You can tell from her blogs/twits when she IS actually writing that she is only doing so because it's how she gets paid, she no longer enjoys it, she doesn't focus on 1-2 plots and build around them. Affliction had some sense of linear time and flow. But both Shiver of Light and Dead Ice are nothing but unconnected scenes with very clunky transitions. She needed to put words to paper to get the book done and didn't care about the final product.

Anything that doesn't relate to her (or Anita's) personal drama you can tell she has no interest in. The FBI Zombie Plot held no interest for her in Dead Ice and the Rotting Vamp plot in Affliction was only focused on because it DID affect Anita (via Micah).

She REALLY needs a good Beta Reader Group to help her re-hone her craft and cut out the dead wood from her books, she'd also benefit from some refresher Creative Writing Courses to again remind her about world building, story structure, character and plot development.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I agree that she doesn't seem to be enjoying writing anymore, but I think she still enjoys the part where she gets paid, and that might start to be in jeopardy.

That no-edit contract was, I think, the worst thing that she ever did. Not just her, but several writers that I've enjoyed who let their works get all bloated because they were big name authors.

[alondra-del-sol.livejournal.com]

Agreed. LKH and Anne Rice are both particular offenders. I feel like Stephen King's wordiness just kind of overflowed, but not in a way that seriously impacted his characters and characterization. It's like LKH and Anne Rice were just waiting to be let off the hook so they could trot out the most offensive stereotypes while Stephen King just got way more verbose. Though I haven't read any recent Stephen King and I acknowledge that what he has written has had its problems as well. I can't think of any other authors that have a no edit contract that are worse offenders, but maybe it's outside of my reading preferences.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

David Weber, Tom Clancy and JK Rowling (books 6 and 7) also suffered from it, in my experience. I don't know if they had no-edit contracts, but someone definitely stopped editing.

[bronzed.livejournal.com]

I think short stories would be good / better for her, however she talks about having started out soing them and i believe she would never do them again as she would view it as taking a step backwards in her career. IIRC she only did them until asked to write full lengths and the only sign of going back are her character or event centered novellas like Micah or Dancing.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I had not read that, but I'm not really surprised.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think short stories would be a good exercise for her - if only to see one project through coherently and succinctly to the end. A Shiver of Light is basically just a series of vignettes that are only connected by featuring the same characters. From what I've been reading of Dead Ice, it suffers from much the same problem. And this is before we get to the dithering around for 20+ pages on what everyone's wearing, the very specific colour of their hair/eyes, repetitive explanations, and mangled similies/metaphors (BUT NOT LITERALLY!) that really drags things down.

Mostly I think she needs strong beta readers and an editor with an iron will to tell her to cut 85% of the waffle, stop using the books as her own personal soapbox, not abandon threads after a couple of chapters in favour of something else, and she needs to learn how to convey what's in her head onto the page better - there are things that she swears she wrote but never made it to print, or stuff that's mentioned in passing that's happened off-page that could have been vital to the story.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

She needs someone with no investment in her telling her what to ditch, definitely.

Dead Ice suffers from the vignette problem, and it's a shame - because there were some interesting things buried in the muck.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Ditto with Shiver of Light - there's some interesting stuff, or at least potential for interesting stuff to happen, only I'm suddenly stuck with narrative whiplash as soon as there's a chapter break. A line of "After breakfast..." or even "we needed answers, so I called..." would have helped immensely. Instead, it just reads like she's chasing shiny things and then kinda remembers she had something else happening earlier and goes back to it before something more interesting comes along.

And this is where the post-its could actually be useful because she could write down all the things she wants to have in this book for A-plot, B-plot, C-plot and shuffle them around to see how that changes the story.

[alondra-del-sol.livejournal.com]

The problem is that she would definitely get really offended and huffy and it wouldn't happen. Honestly, the biggest problem for her right now is this unwieldy cast of characters and just because she won't kill people she like won't send them elsewhere either like Richard and Asher who she keeps around for said soapboxes and punching bags. If you go back and read the early books like the first two or three literally the only people that are on stage at any given time are those that are absolutely needed as far as main characters go. Now she has this entourage and nothing for them to do realistically. The books are so absurd because in some ways she has progressed certain things but then won't ditch like St. Louis as the setting or comes back to ideas she didn't develop along with the rest of the series and doesn't fill in the blanks for what was going on. If you have five trains on five separate tracks all headed to the same destination then some of her trains are dead on the tracks while a couple have raced ahead and at least one is wallowing somewhere in the center chugging away but really going nowhere.

Like the fact there are so many named cast members and you can't even remember them except as stand-ins for one another is hugely problematic. Like if you are going to have such a huge cast you need to put some of them back in the toy box until they are ready and be like, "Oh A, B, and C are off with X because of this reason," and the only play with characters D, E, and F which would also go a long way towards characterization which is seriously lacking. However, LKH is ultimately lazy and I think afraid of permanent change so I don't see that happening.

Also she needs to develop Animator's Inc. as it has been languishing in the background and creatively she hasn't updated it since she put it away and stopped developing it several books ago which is why all this nonsensical crap happens with the zombie plot in Dead Ice. Like Anita Blake in the early books kept hitting her learning curve and so it made sense that shit would hit the fan and she'd have to find a way to fix it in a very entertaining, "I'm making this up as I go along" Indiana Jones sort of way; however, she forgot that she put it on the backburner and so when she brought it back it's like it had been locked in a time bubble and she couldn't conceive that off screen changes had and should have happened which is just poor planning and goes back to being lazy or perhaps disenchanted with her series.

Also she definitely needs to get off the soapbox and forget about a message. Like if an author has a message then that usually comes through in editing not so much in the writing. A writer shouldn't go in with a message in mind, you need the characters and the plot and then when you temper the story through edits you can bring out those elements and make the whole thing polished. She also needs to accept that women are women and stop trying to categorize us and she needs to get off her weird sex hang-ups. Whatever therapist she had before clearly wasn't doing her job or LKH wasn't facilitating the process. Also therapy can't magically fix everything either it's a tool to help you help yourself.

This series is a hydra you cut down one problem and three more pop up in it's place. I don't know if you could fix it in one fell swoop.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Yes to all of that - especially the ridiculous level of power Anita enjoys.

[openidwouldwork.livejournal.com]

... and someone who stops her from retconning. Retcon is NOT character/plot development!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

OH GOD YES.

STORY BIBLE: USE ONE. My writing folder is full of sub-folders with world-building and character sheets that I keep pasting things into so I know what the hell I'm doing. My brain can only hold so much info.

[openidwouldwork.livejournal.com]

Character sheets! I'm a pen-and-paper-and-dice roleplayer, I've had dreams (nightmares) about the series' character sheets!

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Yes, especially when a lot of the retcons feel like she was just too lazy to look up the right info.

[northernwalker]

She had a collection of her old short stories come out a while back, many of which were really good. A few were in S&S, back in the day. Now, though, she's gotten lazy as a writer. I don't think she's got the skills to manage short fiction- it needs a beginning, middle and end and she's not doing that anymore.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I think it's possible that she's gotten so used to bloating her work up that she might not be able to handle short stories, but they would be better than the current BS she is producing.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

I think some of the problem is that there is no end to the emotional drama. Things never settle down. They don't have to settle down in a traditional way. But there is closure of a kind so that the "I'm ugly" whining and "I don't know why anyone loves me" stuff stops. These issues are handled by the people in the relationship or the relationship ends because someone is either not having their needs met or is such a black hole of neediness that the other partner leaves. But LKH never resolves these plot threads.

Even polygamists, I think, have an end in mind. Yes, extremist Mormon men in Utah may marry multiple women, but that's with an end plan in terms of breeding. Yes, there's an ethnic group in the Himalayas where women marry a group of brothers. But again, that's for stability and breeding (food is so scarce it takes multiple men to feed a woman and children).

Or even with LKH: Yes, Merry may have many men. But there's a purpose to it: breeding an heir. I think that's why it's more tolerable: There's a reason for this kind of household and a reason all the lovers tolerate each other and often work together for shared goals.

With Anita's household, the one shared goal seems to be to please Anita. There's no other reason for that household to exist.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Oh god yes on all the emotional drama. It's become so repetitive due to no resolution. Even if Anita has some kind of breakthrough of realising something, it's completely forgotten in the next book so we can have a rehash of "my evil Nordic stepmother!" or "X says their needs aren't being fulfilled but I don't have time to hold his hand, but let me go down on him anyway."

It'd be something else if this weren't like the Borg where people are just assimilated into the Anita Collective. If this kind of open/multiple relationship was new to others, there could be room for learning and drama, acceptance, or even people allowed to leave and have their own lives. We'd actually see the relationship as it functions. Instead we're just told over and over how in love everyone is and there's love you most, love you mostest, you don't love me like you love That Guy etc.

Right now I feel like I'm reading the romance equivalent of Hotel California.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I think some of the problem is that there is no end to the emotional drama.

Not even so much the fact that there is no end to emotional drama, but it's the same emotional drama over and over, and in the epilogue she'll take back whatever progress might have been made.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I was interested to read some "don't like don't read" remarks from troos on the Amazon boards. They seem to think that people who still want supernatural plots etc should accept that Laurell and Anita have "matured" beyond them (cough), to which I'd say, why even bother pretending to have such plots then? I suspect LKH just can't bear to admit that she is writing romance.

[apep727.livejournal.com]

I think a better response to those comments should be something like, "What should I expect from a series called Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter?"

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Yes. I absolutely think she can't bear to admit she's writing romance, and I think she's argued it's not romance, because each book doesn't end in a HEA - because you know, she doesn't know about how those work.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Well, it's not romance because it's not romantic in the least. Also, romance is character-driven, and what LKH writes is anything but. Plus romance -- the stuff I've been reading anyway (historical romance written after 2000) -- has very strong and clear plotlines. A plot, B plot, occasional comic relief C plot, all tied together and moving along at a fast clip. With characters who actually change over the course of the story in fundamental ways. Also there's way more action and danger in them than in LKH's crap :P.

What LKH writes is not romance, it's not action, it's not suspense, it's not mystery, and it's not erotica. Imo it's nothing but spitefic she gets paid for.

[openidwouldwork.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not romance because it's not romantic in the least. [...] not romance, it's not action, it's not suspense, it's not mystery, and it's not erotica.
Amen.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

When she talks about writing progress, it's invariably how many "pages" she was able to churn out. I can't remember if she's ever said she was happy to have finished a scene, moved the plot along, written some good character development, etc.

There is no earthly reason for her books to be as long as they are. She could have plenty of action, mystery, horror, sex, and romance in 350-page books, so long as she stayed on target. Short stories would be a really good exercise for her, but I wonder if she thinks that's what she's doing with tripe like "Shutdown" and "Jason".

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

She can have some compelling ideas. When she's stumbled her way into actual world building or plots I like what she can come up with. But I can't with what she's writing these days.

I would say she needs to step away from the Anita series and write something else, but Merry didn't fare too well in this scenario and I think the author got bored with that too quickly.

So... now what I'd like to see her do is stay in Anita's current world - because she's proven she can have some good ideas there, even by accident - but NOT write Anita. Or JC. Richard. Especially not Nathaniel or Micah. Just get completely away from all those characters and start fresh in another city with another Master Vamp. Washington D.C. would be a good fit since she likes to tip-toe through government agencies, law enforcement and sometimes has interesting takes on 'rights' for the preternatural community. I miss the early political ideas. But no current characters or connections to that emotional cess pool they are all involved in.

Or I'd love a 'prequel' sort of story that was not heavy on any current major characters. Something focusing on Oliver and Melanie would make me buy the book, but I doubt she has the chops for the research needed to make it right.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

The idea of writing something else, either in Anita's current world or something new, has been suggested, but I don't think she can.

If she tried another world, it would just end up sounding like Anita. And she's very resistant to writing from anyone else's point of view because they're not like her.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

She really has trapped herself into Anita's mind. It's kind of sad to see. One of the things I love about writing is looking at situations from different points of view, especially from characters that are wholly unlike me and my own personality and belief system. There's nothing wrong with writing protagonists like yourself, but LKH has locked down so hard on Anita that the Protagonist Centered Morality is so ridiculously overwrought. She can't conceive of a character that's not her self-insert, and she can't have her self-insert ever be wrong about anything. It's not fun to read.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

I'm reading a Nina Kiriki Hoffman story whose first-person narrator is flat-out evil. She has no respect for consent at all, is entirely selfish, etc. And it's incredibly compelling. The author knows this character is evil -- the character knows this character is evil. It's chilling to read, as a lot of Hoffman's writing is, but purposefully so. While I'd like to see this character get her comeuppance (I doubt it will happen though), she's still way more likeable than Anita. Because while the character has protagonist-centered morality, the author doesn't.

Also: this character is dark-haired, is jealous of blonde women, uses and sells so-called "attraction" magic (that is obviously magical rape), is around 30 but hangs out at colleges for her marks, pursues a very young man who has made his disinterest clear...

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

I think Hoffman was in LKH's original author group, but I could be misremembering.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

That is really interesting to me if so, because Hoffman's an author I really admire. Her books can be emotionally difficult for me to read and go to some very complex and uncomfortable places psychologically. If she were to talk about digging into the darkity darkness of her soul in order to write, I'd believe her.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

What's the name of the story?

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Hostile Takeover. It's in a book of short stories called Wizards, Inc. All the stories I've read in it are good, though I skipped the Orson Scott Card one :P.

[yaoihuntresse.livejournal.com]

Deep down I think LKH has some self-esteem issues that it's projected from Anita.

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

I agree, I don't think she can. That's why I think the only 'save' for her is just ditching all these character and their histories and starting over. She will, undoubtedly, create another Anita-clone, but maybe there will be a book or two before the personal dramas become so overwhelming that it's all there is. haha

Also, thanks for doing the book synopsis a few posts back!

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I was hoping it would be better.

[marydemauro.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Dead Ice yet, but this was more or less my reaction to Kiss the Dead. A plot that had the potential to be very very interesting and complex if it wasn't constantly derailed by endless sex scenes.