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Musings on LKH and writing
Some of you know I read Laurell K Hamilton's blog. I have given up on her Anita Blake books; they've been getting consistently worse since Obsidian Butterfly (which was a real gem) and her blog (unintentionally) explains clearly why they're never going to improve. I think it's a shame. Her publisher is, naturally, more interested in getting her books out into the marketplace regularly than in putting out a quality product, and as long as people still buy her bad-porn-masquerading-as-novels the publisher and editor have no motivation to explain to her that she's writing crap.
By contrast I stil enjoy the Merry Gentry books. The last one A Lick Of Frost is really, seriously good. I'm more tolerant of the bad porn in this series as it's at least part of the plot, and was established as such from the beginning. Believe me, when her porn is bad, it's excruciating. I mostly "read" the audiobook versions of the Merry books and with them you don't get to sort-of-skip-ahead the we we all tend to with the bad or boring passages when we read. It's all there, every word emoted by the poor narrator, who really does a great job with the material. And her appalling habit of using "go" when she means "come" (as in orgasm) is really noticable. As are her occasional descents into the truly outlandish.
But in Frost there's actual plot. And character development. And...it's an actual story with a beginning, a middle and an end.
It's...you know, like good slash can be. Except LKH is a homophobe in her writing, making her heroines explain over and over how they're not attracted to women and, mostly, never allowing her men to be gay either. Bisexual is allowed, as long as there's a woman in the mix, and WNGWJLEO is fine as is, apparently accidental gay sex. But actual homosexuality? Gay is forbidden.
Okay, I got off-track there.
I was going to talk about her latest blog post in which she talks about authors who hate their main characters. I can go along with much of what she's saying. I think that's a fundamental part of fandom: in fanfic we write about the characters we love, or, failing that, the characters we empathise with, or failing that, just the ones we think are sex-on-a-stick.
There's a reason I never wrote SGA slash: I think McKay is an arrogant bastard with no redeeming qualities. I have no motivation to write about him unless it's to give him a starring role in the latest Saw movie but I don't want to be that kind of writer. Similarly I wrote very little BTVS or Angel fic because, though I adore the shows, there was never any character (except Doyle, who only lasted six episodes) I truly, truly loved. Not the way I love Jim Ellison and Methos (and Amanda and Nick Wolfe) and Hercules and John Winchester. (And boy, did that last love take me by surprise. I oughta hate him. But I can't.)
But writing original characters is a little different, isn't it? I mean, in fandom we can pick our favourites because in a well-rounded show there are heroes and villains and even the good guys have flaws occasionally and in a really well-produced show even the villains occasionally get our sympathy. But if you're creating an original universe from scratch, you have to make sure all those things are true. Your heroine can be someone you love, but you've got to show her warts-and-all. And the "warts" can't be cute flaws that are really not flaws at all (the way when someone asks you what your faults are in a job interview you cunningly suggest something that would actually be a strength in the job you want). No. Bad writer, no biscuit. You can't populate a fictional universe with Mary Sues.
This, over and over again, is the point LKH completely misses. It's almost tragic, reading posts like this one where she's so close to getting it then fails to apply the conclusion to her own work. Conan Doyle may have loathed Sherlock Holmes, but he created a character who endures through the ages. He created a genius, a hero for his age, who was also a rat bastard with many, many faults. And readers still love Holmes, with all his faults and quirky. So much so that people are still disappointed to realise he was only ever fictional.
The example of Christie's Poirot...well, Christie was lousy at character. She was into plot and spent only as much effort on character as she needed to for the plot to work. Which is why I can read her books, but I can't watch the TV adaptions without cringing. But even so, she created a character who is, frankly, a pain in the ass. But he's a fascinating pain in the ass. Quite something considering the real point of her novels was never the detective, but the murderer.
But LKH says she wants to love her characters. Okay, fine. But the result is an author who is afraid to kill characters off, afraid even to visit them with the realistic consequences of their actions. Fine, if you're writing Red Shoe Diaries. Big mistake if you're still fooling yourself you're writing plot.
Which is why I was so stunned by the latest Merry Gentry installment. The Merry series has always been better in terms of characters with flaws. Oh, here again, most of the "flaws" are in fact those quirky things that make a character stronger, but at least the characters are consistent and their actions have logical consequences. So far, at least.
ETA: As I was saying... :-)
By contrast I stil enjoy the Merry Gentry books. The last one A Lick Of Frost is really, seriously good. I'm more tolerant of the bad porn in this series as it's at least part of the plot, and was established as such from the beginning. Believe me, when her porn is bad, it's excruciating. I mostly "read" the audiobook versions of the Merry books and with them you don't get to sort-of-skip-ahead the we we all tend to with the bad or boring passages when we read. It's all there, every word emoted by the poor narrator, who really does a great job with the material. And her appalling habit of using "go" when she means "come" (as in orgasm) is really noticable. As are her occasional descents into the truly outlandish.
But in Frost there's actual plot. And character development. And...it's an actual story with a beginning, a middle and an end.
It's...you know, like good slash can be. Except LKH is a homophobe in her writing, making her heroines explain over and over how they're not attracted to women and, mostly, never allowing her men to be gay either. Bisexual is allowed, as long as there's a woman in the mix, and WNGWJLEO is fine as is, apparently accidental gay sex. But actual homosexuality? Gay is forbidden.
Okay, I got off-track there.
I was going to talk about her latest blog post in which she talks about authors who hate their main characters. I can go along with much of what she's saying. I think that's a fundamental part of fandom: in fanfic we write about the characters we love, or, failing that, the characters we empathise with, or failing that, just the ones we think are sex-on-a-stick.
There's a reason I never wrote SGA slash: I think McKay is an arrogant bastard with no redeeming qualities. I have no motivation to write about him unless it's to give him a starring role in the latest Saw movie but I don't want to be that kind of writer. Similarly I wrote very little BTVS or Angel fic because, though I adore the shows, there was never any character (except Doyle, who only lasted six episodes) I truly, truly loved. Not the way I love Jim Ellison and Methos (and Amanda and Nick Wolfe) and Hercules and John Winchester. (And boy, did that last love take me by surprise. I oughta hate him. But I can't.)
But writing original characters is a little different, isn't it? I mean, in fandom we can pick our favourites because in a well-rounded show there are heroes and villains and even the good guys have flaws occasionally and in a really well-produced show even the villains occasionally get our sympathy. But if you're creating an original universe from scratch, you have to make sure all those things are true. Your heroine can be someone you love, but you've got to show her warts-and-all. And the "warts" can't be cute flaws that are really not flaws at all (the way when someone asks you what your faults are in a job interview you cunningly suggest something that would actually be a strength in the job you want). No. Bad writer, no biscuit. You can't populate a fictional universe with Mary Sues.
This, over and over again, is the point LKH completely misses. It's almost tragic, reading posts like this one where she's so close to getting it then fails to apply the conclusion to her own work. Conan Doyle may have loathed Sherlock Holmes, but he created a character who endures through the ages. He created a genius, a hero for his age, who was also a rat bastard with many, many faults. And readers still love Holmes, with all his faults and quirky. So much so that people are still disappointed to realise he was only ever fictional.
The example of Christie's Poirot...well, Christie was lousy at character. She was into plot and spent only as much effort on character as she needed to for the plot to work. Which is why I can read her books, but I can't watch the TV adaptions without cringing. But even so, she created a character who is, frankly, a pain in the ass. But he's a fascinating pain in the ass. Quite something considering the real point of her novels was never the detective, but the murderer.
But LKH says she wants to love her characters. Okay, fine. But the result is an author who is afraid to kill characters off, afraid even to visit them with the realistic consequences of their actions. Fine, if you're writing Red Shoe Diaries. Big mistake if you're still fooling yourself you're writing plot.
Which is why I was so stunned by the latest Merry Gentry installment. The Merry series has always been better in terms of characters with flaws. Oh, here again, most of the "flaws" are in fact those quirky things that make a character stronger, but at least the characters are consistent and their actions have logical consequences. So far, at least.
ETA: As I was saying... :-)