Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 241

The Acts Post Is Up

A day late, but it’s there: The Acts post for the Structure Unit over at Writing/Romance is up. (See also link to site at the top of this page, and thank you, Mollie.)

I’m trying to figure out what post comes next. I’ve pretty much covered structuring plot, so next would be Scene Structure, but the name of the project is Writing/Romance, so I think the next one has to be how to structure a romance. That makes more sense than waiting until after all the scene posts to talk about that. Must cogitate.

And then later tonight, I get to argue with Lani and Krissie about Lucifer. Nothing but good times ahead.

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The Authors in the Text

One of the things I found most interesting about the Stuart-Rich-Crusie fixes for Lucifer was how we all immediately went to our own story corners. That is, Krissie zeroed in on the all-powerful hero and how caring about the heroine would bring him to his knees, Lani went for the balance of power in relationships and in the world, and I said, “You know what this guy needs? Community.” We have known each other and read each other’s books for years, but this one off-the-cuff conversation told me more than anything else about how our individual story-minds work.

I think that’s important for writers, to know that there are things we are always going to gravitate to, things that are essential to the Ur story that underlies every narrative we write. I don’t think that focus limits writers, I think it grounds us in our attempts to answer the question that informs our work, our subconscious writer’s quest(ion). Once we finish that quest, answer that question to our own final satisfaction, we’re done, so I don’t do a lot thinking about mine, but I do think that seeing the direction the question leads me in can be calming:

“Oh, look, I have another cast of thousands in You Again. I have to stop doing that. Who do I think I am, Dickens?”



“No that’s okay, you’re all about community. Keep writing.”

“And there’s a dog again. People are going to think I always write about dogs.”



“Excellent. People love dogs and you love writing about dogs and dogs are characters and become part of the community. Keep writing.”

“Oh, crap. There’s food in here again, lots of it, one of the characters is a chef. Maybe if I cut her . . . . No, she’s essential, Well, just hell.”



“Food is good, people eating together builds community. For the love of god, Crusie, shut up and write the story you have to write. It’s not like you could write a different one if you tried. One more pass at Lucifer and he’d have had a hellhound and the nightclub would have been a restaurant. Keep writing.”

“Oh, a DOG! Lucifer should definitely have a hellhound. Maybe a miniature poodle that he rescues from somebody abusing it on the street (punish that bastard, Lucifer) and brings back to life, and now it has glowing red eyes and a fierce desire for justice and dog cookies . . .”

“You Again, Jenny. Focus.”

“And now that I think about it, the Seven Deadly Sins should be in there. Gluttony could be a bartender who wants to be a chef but fought the urge because he’s Hollywood so all about the abs, but then he starts whipping up bar snacks that are amazing because Lucifer evokes that in him (deepest desires) and that helps bring people to the club. And the story never calls attention to what they are, just lets people figure it out gradually in different episodes . . .”

“Go look at your new collage. You’ll feel better. It has a lot of people and a dog on it.”

“Okay . . .

” . . . Those seven deadly sins could be so cool, though. I looked them up: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. And there are seven virtues, too: prudence, justice, temperance, courage, and faith, hope, charity/love. That’s fourteen characters/chapters/episodes. Of course, they couldn’t be cliches, there’d have to be a twist so that readers didn’t realize what they were, maybe ever, maybe they’d get it the third time they read the book, but . . .”

“Write You Again, Jenny.”

“I could write my version of Paradise Lost. Milton missed some good stuff. OOOOOH, I could put in a dachshund named Milton–”

“JENNY . . .”

Don’t answer the question, just embrace the path to which you are drawn, grasshoppers.

Speaking of the collage, I took the picture I had of the old collage and spent the weekend bringing it up to date digitally, and I’ll keep adding stuff as I work on the book, so I’ll put it at the bottom of posts about the book to keep a record of its progress. And then I have to finish the Acts post which will up over on Writing/Romance much later today. I’ll post a link here when it goes live, and Mollie also put a link to the site up at the top of this page.

And then I have to write You Again, although I think Lucifer’s Hellhound’s name should be Muffin.

The You Again Collage:

Muffin:

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Lucifer: Two More Fixes

Lani hadn’t seen the Lucifer pilot yet, but Krissie and I dragged her in. I said, “My fix was clearly a Crusie, Krissie’s was clearly a Stuart, how would Lani Diane Rich rewrite this? She told us, and of course, it’s brilliant (she’s a fabulous teacher). I agree with everything in her analysis, also brilliant, but the fun part is how she’d fix it, different from Krissie and me because she’s Lani Diane Rich:

Lani Diane Rich’s Fix for the Lucifer Pilot:

What I Like:

Tom Ellis. He’s charming and British, so basically, made to delight me.

Concept and visual treatment. The concept of Lucifer trying to live among the world is interesting; I like that. The direction is good and I like the visual style.

Somebody likes Buffy. Bailey Chase and DB Woodside are cast here. I doubt that’s a coincidence, and I was happy to see both of them. Bailey Chase isn’t a great actor, but it was still fun to see him.

What’s Not so Great:

Smarm. I like Tom Ellis, a lot, but even I was bored by his smarmy perfection. Look, I get he’s Lucifer, and I love me a trickster hero. But he has basically unlimited powers to influence and manipulate the people around him, his treatment of women is appalling, he’s just gross. He left Hell because he was bored and dissatisfied; what is he pursuing here? Nothing but hot sex, fast cars, and quippy comebacks. Which brings us to the next thing…

Vulnerability. This guy is all powerful, smarmy as hell, mindbends the people he can’t charm. He doesn’t want anything, except to avoid going back to hell, and avoidance is a narrative black hole sucking all the life out of the story. What matters to him? What can hurt him? I can’t care about this Teflon douchebag.

No goal. He doesn’t want anything. Sure, in the pilot story, he wants to solve the murder of his friend but dude is Satan. He can read minds, he can find a killer, trivially. There’s no challenge for him in solving crime, nor in dispensing justice. Why does he need the cops, again? Oh, right. Because the detective’s hot. Which brings us to…

The Love Interest. Oh, dear Lord deliver me from super-hot angry female detectives. She’s supposed to be special because she can resist his charms? Really? Not wanting to have sex with him is her sole personality trait? They give her a kid and a dickish ex to make her vulnerable, but she’s almost as Teflon as Lucifer. It’s almost as if the only thing that matters is that she’s hot, and the rest of it is just window dressing.

The relationship with Amenadiel. Amenadiel just shows up from time to time and says, “Go back to hell,” and Lucifer says, “No.” That’s not narrative conflict, that’s bickering. Unless there’s a consequence for Lucifer if he doesn’t go back, unless Amenadiel can actually do something to Lucifer, this doesn’t really mean anything, except that I get to see DB Woodside. Which I enjoy quite a bit, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not story.

Trite writing. You can’t have a hero who says things like “take a trip to pound town”… just no. The writing feels thin and brittle, like it’s really obsessed with being cool, so much so that it doesn’t seem interested in telling a real story. Kind of a disappointment.

How I would do it:

I would start with Lucifer leaving Hell for a reason. Here he’s been tormenting mortals for all eternity because of what? They coveted a neighbor’s wife? They worshipped a false idol? Let’s face it… God’s kind of an asshole.

So… it got to him. He has all eternity to pay for one little mistake, one tiny rebellion, and the gates of hell are flooding with souls of the suffering because God made a decree and that was it. Lucifer has empathy; he feels their pain.

Lucifer abandons hell, goes above, in search of God. He wants to end it, once and for all. A final battle between Good and… well… him. And he would be overmatched; God is God, after all, and Lucifer is just a fallen angel. But the fight will bring the apocalypse, and all creation will cease to exist, which is fine by Lucifer. Being dead, being nothing, is preferable to an eternity of this nonsense. A person gets 20, 30, 90 years, fucks up just once and spends eternity in torment? It’d be better just to end all existence. The EULA for life on earth is bullshit.

He’s been looking for God for ages now; no joy. He’s not in the churches, he’s not in the dive bars, he’s not feeding the poor or clothing the hungry. He has to be up in Heaven, hiding.

Lucifer has been banished from Heaven, so he can’t go looking there. He has to wait for God to visit Earth, and that’s not gonna happen any time soon.

But that’s okay. He’ll wait.

To kill the time, Lucifer drinks, drives fast cars, sleeps around. Might as well enjoy earthly delights while he’s there, right? He tells everyone the truth about who he is because it doesn’t matter; they forget him the moment they look away. Even at his favorite bar, the place he goes every night to drown it all out, the bartender has no idea who he is, while Lucifer knows everything about the bartender. And that kind of bugs him; he sees mortals connecting, caring for each other, having relationships. It seems to be the one thing that makes mortal life worth anything at all; the ability to love someone. And that’s not an option for him.

Then, one night, he’s at the bar, hitting on a hot blonde who will not remember him the next day, when a woman walks in. She’s wobbly on her feet, a little frumpy, looking dazed. She bumps into Lucifer, and sort of lands on him. He catches her and when their eyes meet, she stares at him.

“I found you,” she says, and he says, “Michael?”

She faints. The hot blonde’s a doctor, she pushes everyone out of the way. Lucifer tries to get to Michael through the crowd; can’t. If he can’t make eye contact and engage the soul of the mortal, he might as well not even be there. With their backs to him and their focus on Michael, he can’t get through.

They cart the archangel Michael away, and Lucifer tries to find her. She’s gone by the time he gets to the hospital, but he keeps looking. Finally, he finds her, and demands that she call God down from Heaven to face him.

She tells him that God is gone. Just… gone. Been gone for a while, and Heaven has been gradually becoming more and more unstable… just as Hell has been since Lucifer left. Lucifer says Hell was never that stable to begin with, but she’s pissed. He threw everything out of balance when he left. It’s his fault that things got so bad, that God disappeared, that the angels and demons are now loose on the world. There will be no end times, just eternity of mortals and immortals roaming the earth. Demons are doing good, angels are doing evil… the entire structure of the universe is upended.

This is terrible news for Lucifer, who was looking for a way out; the only way he can die is at the hand of God. Now he’s stuck. Then he realizes something; when Michael saw him at the bar, she said she’d been looking for him. He asks her why.

“You have to help me lock God out,” she says. Without God, her power and Lucifer’s power can balance everything out. She’ll rule Heaven, he’ll rule Hell, they’ll rewrite the rules, stake out territory. But until God’s influence is eradicated, one supreme power keeping the universe out of balance, nothing will be right.

“Fine,” he says. “How do we do it?”

She doesn’t know… yet.

And that’s your pilot, leading into a series with an alliance between Lucifer and Michael to try to bring balance to the world. Heaven and Hell are mixing, angels and demons everywhere and no one knows who’s on which side, and God is out there, somewhere, letting it all happen.

(Back to Jenny . . .)

I think that’s brilliant. It’s not the way I’d do it (for that see here), but that’s the point. Any of our fixes will turn into Crusies, Riches, or Stuarts, which is why they’re so different. And speaking of Stuarts, here’s the comment that Krissie (Anne Stuart) made on my Lucifer Fix Post:

(Here’s Krissie . . .)

Hmmmmmm. Jenny, you ignorant slut … Nope. That’s a different show. First off, why would Lucifer have to stir his stumps to find out who wanted to kill Vinnie? Why should he bother, why should he care? Lucifer doesn’t give a shit about anyone, he’s the son of Evil, a cousin to the Norse Loki and the Southwest kokopelli (aren’t they tricksters?) And I’m tired of the hero’s best friend trope. Then again, you write about community, I write about loners. The idea of a hero without a goal drives you crazy — I like that his only goal is to entertain himself.

Now if I were writing it, I’d definitely cast a different actress for the heroine, cut all that nekkid movie crap. Love her daughter, though, and Satan’s mixed distaste for her. They’ve already set up that he’s bothered by the fact that the female lead is immune to his wiles, enough so that he needs the great psychiatrist for therapy in return for mind-blowing sex, and I’d make that sort of thing continue. His unexpected affection for the first murder victim probably bothers him, and slowly, horribly, he’ll find himself starting to care about people, much as he hates it, because the power of human decency will destroy the evil that is the devil every time. I know, sappy, but in my fantasy world that’s true.

And it will be full of snark, he’ll be disgusted with himself by any signs of softening (which could be hysterically funny), and the more the heroine resists him the more frustrated he’ll get so he’ll finally want to have sex with someone rather than lazily giving in to the pleasure and the demands.

Now I haven’t figured out who the heroine should be, and we’re both agreed she needs help. Leave Nicole with Ichabod — they belong together.

(Back to Jenny . . .)

I responded to her comment over on the Lucifer Fix Post, but I’m going to leave that there because this is really about three different writers/three different approaches, aka premise is not story, it’s the just place writers start. The three of us can argue for hours about story (listen to Popcorn Dialogues if you want to hear Lani and I go at it), but what’s fun about this is that our versions are three different stories, even though we started with same flawed episode. (It also probably shows the most dangerous thing about critiquing somebody else’s work: that tendency to fix it your way instead of helping the writer find the story she wants to tell.) We are going to watch the second episode together and Slack chat while we argue about it, so stay tuned next Wednesday for a lot of “ignorant slut” plot discussion. So much fun.

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Cherry Saturday 1 – 30 – 2016

Today is Croissant Day.

Yeah, I know we just did Pie Day, but this is the best choice we’ve got. Also, croissants are delicious. Although I have to tell you, if you scan through a lot of pictures of croissants looking for one to use in a blog post, after a while, they all start to look like evil segmented sea creatures.

And yet, still delicious.

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Book Done Yet?: Pick a Lane

Note: This weekly post is to keep me honest about working on the WiP. It’s going to be mostly me figuring things out and therefore probably not very interesting. Feel free to skip as I free-associate myself through to enlightenment.



So as part of my New Efficient Approach to Life (wait for the implosion, it should be here any minute), I am determined to pick one WIP and FINISH the damn thing. Which means I have to analyze what I have and see what I really want to write. (Okay, what I really want to write right now is my version of Lucifer but I know nothing about LA or the nightclub business, and the last thing I need is an eighth book in progress, so back to the WiPs). Below is my analysis of the seven manuscripts I have in progress, in no particular order. It’s pretty much a three part analysis: Do I have story? (protagonist/goal/antagonist/goal); How much do I have done? (word count); How do I feel about this book? (what do I love/what’s keeping me from working on it?).

LAVENDER’S BLUE

Protagonist: Liz Danger

Goal: Finish ghosting the autobiography of Anemone Patterson

Antagonist: Murderer

Goal: Get away with murder.

How much is written? 47,000 words

Why do I want to write it? I love the characters and the relationships and the long plan.

What’s keeping me from working on it? I suck at writing mysteries and this one is kinda lame; I need to make the heroine more interesting, and I really need to think it through as a whole, try to get the concept of this book. It’s good stuff, I just haven’t got a grip on it yet.

YOU AGAIN

Protagonist: Zelda

Goal: Find out who her father is (medical reasons)

Antagonist: Murderer

Goal: Get away with murder.

How much is written? thousands of words spread across multiple files over ten years kill me now

Why do I want to write it? Love the characters, love the ghosts, love the trapped in a big house by a snowstorm and somebody’s killing people plot

What’s keeping me from working on it? I suck at mysteries, and this ones been kicking my ass for ten years now.

HAUNTING ALICE

Protagonist: Alice Archer at 30

Goal: Evict a fake parapsychologist from her family home and then possibly burn the place down.

Antagonist: Aunt May?

Goal: Snatch a body and get back to living.

How much is written? 7000 words

Why do I want to write it? Love the heroine, love the hero (Ethan from Faking It ), love the tone which for once I nailed straight out of the box. Also I get to write about ghosts and butterflies and magic (non-supernatural, rabbit out of a hat stuff). And I have this plan to make this book happen at the same time as Stealing Nadine (see below) so some of the scenes would overlap, just be told by different points of view, so you’d read one book and get one view of the story and then read the other and get another view, which I freaking love.

What’s keeping me from working on it? I have no plot, just . . . stuff.

STEALING NADINE

Protagonist: Nadine Goodnight

Goal: Protect the family legacy.

Antagonist: Clea? Carter?

How much is written? 500 words

Why do I want to write it? I love Nadine and the Goodnights. The hero’s great, he’s Alice’s brother Carter, and I’d get to write about art cons and art theft and comic books. And Nadine. And it would take place at the same time as Haunting Alice (see above for all of that.)

What’s keeping me from working on it? Plot. This has even less plot than Alice. I CANNOT PLOT.

COLD HEARTS

Protagonist: Courtney

Goal: Take down whoever’s framing her for theft.

Antagonist: The Cook Sisters?

Goal: Get the Egg and bring down their rival.

How much is written? 9000 words

Why do I want to write it? I love the heroine, her friend Henry, her sister (Trudy from “Hot Toy”), her friend Maxie, the hero who’s a Dempsey, the whole thief/con artist thing, trying for a Leverage approach, build a team, take down the bad guys . . .

What’s keeping me from working on it? The Plot Sucks. I CANNOT PLOT.

PARADISE PARK

Protagonist: Zo White

Goal: Protect her orphans at all costs.

Antagonist: Randolph

Goal: Get into Ylva’s bed.

How much is written? 30,000 words

Why do I want to write it? I love this world, love every character in here, love everything about it.

What’s keeping me from working on it? I’m not sure. This one even has a seven-part plot and it’s good. I think. Well, it’s weak, but it has huge potential. Okay, the plot is the problem again, it’s still wobbly, but it’s GOOD, I swear it’s good. Also, supernatural steampunk alt-history fantasy is new for me, so there’s that.

MONDAY STREET

Protagonist: Cat Gilford

Goal: Save her world (Monday Street) from murderous thugs, meddling do-gooders, and gentrification.

Antagonist: Emma? Phil?

How much is written? 37,000 words

Why do I want to write it? I love these people, I love this world, and I love it that it takes place six years after Paradise Park so I get to use those characters again.

What’s keeping me from working on it? Well, I have to finish Paradise Park first. And this is the one that Toni and I are collaborating on until Life clobbered both of us, so I don’t know if this a parallel book with her book, which would be fun, or if it’s one book we’re both writing, also fun. Plus we’re still working out the world which is a lot more present in this one than in Monday Street. So this wouldn’t be the first one I’d finish anyway.

You know, I want to write all of these. There’s nothing here I want to abandon.

So triage.

• I can put Nadine and Alice aside since I don’t have that much written on them, although their world is solid in my mind.

• Monday Street is on hold until Toni and I figure out what we’re doing and until I finish Paradise Park.

• You Again is going to take some massive reconfiguring, just wading through all the notes, most of which are probably worthless now.

• Cold Hearts has great characters and a solid tone but a plot that’s missing a lot of pieces. Also, it was conceived as a novella and it appears to be overflowing its banks, so it’s really not cooked yet.

That leaves Lavender’s Blue and Paradise Park.

Lavender’s Blue:

I know the characters, I know the world, I know the murder plot, sprained though it is. I think it might be too over-the-top right now, but that can be pulled back.

But the contract is for 50,000 words and it’s going to be closer to 100,000, so it’s not that close to being finished. And I’m doing it in first person which is not a good choice for me, but when I tried to put it into third it wouldn’t go. And my heroine really needs rebooted because she’s close but not quite right. But close.

I think it just needs pulled together. Plus I have 47,000 words that have been rewritten so many times they’re pretty polished, so really, the first draft is almost half done.

Paradise Park:

I know this one. The seven-part structure is solid, I love the characters, I have a clear antagonist with a clear goal, and a lot of it is set in a big old house that’s full of traps and magic, and my heroine has five orphans she’s taking care of and each section is based on a fairy tale, and they all combine together to make a novel. And having worked with Toni on Monday Street, I have a good idea of where they’re all going. In fact, I know exactly where the first four are going. Five and six, not so much. Seven, uh, it’s the climax. Dear god, I’m a terrible plotter.

Then I pulled out the collages, including the one for You Again.

This one is way out of date, but the story’s still there. I really know this story, it’s just revamping to bring it up to date with everything that’s attached to it over the years. It’s so much better now. I really think that this just needs pulled together and updated. Of course pulling together ten million files . . .

Lavender’s Blue is in the same place:

That is, I look at this and I can see the book, but it’s changed. A LOT. The good news is that I can still see the book as a whole. I just need to think it through, and I really need to do something about my heroine, she’s kind of a downer. Also, the plot.

Paradise Park is a little different because it’s seven stories that combine to make a novel.

It’s like seven chapters. And I know the first three chapters; that is, I know their plots, their structures, their endings, everything. And I know where the last four are heading and I have a good idea of the climax.

So maybe tomorrow, I’ll fool around with digital collage on all of these and see which ones connect. And maybe try to get the You Again stuff in shape so I at least know what I’ve got. Ditto for Lavender’s Blue which is in better shape and for Paradise Park.

The most practical choice is Lavender’s Blue.

The second most practical is You Again.

Which means I’ll probably work on Paradise Park and Monday Street.

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The Office: Week One

Note: Thursday and Friday posts on Argh are going to be Keeping Me Honest posts for awhile, Thursday to keep on task to clean up and reorganize my office and Friday to do the same thing for the books I’m working on. All of which is to say, the posts probably aren’t going to be valuable to anybody but me. You have been warned.



I’ve been reading Marie Kondo and Julie Morgenstern and trying to figure out the best way to organize my office, this time for good. I’ve moved since I last did the Twelve Days of the Office posts, and as in any move, I had to guess where everything should go in my office. I guessed wrong on several counts, so now it’s time to think things through.

A Place for Everything and Everything in That Place

Actually, Three Places

My first mistake was separating home office from work office and work room. It seemed like it made sense, but it just spread office supplies all over the place.

The second was thinking I could use the garage for art stuff, mainly because I don’t, I drag that all through the house, too.

So, the assumption I’m starting with is that it all goes in one room: bills, manuscripts, paint, everything in my office space.

Since my office space is about 12′ x 7.5′ and has three doors in it, plus two massive pieces of furniture that are absolutely staying, that’s going to take some planning. The office is essentially the hallway between the kitchen and my bedroom, so a lot of it has to be walkway, although I can crowd that a little since it’s not a public space like the front of the house.

So organization.

I love Morgenstern’s kindergarten room approach. As she points out in Organizing from the Inside Out, a kindergarten classroom is a perfect model of organization. It’s divided into zones which means it’s easy to focus on one activity at a time (you’re in that zone), all the things you need for that activity are right there, it’s fun to put them away because they all have a clearly marked place to go, and you can see at a glance everything that’s important to that task. She has an entire section on this idea, well worth reading.

So what zones do I need?

I need a computer workstation (in this case, my long work table) with two big screens so I can put up a lot of docs at once, plus keyboards and trackpads. That workstation should also have a laser printer for text. I was thinking “and an inkjet for images,” but the truth is, I use that for collage more than anything, so it really doesn’t go in the word-processing zone. I also need paper and pens, and a corkboard and pins, and if possible a whiteboard. And at least one desk lamp, probably two, but I have those. So when I head into the office later today, I’m going to take a cardboard box in, put everything (except the computers) that belong in that zone in it, and take it out of there.

Then I need a space to create in. That is, I edit at the desktop, I organize at the desktop, but if I’m going to be making things up–stories, blog posts, whatever–I need to stretch out in a comfortable place with my laptop. In this case, it’s my favorite couch ever, which happens to be 7′ long so it fits neatly (almost too neatly, it wasn’t easy getting it in there by myself) at the end of the 12′ x 7.5′ office. There’s a shelf behind it that’s wide enough to hold my Diet Coke and my post-its, and I have narrow table on wheels I can put in front of it for books and graph paper and collages and lunch. I’ve got a small TV at one end of the couch and I replaced the cushions with a twin-size memory foam mattress so it can double as an overflow guest room, so that part’s set. The part that needs revised there is the Stuff. There’s a lot of Stuff there, but all I need is paper and pens, a post-it note dispenser, and a cord for my laptop. So again, I put the stuff I need there in a small box and take it out.

And then there’s the art section. I want my drawing board out of the garage and in here and that’s going to be difficult because the thing is huge and the space is small. If I use one side of the hall space for computing and the other side for art, I can make my desk chair do double duty with the drawing board, but the board is still mega-wide and deep. But if I swap the work table and my bookcase around (much harder than it sounds, then I’ll have the windows at my back as I draw, and I can turn the board sideways . . . . Oh, fingers crossed.

And then we get to supplies . . . Argh. Crayons, my colored pencils, my markers, my acrylics, my watercolors, my paper punches, my stamps, my drawing paper, my graph paper, my sketchbooks, my rulers and T-squares, my Xacto knives, my erasers, my tape, my glue . . . that’s gonna be a big box, but that gets packed up, too and moved out.

Which brings me to my books. I’m building in bookcases as room dividers to separate my bedroom from the office, and I have the old bookcase that was here when I moved in, but I think they’re going to have to hold supplies mostly. Which means the books get filed into labeled boxes and out in the garage when I can just pull out a box when I need it. And then once I’ve finished that project, get rid of the books. So the books get packed up and taken out to the garage.

Keep The Things That Spark Joy

Once I’ve done that, all I have to do is get rid of the ton of the stuff that’s left, which is where Marie Kondo comes in because some of that stuff is wonderful. Kondo says to look at each thing, really look at it, and decide if it gives you joy. “Useful” isn’t enough (especially since I’ve already put all the necessary stuff in boxes). Does it make me feel good to look at this thing, use this thing?

That means that my Mexican folk art stays. It means that I’m keeping the weird metal wine rack that I’m using to organize desk supplies because I love the damn thing. It means that the vase of huge and obviously fake daisies stays because they make me happy. It means that the cheapo one-eyed crow I got on clearance at Walmart stays because he’s Edwin from Monday Street, and the even older and cheaper crow on the pumpkin stays because he was in Wild Ride, and the luxurious, silky crow that Krissie gave me stays because he’s wonderful. This could be difficult. I have great stuff.

And then when I’ve done all of that, I can see about moving furniture around and painting the floor and generally getting my office back. It’s going to be wonderful, sunny and bright and organized. And damn near impossible to move in, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Next week: Pictures to keep me honest.

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Oh, Crap, Now I Have To Watch Lucifer

One Million Moms is boycotting Olive Garden because the chain advertised during the premiere.

Sigh. Now I’m definitely tuning in next week.

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My Lucifer

I’ve been e-mailing with Krissie who keeps defending Lucifer, and I started to tell her how I’d do it, and I thought, “Wait. Blog post and then everybody can come in and tell me why I’m wrong.” So here’s me brainstorming my Lucifer:

Lucifer appears, fresh out of hell, in a nightclub that’s really rundown and doing no business and tells the owner that he’s new in town and he likes to hang out with sinners, so he’s going to be the owner’s new partner. And the owner–big guy, thug-like, maybe Vinnie Jones, we’ll call him Vinnie–has the bouncer give him the bum’s rush to the street, which Lucifer thinks is hysterical until there’s a drive-by and he and the bouncer go down in a hail of bullets. Lucifer gets up enraged and blows up the tires on the shooter’s car which makes it crash. He runs over, grabs the dying shooter by the throat, and says, “WTF?” and the shooter says, “Yeah, somebody paid me to shoot Vinnie” and then dies. Lucifer turns around and sees Vinnie standing behind him, looking a little pale and a lot angry because Lucifer’s suit is full of bullet holes but he’s clearly Not Dead Yet. Lucifer says, “We should talk. Who wants you dead? Because I’ll need to take care of that, damn it. And I’m on vacation.”

They go back in the club and Lucifer explains that he’s Satan, and he’s just taking a break, counting on God not noticing because He’s dealing with Syria and the Zika virus and Ted Cruz, and he really just wants to have fun–hasn’t had a vacation in millennia–and now thanks to Vinnie and whoever he’s annoyed, he’s going to have to go back to work and punish the bastard AND THAT MAKES HIM ANGRY. Maybe some red glowing eyes here. While Vinnie’s trying to process this–clearly the guy is nuts, but he’s full of bulletholes and he’s not dead and his eyes glow red and now Vinnie needs a drink–and then the cop comes in. I don’t care if the cop is male or female, but he or she asks the smart questions, finds out that Vinnie was the target, wants to know who wants Vinnie dead (Vinnie stonewalls) and would also like to know why Lucifer isn’t dead (“Just lucky.”). The cop leaves and Lucifer says, “Make a list,” and it’s the start of a beautiful relationship arc with Vinnie.

So now I have Lucifer, hoping God’s not going to notice he’s gone, and he’s left somebody in charge, his right hand woman down there, and she phones up every now and then to ask for advice. Somebody young and feisty with a tendency to over-react; he’s hoping she’ll take over for him permanently, so he’s mentoring her. Anna Faris? Miranda Hart? And God never shows up ever in the stories, He’s just a potential disaster, so as long as Miranda keeps a lid on Hell, Lucifer can stay up top and help Vinnie run his bar and have fun with the humans.

Which is another running subplot: Lucifer can’t just wave his hand and make the nightclub a success, he’s going to have to actually work for it, he and Vinnie are going to have to find out why the bar’s going down the tubes and work out a plan, and then he’s going to have to deal with people, doing his voodoo on an individual basis. He’s going to have to break a sweat. And while he’s doing that, Vinnie’s going to stop resenting him and start taking actual glee from the fact that he’s in partnership with the Devil, especially as the club does better. In fact, Vinnie might be getting too enthusiastic, so Lucifer is going to have to keep a lid on him, too, along with Miranda, who’s getting Big Ideas.

And of course, they’ll have to solve the murder which means the cop becomes the third part of the main cast. I’m tired of the tough but beautiful female cop, but I’ve got two male leads here, so maybe the cop is female, and I want her to be an out-of-fucks-to-give kind of broad, a Susan Sto-Helit except not the granddaughter of Death . . .

Wait.

So Amy Acker/Sarah Shahi/Paige Turco/Lucy Lawless Nicole Beharie* is the great-great-great (many more greats) granddaughter of Death, a closely kept family secret, which is why she’s a homicide cop. I could work with that. And she’s not impressed with Lucifer, even after he realizes there’s something supernatural about her, too, and tells her who he is. She says, “Don’t you have a somewhere else to be?” and he tells her he’s taking a vacation, and she looks up at the heavens, and he says, “We’re not mentioning this to Him,” and she says, “You know, I’ll stick around just to see the recall . . .” Anyway, no romance. But the Devil, Death’s granddaughter, and Vinnie the retired rugby player/lousy nightclub runner with lots of street smarts and a punishing left hook . . . yeah, I can work with that.

And then Rachael Harris as the therapist who will be the love interest. And Lucifer will drag her into the nightclub business, using her knowledge of human nature to create something irresistible to club-goers and by the end of the first season, the club’s such a success that other club owners are targeting Vinnie again, and they’ve solved so many crimes that the brass is starting to take a closer look at Nicole because it’s really uncanny how good she is at death and getting confessions, and Lucifer and Rachael are sleeping together in a completely weird but wonderful affair, and Lucifer’s never been happier, even if he has to deal with Miranda trying to franchise the Lake of Fire and Vinnie asking him to send the liquor supplier to hell and Amy-Sarah-Paige-Lucy Nicole still rolling her eyes, unimpressed, and Rachael making non sequitur but entirely too accurate comments about his deepest torments. And maybe Miranda comes up for a meeting and meets Vinnie . . .

And then God notices.

Yeah, that’s how I’d write Lucifer.

*Duh. I kept thinking “not quite right” with that list of actresses and then I remembered The Queen of the Side-Eye. Of course if it’s Beharie, I kind of want Lucifer falling for her because she’d take him down. Hmmm. Maybe this isn’t Lucifer, maybe this is Nicole, and the protagonist is a homicide cop who’s the descendant of Death, and she’s managed to keep her secret and then Lucifer shows up . . .

I like that. A homicide cop who’s the direct descendant of Death. Oh wait, I have a better Devil:

Now, we’re cookin’.

Edited to add (5:30 PM):

You know, the key here is to keep pressure on the powerful hero because that kneecaps him, and to keep those pressures coming at him from different sides. For example, I’d have Miranda come up for a meeting and end up standing beside a dead body when the cops find her. Now Lucifer has to get her out of custody because nobody’s running Hell, but she has blood on her hands . . . wait, she really did kill the guy. So Nicole’s going to take Miranda in, which is going to cause problems because Miranda’s a demon and somebody going to notice her little habits, and Lucifer really has to get her back on the job in Hell, plus now she and Vinnie have a thing going on (maybe Vinnie decides to help and breaks her out of jail) so Miranda’s thinking about maybe leaving Hell for a nice job in a nightclub where nobody will notice she’s a demon . . .

This stuff writes itself. All you need is a hero beset on all sides and a supporting cast of characters that are liable to do anything at any minute that he has to control. But you’d still need an overall goal.

Maybe Lucifer didn’t come to earth just to have a good time, maybe there’s something he has to do that’s going to take him an entire season. No idea what that is, but that would pull the whole thing together. Plus that would keep him from just saying, “The hell with it” and going back to, uh, Hell when things got too dicey. Hmmmm. More thought needed.

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Questionable: Character Chemistry with the Reader

This is another one from Draft Vault, and it included this note: “Somehow I hit “Publish” while this was still in draft form. Therefore, whatever went out in the RSS feed was a rough draft. Sorry about that.” I’m pretty sure I cut almost all of the previous draft, so this shouldn’t be a re-run at all.

Cate M asked:



“Could you do a post on a character chemistry? Not necessarily romantic chemistry, although that would be helpful too. Basically, once you’ve got your checklist of goals, motivation, conflict, how do you make sure the characters are actually fun to spend time with, and better together than they are apart?”

So when you say “fun to spend time with,” you’re talking about the reader, right? You want each character to be fun for the reader to spend time with and then the relationship to be more fun for the reader to watch?

In my opinion (not to be taken as a rule or fact or anything like that):

• Readers want to spend time with characters who are fascinating, which means different from the norm but not so weird or awful that they’re off-putting. (“I don’t like this guy, but I can’t take my eyes off him.”)

• They want characters who are active because action is interesting and because action characterizes. (“Now that I see the things he’s doing in this story, he’s even more interesting.”)

• They want characters who are under pressure because pressure peels off layers of protection and makes them vulnerable. (“Boy, move him outside his comfort zone, and he’s a whole new character.”)

• They want characters who are struggling with other characters because while they want to see the human heart in conflict, they also want to see two human hearts in conflict with each other, desperately vying for the things that define them and make life worth living. (“She really moves him outside his comfort zone; he’s even more interesting with her.”)

• They want those struggles to suggest outcomes that are interesting so that their expectations for the rest of the story are as fascinating as the characters, especially when they’re together. (“I can’t wait to see what happens when these two get together again.”)

So fascinating, active, vulnerable characters in conflicted relationships that set up fascinating expectations.

Yeah, not easy.

As an example, I just watched a TV pilot that failed on almost all of these things.

The protagonist of Lucifer is Lucifer Morningstar and he’s the Devil. That’s a gimmick with the potential to either be really interesting (Paradise Lost, American Gothic, Good Omens, anything with Ray Wise) or really awful, and the beginning of this is really awful. The Devil has gotten bored in Hell (why? It must be full of interesting people) and he’s come to LA (of course, cliche, and why? It must be just like Hell) where he runs a nightclub (of course, cliche, dear god, this is not a good start, nothing fascinating here yet). He’s tall, dark, and handsome (cliche, cliche, and cliche). Oh, and he’s smarmy. Pick-up artist smarmy. Stupid dialogue smarmy. Kinda want to slap him and not in a good way smarmy. His action intro is breaking the speed limit on a busy street and then working his whammy on the honest traffic cop who pulls him over. I’d rather watch a show about the traffic cop; he at least seemed to have layers.

So I am not finding this guy fascinating even though he’s Satan because he’s just like every other rich, handsome jackass in LA. Then he walks into the club he owns (also a cliche, this one visual) and talks to Hell’s Handmaiden who warns him that Dad and Others are not happy and he should go back to Hell and get back to work. Lucifer smiles the smarm again and . . .

Oh, god I’m bored. Eight minutes into a 44 minute episode, and I don’t care about this guy or this story (probably because it hasn’t started yet).

Then his brother shows up and threatens him because he’s not in Hell, and his brother is infinitely more interesting because he’s upset. (Plus he’s played by D. B. Woodside and he has wings.) Lucifer continues unfazed, invulnerable, and not fascinating. Also, story still not started yet. Quarter of the way through the first episode, it’s all tedious set-up about a snotty frat guy from Hell. Why am I still watching? I have a bottle of water and Maltesers and a puppy on my lap. Might as well stick for the last half hour.

Then he’s out in front of his club wrapped in an embrace with a Famous Pop Star, and she’s gunned down (he’s immortal, being Satan and all), and the shooter’s car crashes (not because of Lucifer, which is a missed opportunity), and he runs to the car and drags the driver back from death, enraged. Lucifer’s immortal and a jerk so being upset is out of character for him, different, not a cliche, and maybe a little bit vulnerable. This starts to be a little bit interesting,

Then the tough lady cop interviews him about the shooting and he’s Smarm Boy again and she hates him. (Cliche, and cliche, and cliche.) They banter badly. So badly it hurts me, professionally. The rest of the episode is a standard (bad) buddy cop plot: The Devil and the Lady Cop bicker while interrogating a series of suspects, there’s a shoot-out, and they form an uneasy partnership at the end. They Fight Crime! (Kill Me Now!)

So why am I boring you with this recap? Because I will watch one more episode in the admittedly small hope that the writing improves because of two things, one to do with character and one to do with relationships (Hi, Cate, I remember your question.)

The character aspect is of course, Lucifer, and goes back to that moment of outrage with the shooter in the car. I didn’t get this until I watched the pilot a second time for this essay (the things I do for you Argh People), but it’s really very carefully if not cleverly set up.

The first scene is Lucifer, the dickhead, working his voodoo on the good traffic cop, at one point saying something like, “You and I are a lot alike, we both like to punish people.” Then later, after the first shooting when the police are going to stop the investigation with the hired killer instead of going after the guy behind him, he says angrily that they should be out “punishing” the real killer. And then after that, the cop has to stop by her kid’s school because her daughter was in a fight defending herself again a bully, and Lucifer leans over the ten-year-old tormentor and says there’s a special section of hell reserved for bullies, after which his eyes glow red and the little girl screams, punished. And right there is his Achilles heel: He is driven to punish people, born to punish people, assigned to punish people by God his Father. He found punishing boring and left Hell for Earth, and yet he can’t escape it. He has to punish those who transgress. He’s stuck. And now he’s vulnerable.

In case it’s been too subtle, the story nails it at the climax when he’s facing down the armed killer and says, “You killed her and I’m going to punish you.” (On the nose, much?) The killer fires at him, the cop fires back and puts the killer down, and Lucifer is furious with her: “Why did you do that? You just let him off too easy! He needs to pay, he needs to suffer, he needs to feel the pain, not escape it!” But good news, the killer isn’t dead, he shoots the cop and then puts several bullets into Lucifer before Lucifer pins him against a mirror and does something offscreen that makes him scream. Later on, recovering in the hospital, the cop says, “What happened to Jimmy?” and a much calmer Lucifer says, “Jimmy got what he deserved.”

So Lucifer is tall, dark, handsome, rich, immortal and he’s got the job from Hell that he can’t escape, forced to act every time there’s an injustice because punishment is his reason for being. That’s interesting, but I’m not sure that would bring me back for another episode in itself (really bad writing can kneecap anything).

But there’s something else.

As part of the investigation, Lucifer and the cop have interviewed a glasses-bedecked therapist (the always excellent Rachael Harris) and he’s worked his voodoo on her and she lusts for him (he tells her he’s carnal heroin and she shouldn’t think about sex with him because he’s dangerous and I threw up in my mouth a little). But even under his spell, she pinpoints that the cop makes him uncomfortable and asks him why, genuinely curious, and he’s genuinely taken aback (there’s that little bit of vulnerability again). He makes a deal with her: He’ll come back and have sex with her if she gives them the info they need (he actually says, “We can take a trip to Poundtown”), and then he and the cop leave and I thought, “Well, that was a terrible waste of Rachael Harris.” But after the main plot is over, bad guy punished, cop recovering in hospital with cute daughter and perfect make-up, brother stopping by to threaten again (dear god, the dialogue in this is awful), Lucifer goes back to the therapist and says, “Here’s the deal. We can have as much naked cuddle time as you desire, but you’re going to have to listen to me, too. There’s a few things that I’d like to discuss with you, you know, just an existential dilemma or two. Deal?” And Harris says, “Yes,” with a great deal of four-eyed satisfaction.

I’m not interested in the relationship the show wants me to invest in, the one with the cop because (a) she and Lucifer have no real conflict (bickering doesn’t count), (b) she has no vulnerabilities in her relationship with him or he with her and (c) I have nothing to build expectation on because I’ve seen this done a thousand times.

But I do want to see him with the therapist because (a) he’s going to ensorcel her and even under his spell she’s going to be able to call his game, so they’ll have a power conflict, (b) and because he’s the Devil she’s vulnerable to him; because he’s in crisis he’s vulnerable to her (as the therapist she has all the power), and they’re caught in the crucible of therapy/sex so that’s two servings of vulnerability with some vulnerability on the side, and (c) because of the contrast of his hot, calculated charm and her cool, carnal intelligence, there’s a possibility they’ll be interesting together, a contrast that’s heightened by their physical appearances: his movie-star good looks and her librarian frumpiness.

Or let’s put it in terms of expectation. You have two choices of story:

Handsome Devil and tough-talking, beautiful cop team up to bicker and solve murders in LA.

or

Handsome Devil and smart but smitten therapist navigate an uneasy relationship based on undeniable physical (hers) and emotional (his) needs. While solving crimes in LA.

I not only know which one I want to read or watch, I know which one I want to write.

So here are Crusie’s Rules Suggestions for Good Chemistry Between Characters and Readers

1. Begin with characters that are flawed and fascinating, interesting because they’re not perfect or all-powerful.

2. Show how they handle their problems through actions that further characterize them, avoiding cliches at all cost and building in reversals to intrigue your reader.

3. Show how their actions and interactions with others move them out of their comfort zones and make them vulnerable.

4. Establish legitimate conflicts that come from the characters, not from some clever premise or contrived situation or god knows, some tired cliche like bickering buddy cops.

5. Make the characters and the conflicts intriguing enough that the reader/viewer begins to speculate about what happens next because they’re not sure; if they already know how the cliche is going to play out, then the expectation is boring; if they’re encountering something new, off-beat, challenging, then the what-if game becomes a lot more fun.

I should probably mention here that the chances of Lucifer ending up with the therapist are approximately zero, but I thought that about Oliver ending up with Felicity, too, and she’s sporting a diamond now, so who knows? Okay, I know: it’s going to be the same old, same old with the bickerish Lady Cop, and he will come to love her adorable little daughter, and he will defeat her condescending ex-husband, and maybe I won’t watch next week after all. But as an example of how not to make a character and a relationship fun for the reader/viewer, you can’t beat the Lucifer pilot.

NOTE: Krissie just wrote to tell me that she loved the Lucifer pilot. She suggests that next week we watch it together next Tuesday on Slack and then put the transcript on our blogs, so next Wednesday, there’ll be a Stuart-Crusie argument about Let’s-Take-A-Trip-To-Poundtown Lucifer. (I think the last time a phrase annoyed me that much was “clue cake.”) (I don’t have network TV so I have to watch on Hulu or Amazon; Slack is the chat platform we’re using now.)

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Your Favorite Characters, AKA All About You

Welcome to Deep Thoughts Tuesdays. Well, deep-ish thoughts.

On a whim, I ordered a journal called The 52 Lists Project, the idea being that you make a list each week following whatever prompt the book gives you. The second list is “List your favorite characters from books, movies, etc.”

I’m having a hard time with that.

The first two on my list were Amanda Campion and Susan StoHelit, but after that, they were all male until I got to Rose Tyler.

Granted I’ve just started, but my book list is Amanda Campion, Susan Sto Helit, Vimes, Carrot, Moist Von Lipwig, Adorabelle Dearheart, and Lucy Eylesbarrow. I should be able to do more than that, especially since five of them are Pratchet people, but I’m really having to think hard. There are a lot of characters I want to read about but wouldn’t call my favorite characters. That is, I like their stories but I’m not mad about them. Sherlock Holmes, for example. I liked his stories, but he was kind of a nothing until Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller got hold of him, and even then . . . not my favorite characters.

It’s easier for film, but again, mostly male: Jason Bourne, Jack Burton, Nicholas Angel, Sam Tyler, The Doctor (9, 10, 11), Rose Tyler, Madalena and Gareth . . . huh. All but two of those are British, and all of my book characters were British. I may be in the wrong country.

The POINT of all of this is to “find a common personality trait between your favorite characters.” [Okay, that makes me crazy: “between” is between two choices; if there’s more than two you have to use “among.” Jeez.] “What is one character trait you admire in your favorite characters that you can work towards this week?”

My week is full, so forget that last part, but the first part is an interesting question. What is it that draws us to our favorite characters? What is it in these characters that goes beyond “entertaining” and makes the characters themselves the thing we go back for, more than the story?

I love Amanda Campion because she never met a problem she couldn’t attack. I love her because she was unstoppable at sixteen and because she grew up to be an aeronautical engineer in the 1940s. I love her because she was always unpredictable, surprising Albert from the time they met when she was a teenager to the time when they’d been married for years. I’ve admired Amanda since I was a teenager. (My daughter’s middle name is Amanda, in part because of Amanda Campion and in part because it’s Latin for “must be loved.”)

I love Susan Sto Helit because she’s a take-no-crap, fully engaged teacher/nanny/hero. I think I really fell in love with her when one of her charges told her there was a monster in the basement, and all the adults in the room said, “Oh, isn’t that cute?” and Susan picked up the poker and went down to the basement and beat the crap out of the monster and dragged it out the door, and the moppet said, “Thank you, Susan,” and went back to bed. Or when she saved Christmas and the world, that was a good one. And when she fell in love in with Time and Time loved her back and make stars fall in her teaching closet because who wouldn’t love Susan?

And Lucy Eyelesbarrow (the book, not the movie) who walks into a house of death and secrets and clears them all out, including the mausoleum in the back that’s hiding a fresh dead body among the family corpses. Plus she’s a splendid cook and treats children as though they’re fully functioning human beings.

Okay, I’m starting to see a pattern here. These are women who get things done, who charge past the people who are pointing out that can’t/shouldn’t do something. These are women who are not out of fucks to give, they are women who never had any fucks to give, women who define themselves and let the world that disagrees sort itself out because they have better things to do. And they’re big on fair play and not interested in hierarchies, status, or class. They are clear-eyed and focused and independent and free.

You know, maybe the reason there aren’t many women on my list is because there aren’t many female characters like that. Hmmmm. Somebody should do something about that.

So what about you? Who are your favorite three characters on the page and/or on the screen and why, and what does that tell you about you?

[GALAVANT NOTE: Speaking of favorite characters, Madalena and Gareth, best romance or best romance EVER? Okay, the addition of zombies to the fairy tale is inspired, but the best bit is still Gareth addressing the troops because he can’t say things directly to Madalena. So sweet. I hope these two crazy (literarlly) kids make it. Although Madalena selling her soul to the devil could make that dicey, I suppose. Oh, my god, I love this show.]

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