Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 242

Restless Rainy Sunday

I got my rainy Sunday, though there wasn't as much reading and tea drinking as I had planned because I fell asleep on the sofa. But even an unplanned nap is a good thing on a cool, rainy Sunday. It's still cool and cloudy, so this may be a productive day. Or there may be another sofa nap.

I got my Blu-Ray player, and I found a bargain copy of the original Terminator movie on Blu-Ray. I still just had that one on VHS, so I figured an upgrade was in order. That's actually a fairly grainy movie, so the Blu-Ray doesn't make a lot of difference, but I found that the upconverting on regular DVDs makes a huge difference. With regular DVDs, when something is dark, it's pretty murky on the LCD screen, but on the Blu-Ray I can see actual details. I amused myself Friday evening by watching bits of random space shows on DVD. I sense a Firefly marathon in my near future. Rewatching parts of Battlestar Galactica brought me great amusement because of where I've seen the actors recently. It was a jolt hearing Jamie Bamber's American accent again -- and seeing him alive (does his character have to die in almost everything?). Just last week I saw the too-good-to-be-true Helo (or as I started calling him, Halo) as an intolerant, fairly bloodthirsty bad guy on Haven. And these days we're more likely to see Boomer on a surfboard. Ah, good times.

I still haven't watched an entire show or movie on the new player, though. I was strangely restless and couldn't really focus on an entire movie or episode of anything, though I have watched the Phineas & Ferb Halloween special three times. That's about the level of my attention span at the moment. I'd think about watching something, and it all felt like too much of a commitment, so I'd watch the cartoon that comes in at about 20 minutes total, once you skip past all the promos for the hideous Disney Channel sitcoms. Memo to the Disney TV people: The fact that it's meant for children doesn't mean it can't be good. The over-the-top acting that comes across like a hideous cross between a mime and a cheerleader is not necessary.

I had something all ranty planned to talk about today, but now I can't remember what it was. That's probably for the best.

Looking Forward

The air has that peculiar "pre-rain" feel to it, but the chances of rain in the forecast are really low. I've got my fingers crossed, though. Not only are we in a major drought so we desperately need rain, but I could really use a rainy Sunday afternoon. My weekends have been very busy for about a month, and Saturday is going to be kind of crazy in wildly diverse ways (fortunately, the fun part comes after the potentially difficult part), but I have nothing planned for Sunday, for the first time in ages. A rainy afternoon spent on the sofa with a good book would be just what the doctor ordered.

Though there could also be some movie watching going on, as I'm about to go out and buy a Blu-Ray player. I've been too busy/sidetracked to spend my birthday money (from two months ago), and I've had an HD TV for about five years without HD input. I can now get a Blu-Ray player for half what my DVD player cost back when I got it, so I figure it's about time. Of course, that means I'll have to get something on Blu-Ray to watch. I don't think I want to start replacing things I already have on DVD, so that limits me somewhat, as there isn't much that I don't have that I really want. I've already got season one of Haven in Blu-Ray coming from Amazon (I've heard that show is absolutely gorgeous in HD, thanks to the location shooting -- I need to go to Nova Scotia), but I'll want something to watch before that shows up, and since the Amazon warehouse is no longer a couple of miles from my house, shipping may take a little longer than it used to.

One thing I'm not doing this weekend is going to my high school reunion. I went to the first two and had fun, but I think I've reached the point where I'm ready to put that chapter of my life behind me. I haven't really stayed in touch with those people, though now I do hear from more of them on Facebook, and I don't have much in common with them. I'd rather look forward, and I already had an event scheduled with my current friends. Now I also have a memorial service for a friend's child, so I have a double excuse involving the people who are currently important in my life. I got the sense that this event would be not for me when they decided to hold it in a hotel where they could have a bar and a DJ and when all the "awards" they're giving out seem to have to do with marriage and children. It's all stuff like longest marriage, most marriages, most recent marriage, most children, most grandchildren (Yikes!), etc. Surely there are other things to recognize as life accomplishments. Like, say, most books published. Or even who can still wear her prom dress.

Now off to go shopping, and then back to work on the Problem Child. I hit a wall yesterday when I realized there was something seriously wrong with an existing scene, but then I figured out how to fix it while I was making breakfast this morning.

Healing the Mortal Injury

Slight improvement with the preschoolers last night. No tears, and one kid who refused to enter the room last week actually stayed this week. He still hid in the corner and didn't really participate, but he did some of the activities from his spot in the corner. I did come across the Mortal Injury, though. One of the kids called me over at one point, calling out, "Teacher! Teacher! She's hurt!" about one of the other girls, who then held up her finger to show me. The amount of drama surrounding the situation made me worry we'd have to pick up a severed fingertip and pack it on ice to get her to the emergency room. But I couldn't find anything wrong when investigating the allegedly injured finger. There was no blood, no sign of a scrape, no redness, no whiteness, no swelling, no funny angle. It just looked like a finger to me. I suspected the Mortal Injury was more like a Desperate Need for Attention (the child in question was a former clingy non-participator who has gradually warmed up), so I said, "Oh, you poor thing," and gave her a hug. I was immediately swarmed by little girls telling me stories of every injury they'd ever sustained in their lives and showing me the paper cuts they got in school that day. I think I may have added "nurse/doctor" to the Disney fairy princess superhero mom they seem to think I am.

The child soon forgot the injury and was actively involved in a game of zombie tag not long afterward when the kids were playing in the fellowship hall while the adults finished eating dinner. I was sitting to the side, reading a book on my phone and occasionally being bombarded by little kids and being turned into a zombie a few times. The way they described the game to me, the first time you get tagged, you get turned into a zombie, and then anyone you tag will also become a zombie (you have to move around like a zombie during this phase). Then the next time you get tagged, you get turned into a chicken (that phase was highly entertaining). After that, you get turned into Superman. If you get tagged after that, you're out, and you're back to being a normal person. You go through the phases pretty quickly if you stay in your seat, reading Dickens, and don't try to run away. It does actually sound like a fun game, but there's no way I could keep up with those kids.

I suppose I would be remiss if I didn't mention the passing of Steve Jobs. At first, I was a little bemused by all the Facebook tributes for someone most of these people never met, but then I realized that every one of my books was written on a Mac, so even someone I've never met can have an impact on my life. I got my first Mac in 1990 and am currently on my sixth. I suppose those books still would have been written on another computer, but I like being able to focus my time and energy on writing the books instead of messing with the computer. And the newest one is just plain pretty. I like the idea of the design mattering. Why not make things lovely as well as functional?

Going back to the earlier post about fantasy plausibility, I have to agree with the comments about how fantasy can become implausible when the author isn't consistent with the fantasy elements. I may be more willing to let that slide when it makes things more difficult for the characters instead of easier. For instance, one thing that kind of nags at me in the Harry Potter series is the fact that in most of the books they act like they can't do magic without wands (and preferably their own wands) and specific spells. If they have their wands taken away, they're entirely disarmed and helpless. But the whole opening of the first book was about how Harry managed to do all these magical things with no wand, no spells and no awareness that he was magical. He made his hair grow out when he got a bad haircut, escaped from bullies by levitating and made the glass in the snake's enclosure disappear. It wasn't just something that was in the first book and then forgotten because the last book showed in Snape's memories that Snape and Lily did bits of magic as children before they got wands. I can kind of handwave that inconsistency as it being an ability kids grow out of once they start learning proper magic (though it does seem odd to train people into needing a crutch) because being required to have a wand makes things harder. I'd have a problem if they'd established that they needed wands, and then Harry suddenly discovered that when he was in a bad situation he could just get himself out without needing a wand.

As for my wish for the couple who may be enemies but who like each other, I should probably clarify that. I was speaking in terms of that "fated/destined for each other" trope that comes up a lot in fantasy/paranormal romance. There are plenty of examples of enemies who fall in love. It's a classic Romeo and Juliet story (though hopefully without the characters being Too Stupid to Live), and that's one kind of romance novel I like (I used to be very fond of the Norman/Saxon medieval romances). The reason I threw in the enemies is that there's not much story without conflict, so a story about two people who are destined for each other and who seem made for each other and actually like each other would be boring. There has to be some monkey wrench thrown in, so have them made for each other but be on opposite sides of a conflict, with their destiny drawing them together. Or they could even be the kind of destined couple where their coming together will bring about something, so there are factions with a vested interest in keeping them apart. I think maybe my problem with the idea of a couple being fated for each other but being totally wrong for each other may be another one of those things where I can't believe it because it contradicts my personal beliefs. "Fate" or "destiny" to me boils down to "God," and I can't imagine that God would destine you for someone who was totally wrong for you in every way except sexually.

Character Development: Starting Inside

My "time off" lasted until nearly 4 p.m. yesterday, when I found myself digging back into the Problem Child project. I think I figured out what the problem was and how to deal with it, so I think I know how the book needs to end. I'm also sure that this needs to be a series, so I don't have to complete all the character arcs in this one book. One character's arc will complete, but everyone else is a work in progress. I may not kill myself on revisions and may allow myself to do some other stuff, but I'm not on "vacation."

For my writing posts, I'm continuing a series on character development. Previously, I talked about some things not to do -- or to do with extreme caution. Basing characters directly on yourself, on other real people or on fictional characters created by someone else is generally not the best way to develop characters. There's no one right way to create characters, and I find that each character is different. I may go through some of the same exercises, but they work in different ways every time. There are some characters I never develop. They just seem to appear fully formed in my head, name, physical description, and all, and I know them without thinking about them. I doubt my readers could tell which characters are like that and which ones have notebooks full of character development.

One thing that essential in forming your characters is your story. Character is plot and plot is character, no matter which comes first. The needs of your story will dictate some of your characterization, or else some of the character attributes will dictate your story. While you don't want to fall into stereotype, there are going to be some traits that will be essential for your characters to do what you need them to do. For instance, anyone in any kind of investigative role -- police detective, scientific researcher, explorer -- has to have a fair amount of intellectual curiosity, and that will have some impact on the character's overall personality. If you want your character to look into things, that trait will be a given, even before you start developing anything else. If your character doesn't have this trait, it will be nearly impossible to make a story where this character must investigate something work.

That doesn't mean you always have to put the perfect person in the perfect position. The story could be about getting the person into the right place. Your character with intellectual curiosity could be in a position where that trait is a liability (that would be the basis for most amateur sleuth stories -- the person who just can't help but dig around, even though it's not their job). You may have to have a commanding presence and some charisma to be a great leader, but you probably have a more interesting story if the person with those traits isn't yet in charge. A CEO who likes to be in control and who can bend people to his will is to be expected. The mailroom clerk with those traits means things are about to get fun. If you have a particular role to fill in a story, at least consider someone who's got some personality traits that are totally wrong for that role, as long as you can still justify that person having achieved that role. While you may find powerful, charismatic people outside a leadership position, you're not likely to find people who lack those traits becoming a general or a CEO. On the other hand, king is an inherited position, so you may find a painfully shy person who'd prefer to avoid the spotlight inheriting a kingdom (and then you get The King's Speech).

I often say that I like to develop characters from the inside out. That doesn't mean the physical description comes last -- sometimes I have a vivid mental image of a character before I know anything about that person. It just means that when it comes to the character elements, I try to go for the core before I think about traits. There are all those character development worksheets out there, with stuff like their most vivid elementary school memory, what's in their refrigerator, what's their favorite color, etc., and if I don't already know the character, those answers are meaningless because they come on a whim or out of thin air. I've found that it works best if I start with what's deep down inside. What drives this person more than anything, even before the story starts and the story goal develops? The inner drive is something that achieving the story goal won't fulfill. Unless the character is really transformed, it will always be there, and even a transformation will just change the drive to something else. That inner drive may have been developed by an event, but it can just be inherent to personality. Two people may go through the same events and come out with totally different responses.

Some of the kinds of drives you can find are a need for harmony, a need for control, a need for answers, a need to belong, a need to be loved or accepted, a need to nurture, a need to be right, a need to be rescued, a need for separation, a need to win, a need to set things right. Everyone may need any or all of these things, but at least one of these may be so powerful that it drives every other decision a person makes, and it may be a need that can never be truly fulfilled -- or if that need is met, there will always be the fear of losing it. A person who needs control may fight to get to the top, and then he'll fight to stay there. Becoming CEO or even supreme ruler of the world will not satisfy that drive. We all have some need for love, but most people will have that need satisfied by feeling loved. People with that drive may be terribly insecure about the love they receive, may become overly protective about loved ones or may keep finding new people to love them, just to prove to themselves that they're worthy of love.

Once you have that, you have a sense of what makes that person tick, and it will affect any other traits you build on top of it.

There are other core things that can be at work. I've read a lot about the Myers-Briggs test and how to apply that to characterization, but I haven't made it work without finding that core drive first. Otherwise, it's like any of those characterization questionnaires. The core drive sort of gets into the Jungian idea of archetypes, and the Myers-Briggs is based on Jungian psychology, so I suppose it all flows together. One thing I do like to determine is whether a character is an introvert or extrovert. That has nothing to do with how friendly or outgoing or verbal they are. In Jungian terms, it's about focus and energy. An introvert can be verbal and outgoing, but finds that draining and needs solitude to recharge, while an extrovert gains energy from being with others and finds solitude draining, so an extrovert can still be a quiet person who just feels most comfortable with others around. There are other elements in that typing, like sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling and judgment/perception, though I haven't done that much work going that deep with this (it does, however, make an excellent procrastination tactic to take the test with your character in mind).

I know of people who do this sort of thing with astrology, figuring out their characters' charts and using that as the core, though I don't know enough about astrology to do that. I have found that when I've needed to come up with a character's birthday for a plot purpose, the astrological profile ends up being eerily accurate.

Next I'll get into how some of these deep inner traits may manifest in more external traits that will show up in the story.

Plausibility in Fantasy

I got the book proofread and off to my agent. Now I want to clean my kitchen, straighten my living room and bedroom and maybe start shoveling out my office. And I also have my medical school work to do. Speaking of which, another faculty member at the medical school where I used to work and that I still freelance for won a Nobel prize yesterday, which brings them to five, which I think is still a record for Nobel-prize winning faculty members at American medical schools. I had to do the research and call around to other schools when we got the fourth back when I worked there, and at four we were on top back then. I don't think I knew this doctor when I worked there, so I haven't added to the list of Nobel prize winners I've met personally, but considering I have Watson and Crick on that list, I think I'm still doing pretty well. I had tea with Dr. Watson once when I had to entertain him while he was waiting for a news interview (they weren't on the faculty at my school but were there as guest lecturers for a seminar).

My next project is already nagging at me. It's a mostly completed book that still isn't quite right, and I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. It's falling apart at the ending -- not the resolution of the main plot, but what that resolution really means to the characters and how it affects them. I think that means I need to go back to the characters and really look at what their arcs should be, since the resolution of the main plot should complete the character arcs. I may not have to change the main plot, but I may need to change what I see as the journey the characters are on and what they're supposed to be learning from it.

A couple of weekends ago at FenCon, I was on a panel that I find myself still thinking about, in part because an audience member asked a question that I wasn't able to answer at the time, and I'm still not entirely sure what my answer would be. The topic was "Plausibility in Fantasy," and we were discussing how to write a novel in which unbelievable things happen and make readers believe it. When you read fantasy, you're pretty much buying into the idea that impossible things will happen -- magic exists, vampires exist, etc. How do you create a world that people will accept? Someone in the audience asked us if there had been a fantasy novel where we couldn't buy the premise or that struck us as implausible.

At the time, I couldn't think of anything. It's usually the real-world stuff that throws me out of the novel. If I'm reading a fantasy novel, I can buy that there may be immortal people who could be hundreds of years old but who look young. I have a hard time believing that these centuries-old people would be going to high school or falling in love with teenagers. In urban fantasy, I'm more likely to question the heroine having a nice Manhattan apartment and a closet full of designer clothes than I am to question the fact that she has magical powers. I guess it's because I don't have any experience with the supernatural, so I'll take what the author gives me there, but I will question the things I do have experience with. One of the conclusions the panel came to was that most of this boils down to how entertaining or engaging the story is. If I'm mentally calculating the heroine's cost of living, then the story hasn't sufficiently engaged my brain or emotions.

Since then, I have thought of a couple of cases where it was the fantasy element that threw me out of a story. One that shall remain nameless because these books are very popular and I'm acquainted with the author probably suffered from the fact that they contained fantasy elements I'm not overly fond of, so the rest of the book would have had to be really engaging to get me involved, and one of the key fantasy elements that was unique to the premise just didn't work for me. I didn't believe it would work the way the book said it would, and something the book treated as a plus I thought was absolutely horrible. I think this was because it was a fantasy element with roots in religion, and the use of that element didn't fit with my personal religious experience, so it probably falls into the category of me questioning things I have experience with.

The other case of a fantasy element that I don't find plausible is a popular trope in paranormal romance and urban fantasy that crosses over with paranormal romance, and that's the couple who are supposedly destined for each other but who have absolutely nothing in common -- no interests, no values, no goals that mesh in any way -- and who may even be enemies, but because they're destined for each other, they can't resist each other. I would think that being destined for each other would mean they're made for each other. They'd be the perfect fit. They may be entirely star-crossed and be on opposite sides of a conflict, but when they met it would just seem right in ways that go beyond physical. I can't get into any book where the characters hate each other, are total opposites, have nothing in common and yet who can't help but be drawn to each other because it's destiny.

Now I kind of want to read (or write) the book where the two people from opposite sides who should be enemies meet and everything just clicks, and they find they agree more with each other than they do with their supposed allies.

Otherwise, for me it seems like a case of getting the real-world details right, and then I'll buy whatever you try to sell me in the fantasy elements. Let me know that you've thought about sources for food, money and clothing. Make the characters act like real people -- or explain it really well if they don't. Put some thought into logistics. And then I'll probably accept that your characters have magic powers.

Crunch Day

Today is a big push/crunch day, in which I will read an entire book out loud to myself in almost one sitting so I can proofread before sending it to my agent. And then I will promptly collapse. I was going to take some time off instead of switching gears while I wait on the next project, but I have a book nagging me for attention, so I may do some thinking and planning about it while I take care of tasks like cleaning my house. I want to do a good fall cleaning before I dive heavily into another project or before I take that fall "staycation" that I am determined to take this year. I figure that this has already been a very productive year, so I can afford a nice mental break (so as to avoid a nice psychotic break).

I stepped away from the work this weekend to spend some time with friends. There was the Lebanese food festival at a nearby church and then Doctor Who viewing, and then the British import shop nearby had a Doctor Who day on Sunday, and a number of our friends were there, including Joe Dalek. Some of the costumes were amazing. And it's always fun to catch up with one of my favorite men in my life (the cardboard Doctor is not life size, and yet he's still significantly taller than I am).



I have more photos from the event, including a Dalek in a fez, but I'd have to get them off my camera, and that won't happen today. This is courtesy of my friend, who took it when my camera battery died.

However, although I spent much of the weekend with the Doctor, I have to say that the Haven finale won for sheer mind-blowingness, possibly because it was a real cliffhanger while Doctor Who sort of wrapped up the story. There were new questions raised, but it wasn't as though any of the major characters were in immediate jeopardy, while the Haven finale ended with all the major characters in jeopardy, along with a last-second "huh?" revelation. Plus, they get bonus points for a TV couple who act like real people, where they get together because they like each other, not because they can't stand each other and bicker all the time, and where making the transition from friends to maybe something more comes with some awkwardness but without major drama (the drama comes from outside because it can be really hard to have a nice first date when people think you need to die in order to save the town from what they see as evil).

I can't really get into Doctor Who details because I don't think my parents have seen it yet. Spoilers!

Now, off to work I go!

Deadlines and Exploding Heads

I was on a big push yesterday, so I skipped ballet and stayed up until one in the morning and I got to the end of the draft. I need to re-read the last few chapters, and then there's a little tinkering I may need to do, and then I need to read the whole thing straight through, and then I should be done. There was a little bit of the kind of sidetracking that seems to come with a deadline. My skin got really dry and itchy, so I went looking for the really rich body butter that usually helps. Next thing I know, I'm sorting through my bathroom drawers, throwing out old or expired stuff and organizing. Fortunately, I realized what I was doing before I lost the whole night to an organization impulse, found the body butter, stopped the itch, and got back to work. Since I suspect I may be waiting a while to get revision notes from my agent on project #2, I may take the time to do a big organization project instead of switching gears and working on something else. Though it would be fun to always have a new project to hand to my agent the moment she gets done with one. But that's what happens when I can write a book in the time it takes her to review one. (Yes, I do have my evil moments.)

I'm going to re-read the last few chapters today, and then I'm going to try to take my mind off it all until Sunday night. That will be helped by my current two favorite shows having their season finales this weekend. I will likely spend the weekend with my head exploding. First, tonight there's Haven. Just about every episode this season has had some major twist or change in the status quo, and they've almost run out of recurring characters to kill, erase or send away, so there's no telling what they've got in store for the season finale. Last season's finale was packed with major game-changing revelations about our main characters that showed we didn't actually know who they were -- and neither did they -- and then still ended with a twist that was even more mind-blowing. I'm almost afraid of what they'll come up with this season, considering that the last couple of episodes have already pretty much changed everything. They'd best renew this series because it's got such a complex and well-developed mythology. For that I understand we can thank Stephen King. Although the show is extremely loosely based on a King novella, apparently part of the condition for getting approval to use his book (and his name) was that they had to run their plans by him, and that meant they had everything planned up front. This isn't a making it up as we go series where they don't yet have answers in mind for all the big questions they're raising.

They've also managed something I thought would be impossible. When the network formerly known as Sci Fi added wrestling to their programming lineup, we all knew that would inevitably lead to network-mandated insertion of wrestler guest stars into their usual series. In this case, that's been one of the best additions to the series. It is rather silly to have the wrestler listed in the credits as "WWE Superstar" because "Edge" (ugh) is actually a credible enough actor that you might not spot him as a network-mandated wrestler insert otherwise (well, aside from the fact that he makes his six-foot-two co-stars look tiny). And his character is awesome, someone who starts out seeming like some kind of superhero but then who gradually reveals that he's just a guy who has a strange job and a lot of connections, along with a soft spot for children and a surprising knowledge of ballet (ballet dads are so adorable). I was groaning when they started publicizing the wrestler addition and now I'd be furious if they killed Dwight (who is pretty much what TV's other Dwight, the one on The Office, thinks he is, in his wildest dreams). But then considering the average lifespan of a recurring cast member on this show, I probably shouldn't get too attached. At least he's not a police chief. Those have the life expectancy of a Spinal Tap drummer. There was one who exploded and one who melted. The only one who's still alive was only "interim," and that's probably what saved him (plus, he's one of the leads, but on this show, I'm not sure even that keeps him safe).

I may still be cleaning up the pieces of exploding head from that finale when I see the Doctor Who finale on Saturday. I'm a little worried about this one because they've tried to fit some really huge, life-changing stuff in with all the running around having adventures in time and space, and that's been somewhat jarring. I don't know if that's been intentional or if it's just a case of being afraid of altering the show too much by actually dealing with all the huge, life-changing stuff. There are so many plot threads in the air, so much to deal with, that I'm not sure it's possible to deal with everything in one episode and have it be at all satisfying. Just as long as they don't kill Rory. I mean, again. Well, not permanently, at least. He has to be alive in at least one timeline.

And now I need to inhale more tea so I can focus on re-reading those last three chapters that I rewrote late last night. They may not even be in English. Then I may nap, and I may do some baking.

Mary Sues and Mean Girls

The preschoolers were far easier last night. My co-teacher was back and we had a teen helper. We also had no tearful meltdowns among either teachers or kids (well, one kid was crying upon arrival, but his dad then took him away because it was an immediate post-nap meltdown and he didn't want to inflict that on us). One kid who usually bursts into tears upon arrival was better, probably because it was his dad who dropped him off, and he did so with a fist bump and a high five rather than with the "oh, you're not going to miss me, are you?" routine his mother goes through. He still hid in the corner, but hiding in the corner with no tears is an improvement. And there was no throwing up. Yay! While I may complain and occasionally twitch, I must say that this gig is a good way to feel loved. Having kids light up when they see me and run to hug me or fight to sit next to me or snuggle against me makes me realize just how much these little people seem to have accepted me. It's kind of like that saying about wanting to be the kind of person your dog thinks you are, though in my case it's trying to be the kind of person the small children seem to think I am.

I am afraid that with some of these kids, that means I have to be a superhero fairy Disney princess/mom, and I'm not sure I can pull that off. The "mom" is the hard part.

But looking at these little girls who are still thoroughly convinced that they can be beautiful superhero fairy Disney princesses has reminded me of a discussion that was going on a while ago among a number of authors about the misuse of the Mary Sue label and what it says about the way women/girls view themselves and each other.

I'm not defending the use of a true Mary Sue in writing -- when the author uses a character as her surrogate in a story and loses all objectivity so that the person is too perfect to believed and is universally loved for no good reason. But from a reader/reviewer perspective, I think the term is way overused and misused, and in a way I find very disturbing. You'll see just about any female character with the tiniest shred of awesomeness or competence described as a Mary Sue. If she can do anything at all and do it well, if anyone likes her, if anyone falls in love with her, if she's even moderately attractive and if she succeeds in anything, she'll be dismissed as a Mary Sue. This goes double if there's any similarity whatsoever between the author and the character because then readers will assume that the character is meant to be the author. But then if the character is very different from the author, then the "wish fulfillment" claim will come up, with readers suggesting that the character is what the author wishes she was.

The really sad thing is that it's almost universally female readers who make this claim, and it's very seldom made against male characters, no matter how perfect they may be (you want to see Mary Sue style wish-fulfillment characters, read men's action-adventure novels). It's like women have some kind of issue with the idea of a woman being amazing. That doesn't mean you have to like all female characters or accept everything you read. But if you're going to criticize a character, be more specific than just "Mary Sue." If you thought there was nothing in the character's personality or behavior that you felt justified the universal adoration she received, then say that. If you couldn't believe that this character could possibly have developed the knowledge and skills to accomplish what she did, then say that. If you think the character was thinly developed instead of being three-dimensional, then say that. But at least think about why the character doesn't work for you instead of using "Mary Sue" to mean "a female character I don't like."

I'm right there with you on being annoyed with awesome that doesn't make sense. I roll my eyes at the Magical Specialness. But if a character does have a talent, puts some work into learning how the talent works and some thought into using the talent, and is therefore good at using that talent, then it's a competent character with a talent, not a Mary Sue. Hermione Granger was an admitted author insert in the Harry Potter books, but I don't think she was a Mary Sue. Yes, she often had the right answers, but she worked really hard, read every book she could get her hands on, studied and did research to get those answers. I have no problem with someone who puts in that much time in the library getting the right answers.

The other thing that bothers me is this idea that self-esteem seems to equal "bitch." You see this more in young adult fiction, but it seems like the heroine has to think she's nothing special or she'll get called a bitch or conceited by readers. Only the mean girl antagonist is allowed to like herself at all, and then it's seen as a negative character trait. This does reflect real life, to some extent. I read the non-fiction book that the movie Mean Girls was based on, and there's a section about how it's practically a social ritual for girls to denigrate themselves, and if you don't, then you're labeled "conceited." That section of the book was dramatized in the film in the scene in which the mean girl tells the heroine she has pretty hair, to which the heroine replies, "Thank you." The mean girl is aghast at her just accepting the compliment instead of denying it. That means she really thinks her hair is pretty, and that makes her conceited. I remember from my own childhood that the word "conceited" was tossed around a lot as an insult. Demonstrating that you felt good about yourself or about something you could do would earn that label. I don't know why girls and women do this to each other. It would be nice if we could maybe change some of these attitudes by portraying reasonable self-confidence as a positive trait in fiction, but then there's a good chance that readers will decide that makes the character a bitch. I sometimes wonder if even editors see it that way.

I guess I'm just saying to think about what you're saying and why you're saying it when you label a book (or a person). There's room for valid criticism, but be specific and accurate instead of tossing out generalizations. And really, really think about the message you're sending about yourself and the way you see others in the way you talk about characters.

Now I'm down to the wire on getting a project done, and I've reached the hard part, so I'll be in cave mode today. Ack.

Covers and Genres

I'm close to being done with the latest draft of the latest project. I just have a couple of chapters to rewrite, but they're the ones that will require a lot of rewriting. It's nose-to-the-grindstone time.

I haven't had any specific Enchanted, Inc. questions posed for the blog, but there is something that seems to pop up in e-mail a lot, so I'll address it here. I get asked a lot about the cover art, usually in the context of someone wanting me to hire them to illustrate my books.

That's not something I have any say over. I know nothing about how you break into the art business and start getting cover art assignments. I also don't have the clout to choose who does the art for my covers. I did have a little say over the style of covers on my books. When the first book was first bought, I had some long talks with my editor about how we wanted these books to look, and I sent her links to book covers I liked. The cover look I got was very close to what I'd imagined, and I love my covers, though I'm not sure they were the best way to go to sell the books in the long run.

When I first sold the series, back in 2004, the hottest trend in publishing was "chick lit." It had grown so big that it had started to splinter into subgenres, and they'd only just started doing some paranormal chick lit. Meanwhile, urban fantasy was barely on the horizon, especially not in the form it has eventually taken. There were the Charles deLint books and some of Neil Gaiman's stuff, but much of what we now think of as "urban fantasy" spun off the chick lit genre, with the mix of real life and fantasy, the snarky heroine and the romantic subplots that didn't necessarily follow the romance genre rules. My agent suggested we try to sell my series as chick lit rather than as fantasy because at the time, it didn't look like there was anything like it in fantasy. It was more likely to get more attention in chick lit. Those were the books coming out in trade paperback, being put at the front of the store and appearing in places like Target.

Thus, the chick lit style covers. I really liked the kinds of covers that appeared on British chick lit books that were more line illustrations than outright cartoons. I also, for some weird reason I'm not sure of, wanted the covers to be white. That does make them pop on the shelves, but the books also get really grungy really quickly (the copies in my library look awful already). The covers don't actually depict any characters in the books. The fairy who keeps appearing on the cover doesn't correlate to a book character. I did end up writing the frog guy into the books just because I liked him so much. The covers work more to convey the mood and style of the books. You see those covers, and you know what you're getting.

Of course, the chick lit genre completely cratered not long after the second book was published, so the bookstores cut their orders of similar books, which led to the decision not to publish more in the series after the two more that were already contracted. I think the fact that the publisher sees these books as chick lit and not as fantasy has a lot to do with why they're being so weirdly stubborn about not wanting more books. They've distanced themselves from that genre and don't want anything like it. I don't know if my career would have gone a totally different way if we'd tried to sell the books as fantasy. A lot of fantasy editors are big fans of the series, but I don't know if they'd have bought them to publish them at that time, and I don't know what the response would have been. I also can't imagine any other covers. I've got friends who do cover art, and we've had chats about that. The covers sort of pigeonhole them as chick lit and may have kept some fantasy readers away, but we can't think of any other style cover that would fit the books. I definitely can't imagine the Generic Urban Fantasy Cover -- the black cover with the tattooed chick in black leather, holding a weapon and looking back over her shoulder.

I guess this is my career Sliding Doors moment. Maybe there's a reality where we took the fantasy route and the books became fantasy bestsellers and I'm living a JK Rowling life. Or it's possible that in that reality the book never sold at all and I've had to go back to having a day job. Maybe this will turn out to be the best reality, after all, because those books help pave the way for the books that really make me famous. It's probably best to not spend too much time dwelling on that kind of stuff because it will drive me crazy. All I can do is focus on the future and keep writing.

Romantic Pitfalls

My OnDemand is working once more, and without me really being stuck in the "waiting for the cable guy" circle of hell, since he was reasonably prompt (and I startled the poor guy by opening the door before he knocked when I guess the sixth sense kicked in and I happened to walk by the door right as he approached). It stumped the tech support guy on the phone last week, and then stumped the guy who came today. I ended up with yet another converter box. They must either not recondition them well or get lousy quality in the first place because I seem to be going through at least one a year, and I really am not attacking them with a sledgehammer when they don't cooperate or when I don't like a show. He did say he fixed a few other things with the signal outside the house, so it was better than if I'd just gone over and picked up a new box myself. Now that this is fixed, I can catch up on all those season premieres I didn't bother with because I could watch them OnDemand later.

It does sound like I won't have to bother with Terra Nova, though, because the discussion boards all seem to be mentioning the bratty, obnoxious teenage boy character, and I'm allergic to those. I'm not sure why they seem to think that character type is a great idea, but they keep showing up in these kinds of shows (the bratty teenage boy was one reason I stopped watching V). Even bratty teenage boys probably don't like the bratty teenage boy character, since they don't see themselves as bratty but would criticize the same behavior in others. They aren't even authentic bratty teenage boys. I know some bratty teenage boys (or teenage boys who have bratty moments), and they're nothing like any of these characters. So, yay, that's an hour of programming I won't have to worry about.

While I've been so busy with convention preparation and book rewrites (that I really must get to today, as I got very little done yesterday), I thought I'd work my way through some of the books on my To-Be-Read pile. I need something to read a little of before I go to bed at night, but I didn't want anything that would turn into a distraction, and the category romances in the pile sounded like a good fit since I was already in the mood for something romantic. I remembered why I quit reading category romances. I used to read a lot of them, but now I can't recall if I ever really liked them or if I liked the idea of them while finding that the actual books usually fell short of what I wanted them to be (much the way I've been with most of the steampunk I've read -- I LOVE the idea, haven't really found the book that lives up to what I want that sort of thing to be).

For one thing, there's the challenge of finding ways to have conflict. I will admit that a book that goes along the lines of "I like you, let's get to know each other, and then we'll gradually fall in love" would probably be boring. I'm not a big fan of the "I hate you, but you're really hot" plot, but then it's way too easy to fall into weird contrivances to keep apart people who actually like each other. One of the worst that I can recall involved a woman who'd spent much of her life taking care of other people and now had a chance to be independent, so she'd decided she was going to be on her own for a while. Then when she met Mr. Perfect, her big "dilemma" was that here was this great guy she wanted to be with, but darn, she'd already decided to be alone. I can totally get the deciding not to deal with dating. That's essentially what I've done, but if I met someone I actually wanted to date and get romantically involved with, I would be willing to reconsider. I wouldn't be all twisted up into conflicted knots because I wanted to date him, but I'd decided not to date. It's really hard to get into a book when the dilemma is so easily solved -- change your mind! It's not like she'd just taken vows at the convent or become married to Mr. He'll Do when she met Mr. Perfect. I think this is a big reason why I like my romance mixed in with science fiction, fantasy, mystery or adventure. Then you can have two people who like each other and get along but who still have conflict. It's "I like you, but people are dying left and right/the orcs are attacking/the aliens are invading/the evil secret organization is chasing us/the evil wizard is trying to take over the world, so we'll have to get to know each other during the crisis, and hey, if we both survive, then we can live happily ever after."

The other problem tends to come later in the book at what is often called The Black Moment. It's the Death/Resurrection part of the hero's journey, or, in a romance it's the "boy loses girl" part, where it looks like there's no way things can possibly work out. But in a lot of these books, I've started to think of this part as The Big Hissy Fit. The thing that tears our characters apart just when you thought everything was going to work out can't be too huge, or else they couldn't get together at the end, and that generally means it's a misunderstanding or petty dispute. A lot of times, it's when the secret one person has been keeping comes out, but that can get awfully silly. The book that may have been the last category romance I read until last week took the cake. The hero had some low-paying public servant type job in a small town, and The Big Hissy Fit came when the heroine learned that he was a former financial whiz who'd had some kind of epiphany, realized how meaningless all that was, and he'd walked away from that world. All the money he'd socked away allowed him to take a meaningful but low-paying public servant job and still live modestly but comfortably while still contributing to worthy causes in the town. And the heroine was actually furious to learn this. She felt so betrayed that she refused to speak to him and left the town. I know I just hate it when a guy I'm falling in love with turns out to be even more amazing than I imagined, and that I can have someone who is both wealthy and contributing something to society.</sarcasm> I could have understood if he'd been pretending to be wealthy to lure her in and then turned out to be poor. I could even have maybe understood if he'd pretended to be really poor as some kind of test to make sure she wasn't a golddigger, since that implies a lack of faith in her. But I can't imagine any normal person flipping out because she learned that her boyfriend had more in his bank account than she expected. Is there something wrong with living below your means but in a way that's comfortable for you? Are you obligated to live in a mansion and drive a BMW just because you can afford it, even if you'd rather live in a smaller house and drive a pickup truck?

In the book I read last week, something the hero did caused the single mom heroine to lose the extra job she'd taken so she could pay her daughter's tuition at the fancy college her daughter had always dreamed of attending (never mind that the mother didn't consider letting Special Snowflake go to a state school closer to home that she could afford). To make it up to her, he established an anonymous scholarship at the school and had it awarded to the daughter. She didn't learn this until after they'd gotten into a relationship, and she was furious to learn it. Maybe I'm greedy, but I'd have felt like he'd taken a good step toward atoning (though I might not have started sleeping with him after he lost me my job).

I guess I prefer my black moment to be some kind of literal life or death situation, where it's not something inherent to the couple and their emotions that threatens to tear them apart, but rather that the thing that they're up against is so big that there's a chance that one or both of them might not survive, or there's a chance that if they fail in their mission, the situation that will result won't be conducive to a romantic happily ever after ("well, we may be spending the rest of our lives in an orc prison camp while the evil wizard ruins the world, but at least we have each other" doesn't quite work for me).

I think I'm going to go against my nature and put all these books in the "donate for library book sale" bag, even if I haven't read them, because it's a good bet that I won't enjoy them.