Kate Elliott's Blog, page 42
February 21, 2011
Con or Bust offer: Advance reading copy of Cold Fire (Spiritwalker #2)
Con or Bust has started.
I'm offering an advance reading copy of COLD FIRE (Spiritwalker #2). The book is scheduled for publication Sept 2011. The early reading copy will likely be available May, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, I will send it on to the winning bidder when I get it.
I'm offering an advance reading copy of COLD FIRE (Spiritwalker #2). The book is scheduled for publication Sept 2011. The early reading copy will likely be available May, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, I will send it on to the winning bidder when I get it.
February 19, 2011
A Brief Comment on "The New Gritty"
I'm not really entering the nihilistic fantasy discussion because its originator post strikes me as more political than literary, and that includes the fact that the original post does not mention a single female writer, an elision I consider relevant to the larger points. Some of these "older" notions of honor and morality are, shall we say, ones that either confine or elide women, so they are in that sense rarely "universals" except in a narrow range of defining what is to be considered universal which becomes universal often through measures of exclusion.
Now, I have my own issues with times I have come across people who seem to be saying that depictions of human cruelty and/or treachery, say, are "more authentic" than depictions of human kindness and honor, say. Both cruelty and kindness (expand these dualities as you wish) exist within the human condition. I'm not going to go into what reservations I may have on that here at the moment either (although they can be tackled in the comments).
Also, be aware that I do not have a single view of things. I tend to have nuanced and sometimes even contradictory views of things (although not always; sometimes I'm very simplistic). So what I say below is ONE comment I have on "the new gritty" -- not the totality of my thoughts on it or supposed nihilism, or the death of morality, or whatever.
But. It does occur to me that a reason -- one possible reason -- for the rise of the new gritty may be not the death of morality but the death of belief in the stories that we were told to believe were the truest measure of what is foundational.
When I look, for instance, at the amazing demonstrations in the Arab world right now, I see them being driven by young people who perceive the old institutions, both physical and symbolic, as corrupt and oppressive and as layered with a gilded veneer of putative truth over a pit of lies, greed, and force. And I don't say that specifically about the Arab world. I mean that in the greater sense of a significant shift as the 20th century lurches onward into the 21st and a new generation calls for transparency, equality, and honesty, a generation that may have reason to doubt they have been well served environmentally and economically (just to name two axes) by the institutions and economies and mindsets currently in power.
So I am not surprised to see some of the writers of today writing skeptically or critically or even cynically about the institutions and "sentiments" that we have societally been raised to valorize even and maybe especially in the fiction we tell ourselves to try to describe what I might call "deeper truths" about culture and society and our place in it. So maybe those people write in ways that are uncomfortable, unpleasant, or downright ugly.
As a reader, I may or may not want to read such works. In fact, I think such works themselves are too individual in tone and outlook to be usefully lumped together as if they are all the same. But on this axis of inquiry at least I have a sense of where some of them may be coming from.
(okay, not so brief)
Now, I have my own issues with times I have come across people who seem to be saying that depictions of human cruelty and/or treachery, say, are "more authentic" than depictions of human kindness and honor, say. Both cruelty and kindness (expand these dualities as you wish) exist within the human condition. I'm not going to go into what reservations I may have on that here at the moment either (although they can be tackled in the comments).
Also, be aware that I do not have a single view of things. I tend to have nuanced and sometimes even contradictory views of things (although not always; sometimes I'm very simplistic). So what I say below is ONE comment I have on "the new gritty" -- not the totality of my thoughts on it or supposed nihilism, or the death of morality, or whatever.
But. It does occur to me that a reason -- one possible reason -- for the rise of the new gritty may be not the death of morality but the death of belief in the stories that we were told to believe were the truest measure of what is foundational.
When I look, for instance, at the amazing demonstrations in the Arab world right now, I see them being driven by young people who perceive the old institutions, both physical and symbolic, as corrupt and oppressive and as layered with a gilded veneer of putative truth over a pit of lies, greed, and force. And I don't say that specifically about the Arab world. I mean that in the greater sense of a significant shift as the 20th century lurches onward into the 21st and a new generation calls for transparency, equality, and honesty, a generation that may have reason to doubt they have been well served environmentally and economically (just to name two axes) by the institutions and economies and mindsets currently in power.
So I am not surprised to see some of the writers of today writing skeptically or critically or even cynically about the institutions and "sentiments" that we have societally been raised to valorize even and maybe especially in the fiction we tell ourselves to try to describe what I might call "deeper truths" about culture and society and our place in it. So maybe those people write in ways that are uncomfortable, unpleasant, or downright ugly.
As a reader, I may or may not want to read such works. In fact, I think such works themselves are too individual in tone and outlook to be usefully lumped together as if they are all the same. But on this axis of inquiry at least I have a sense of where some of them may be coming from.
(okay, not so brief)
February 18, 2011
Do Females Write Epic Fantasy Differently Than Males Do?
This is more in the nature of a drive by post to note for the record that I'm on massive deadline doing revisions for COLD FIRE (Spiritwalker #2). Writing, as always, in my girly way.
I have literally not had time to refer to or discuss the various internet things about fantasy, nihilism, morals or lack thereof, beauty and truth, and so on and so forth except mostly to note that as so often, these conversations mostly seem to revolve around men and male writers. My god, people, were there not enough battle scenes in Crown of Stars? And yet, somehow this remains also a stereotype, that a sword fight, say, reflects masculinity and not femininity.
So, while I'm busy, tell me: do females write epic fantasy differently than males do? If so, how and why?
I have literally not had time to refer to or discuss the various internet things about fantasy, nihilism, morals or lack thereof, beauty and truth, and so on and so forth except mostly to note that as so often, these conversations mostly seem to revolve around men and male writers. My god, people, were there not enough battle scenes in Crown of Stars? And yet, somehow this remains also a stereotype, that a sword fight, say, reflects masculinity and not femininity.
So, while I'm busy, tell me: do females write epic fantasy differently than males do? If so, how and why?
February 7, 2011
Brian Jacques
Author of the Redwall series of children's books, Brian Jacques has died at the age of 71. His last completed novel is in production and slated for publication in May.
I never read a Jacques novel. Neither did my daughter, who was, I think, sorry to see that her favorite animals, like rats and weasels, were always the bad guys (this may have changed later; I don't know).
What I know is that when my sons were in fourth grade, every book in the Redwall series then published was read by every boy in their grade who was a reader. The library had a wait list for the books. They talked about the books. They were excited by the story and characters.
I really don't know anything about Jacques. But I'm always sorry to lose a writer who got children so enthused about reading.
I never read a Jacques novel. Neither did my daughter, who was, I think, sorry to see that her favorite animals, like rats and weasels, were always the bad guys (this may have changed later; I don't know).
What I know is that when my sons were in fourth grade, every book in the Redwall series then published was read by every boy in their grade who was a reader. The library had a wait list for the books. They talked about the books. They were excited by the story and characters.
I really don't know anything about Jacques. But I'm always sorry to lose a writer who got children so enthused about reading.
February 4, 2011
Revising & "Feminization" in Epic Fantasy
I've just started revisions for Cold Fire so will be intermittent here (although I have a few posts written and ready to post that I'll slot in).
Meanwhile, I port you over to a really interesting discussion (on which I've weighed in late) over on N.K. Jemisin's fabulous blog. The subject? Feminization in epic fantasy?
Meanwhile, I port you over to a really interesting discussion (on which I've weighed in late) over on N.K. Jemisin's fabulous blog. The subject? Feminization in epic fantasy?
February 1, 2011
The Brilliance and Radical Nature of Narrative: License to Ensorcell
Katharine Kerr's new novel, LICENSE TO ENSORCELL, is published February 1 (which is today already for most of you) in the USA by DAW Books. LICENSE is an urban fantasy set in San Francisco, a thoroughly enjoyable and fast paced novel about psychic agent Nola O'Grady, the very secret agency she works for, her peculiar family, and the unexpected new colleague, Ari Nathan, she has to work with on a case that has deep and traumatic personal connections for Nola.
Just read it. It's funny (it made me laugh out loud a number of times), it's San Francisco written by someone who lives there and knows the city, and one of its many joys is the way there is always more than meets the eye as the story unfolds.
For this post, I want to talk about something else that interests me that this book in particular has made me think about.
I read first read LICENSE as a beta reader. That is, I read an early draft, made comments, read revised scenes and sometimes the same scene several times as it was refined. I have also followed the development of the series (I have read book 2 and partials of book 3) in a constant exchange of emails with Kit. She has, by the way, done the same for me with my current Spiritwalker books. I am not sure who has bitched or whined most (I'm pretty sure I have), but we're not keeping score.
What interests me is that no matter how many times I read a rewritten scene, or Kit writes me to bounce a question or thought off me, I never get tired of talking about Nola and Ari. Obviously Ari and Nola are imaginary characters in a novel. And yet I feel a sense of investment in them as people I know and care about.
When you think about this process, this is the brilliance and radical nature of narrative. It's also kind of weird.
When I mentioned this to Kit, she replied:
Indeed. And it's something that I don't think is explored enough, the way a well-done narrative engages our emotions and our senses, even though what we're reading or hearing is quite simply not real, untrue, a packet of lies.
When I read really vivid descriptions, pictures build up in my brain. I hear the voices not just of the characters, but of the author. When I read your stuff, I hear you telling it to me. For someone like Proust, whom of course I'll never hear in real life, I still have a voice that's only his and that appears every time I read something of his.
What does this, I wonder? It's really strange, when you think about it.
It is really strange, when you think about it. I know people who don't read fiction because "it isn't real," (as I wrote about a bit in this post) and yet, for me, somehow it is "real" even though I know it isn't.
Comments?
Just read it. It's funny (it made me laugh out loud a number of times), it's San Francisco written by someone who lives there and knows the city, and one of its many joys is the way there is always more than meets the eye as the story unfolds.
For this post, I want to talk about something else that interests me that this book in particular has made me think about.
I read first read LICENSE as a beta reader. That is, I read an early draft, made comments, read revised scenes and sometimes the same scene several times as it was refined. I have also followed the development of the series (I have read book 2 and partials of book 3) in a constant exchange of emails with Kit. She has, by the way, done the same for me with my current Spiritwalker books. I am not sure who has bitched or whined most (I'm pretty sure I have), but we're not keeping score.
What interests me is that no matter how many times I read a rewritten scene, or Kit writes me to bounce a question or thought off me, I never get tired of talking about Nola and Ari. Obviously Ari and Nola are imaginary characters in a novel. And yet I feel a sense of investment in them as people I know and care about.
When you think about this process, this is the brilliance and radical nature of narrative. It's also kind of weird.
When I mentioned this to Kit, she replied:
Indeed. And it's something that I don't think is explored enough, the way a well-done narrative engages our emotions and our senses, even though what we're reading or hearing is quite simply not real, untrue, a packet of lies.
When I read really vivid descriptions, pictures build up in my brain. I hear the voices not just of the characters, but of the author. When I read your stuff, I hear you telling it to me. For someone like Proust, whom of course I'll never hear in real life, I still have a voice that's only his and that appears every time I read something of his.
What does this, I wonder? It's really strange, when you think about it.
It is really strange, when you think about it. I know people who don't read fiction because "it isn't real," (as I wrote about a bit in this post) and yet, for me, somehow it is "real" even though I know it isn't.
Comments?
Review of Cold Magic That Engages Academically with the World-building
I've been avoiding posting reviews here and mostly linking to them occasionally on Twitter/Facebook, but I wanted to note this one on Strange Horizons in particular because it is written by an academic (medievalist Edward James) who (to say the least) knows his stuff, so I'm quite chuffed.
The review is of Cold Magic but references my other two fantasy series as well. There are major spoilers for Cold Magic, for those of you who wish to avoid spoilers.
I believe he is the first reviewer of Cold Magic to specifically note in the review that there are no Germanic-derived place names*.
You have NO IDEA how difficult that was to manage for someone, like me, of no particular linguistic skill, aptitude, or knowledge base.
*except Newfield, which is a translation of the Roman name of the town in question.
The review is of Cold Magic but references my other two fantasy series as well. There are major spoilers for Cold Magic, for those of you who wish to avoid spoilers.
I believe he is the first reviewer of Cold Magic to specifically note in the review that there are no Germanic-derived place names*.
You have NO IDEA how difficult that was to manage for someone, like me, of no particular linguistic skill, aptitude, or knowledge base.
*except Newfield, which is a translation of the Roman name of the town in question.
Review of Cold Magic
I've been avoiding posting reviews here and mostly linking to them occasionally on Twitter/Facebook, but I wanted to note this one on Strange Horizons in particular because it is written by an academic (medievalist Edward James) who (to say the least) knows his stuff, so I'm quite chuffed.
The review is of Cold Magic but references my other two fantasy series as well. There are major spoilers for Cold Magic, for those of you who wish to avoid spoilers.
I believe he is the first reviewer of Cold Magic to specifically note in the review that there are no Germanic-derived place names*.
You have NO IDEA how difficult that was to manage for someone, like me, of no particular linguistic skill, aptitude, or knowledge base.
*except Newfield, which is a translation of the Roman name of the town in question.
The review is of Cold Magic but references my other two fantasy series as well. There are major spoilers for Cold Magic, for those of you who wish to avoid spoilers.
I believe he is the first reviewer of Cold Magic to specifically note in the review that there are no Germanic-derived place names*.
You have NO IDEA how difficult that was to manage for someone, like me, of no particular linguistic skill, aptitude, or knowledge base.
*except Newfield, which is a translation of the Roman name of the town in question.
January 28, 2011
Novels and Real Life
I know people who don't read novels because they're not real. The stories aren't real. The characters aren't real. To which I say: Fair enough.
There are types of writing and/or film and/or music I don't or even can't engage with, for various reasons, so I'm not one to argue or dismiss other people's criteria and tastes and preferences on such a score.
However, the question of reality is an often perplexing issue. Are novels "real?" Well, no, not in that way, if by "real" we mean actual things that happened to actual people in the way described in the story in a setting that looks and works exactly the way we understand our world to look and to work.
What about using a real trauma or injustice or difficulty as fodder for fiction, by which I don't mean a specific event appropriated and fictionalized but in the more general sense? Is there a kind of ethical cheapening involved because you are writing about something that causes (or has caused) pain, or joy, to actual people, in order to entertain? Or is there a form of reality involved in novels? That is, in the sense of a writer trying to explore the meaning and impact of different kinds of events and situations through the lives of characters with whom the reader (and presumably the writer as well) develops a sort of relationship?
The question of novels and real life is one that often vexes me, or perhaps I should say, one with which I am always wrestling. As a writer, I am deeply influenced by my own past and present, of course. I'm also influenced by the lens of my own way of filtering the world, which is unique to me but also part of the overall social system in which I live and the angles through which I fit into that system. I think a great deal about what is going on in the world around me and what it means, as well as our human attempts to understand how things may have been in the past and are now.
Much of this rumination becomes transformed or transmogrified within my fiction. In some ways, I use fiction to try to sort out my feelings about the world and about people. In other ways, I use fiction to get that peculiar thrill that comes from reading (or reading via writing) narrative whose very form and existence is like a pumped-up delivery system for heightened engagement with character, setting, emotion, and event.
I can shorthand my books to theme more easily than I can shorthand their (some would say overly complex) plots, plethora of characters, and emotional kick.
The Crossroads Trilogy contains, among other things, a disquisition on the nature of power and the degree to which power corrupts. Crown of Stars, among other things, examines the nature of the face people show to the world versus the reality of what is going on inside them; in the books I address this directly when I reference "the outer seeming and the inner heart." Both series address (in different ways) the disconnect between the stories we tell ourselves about the nobility, glory, and necessity of war and the reality of the terrible disruption, brutality, and pain that are part of war.
Crown of Stars also addresses inequality and how hierarchies protect a few and make the many vulnerable. (small spoiler ahead, if you haven't read CoS) Liath's story at the beginning of King's Dragon is the same awful story that happens to countless girls past and present who do not have the social connections or power to protect themselves from harm. Hugh can buy, degrade, and eventually rape Liath with the consent of the local community because his status allows him to do so with impunity (whereas WHY he does so plays a major part in the continuing story). Now, there's no requirement for a reader to like that particular plot nor to continue reading if they don't like it. But I do get puzzled by the rare criticism I have gotten regarding Liath's initial traumatic situation--specifically the stated assumption that I gratuitously played up a cheap and cliched device purely for dramatic entertainment purposes--because the issue of power vs powerlessness that drives that particular narrative is laid out pretty strongly.
It does give one pause, though.
Not about Liath's story in King's Dragon. That's the story I meant to tell, not as a dramatic device but as a story about hierarchies and inequality (and also about recovery). I don't ever want to forget how vulnerable far too many people are in this world, past and present and, alas, future.
Yet nevertheless it is "easy" for me to write about grim or difficult subjects from the comfort of my nice desk and my pleasant surroundings with a supportive family, an education, enough to eat, and health insurance, to name a few of the advantages I cherish. Does this mean I should not tackle such subjects? Who am I to think I have the right or the insight or the knowledge to write about so much pain?
I tend to think humans tell stories to try to make sense of things (as well as to share). Humans are pattern makers; stories are patterns.
By that I don't mean that I think narrative has to be edifying, educational, moralistic, or sermonizing. I just think we tell stories to get at hearts and minds, in varying ways and with diverse impulses and perspectives. Meanwhile, the real world happens to and around those of us who are telling, drawing, speaking, singing, building, or writing stories.
I suspect some of you are wondering what prompted this.
In the Spiritwalker books I'm writing a story about, among other things, revolution and breaking the chains that bind people to old obligations and oppressive legal structures. This is, by the way, a theme I have grazed through before in all my other works in one form or another. In the current project, Cold Magic (book 1) plants the seed of this thematic element. Unless I'm asked by my editor to make substantial revisions that change the way the story bends, Cold Fire (book 2) will further explore (among other things) the nature of freedom and the desire of people to struggle for greater autonomy and against rulers who rule in the name of and to preserve the privileges of those already in power. (Also, there will be sex, death, sharks, zombies, air pirates, hurricanes, guava, sports, sewing, and yet more about the intelligent descendants of troodons.)
Meanwhile, the world is watching (or not watching, because some governments have the capacity and willingness to shut down the internet) an unprecedented series of protests against autocratic governments across North Africa and Western Asia in countries including Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, and of course (I have not forgotten) Iran. People are out there putting their lives, health, freedom, and voices on the line.
In real time.
Now.
I cannot help but be charged, influenced, pierced, and even changed by the real events happening to real people in the real world, sometimes to me and obviously most often to the many billions who are not me. Yet I write fiction. For me, as a writer, story comes from that point of shared humanity in which we all have a part (although far too many people have no means to voice their own untold stories). I can be ignorant or unaware; I can put things aside or stand detached (sometimes as a survival mechanism and sometimes simply because I am able to); but at some deep level it seems to me there is an ocean into which all these tributaries run and in which we dip a toe or drown or paddle or surf or swim or dive, or breathe.
I don't mean that in the specific sense: this thing happened to you so I can take it and tell a story about it. I mean it in the sense that the human experience is vast, unpredictable, contradictory, emotional, and too profoundly driven by unintended consequences and butterfly wings to be quantifiable (even though people often try to chops things up to be cut and dried, profitable, and possessed). When I am physically, personally, out on the living ocean in a canoe, I swing between the emotions of humility and awe and peace, and of course if the waves and wind are up, the thrill of the adrenalin rush and its sisters fear and immediacy. That is what I mean.
What will happen today or tomorrow or the day after or next year or next century I could not say. I have my hopes, but I don't know. Novels are my personal way of making patterns, of trying to sort through my thoughts and if not understand then at least figure out what my questions are and to what I owe my hopes and dreams.
There are types of writing and/or film and/or music I don't or even can't engage with, for various reasons, so I'm not one to argue or dismiss other people's criteria and tastes and preferences on such a score.
However, the question of reality is an often perplexing issue. Are novels "real?" Well, no, not in that way, if by "real" we mean actual things that happened to actual people in the way described in the story in a setting that looks and works exactly the way we understand our world to look and to work.
What about using a real trauma or injustice or difficulty as fodder for fiction, by which I don't mean a specific event appropriated and fictionalized but in the more general sense? Is there a kind of ethical cheapening involved because you are writing about something that causes (or has caused) pain, or joy, to actual people, in order to entertain? Or is there a form of reality involved in novels? That is, in the sense of a writer trying to explore the meaning and impact of different kinds of events and situations through the lives of characters with whom the reader (and presumably the writer as well) develops a sort of relationship?
The question of novels and real life is one that often vexes me, or perhaps I should say, one with which I am always wrestling. As a writer, I am deeply influenced by my own past and present, of course. I'm also influenced by the lens of my own way of filtering the world, which is unique to me but also part of the overall social system in which I live and the angles through which I fit into that system. I think a great deal about what is going on in the world around me and what it means, as well as our human attempts to understand how things may have been in the past and are now.
Much of this rumination becomes transformed or transmogrified within my fiction. In some ways, I use fiction to try to sort out my feelings about the world and about people. In other ways, I use fiction to get that peculiar thrill that comes from reading (or reading via writing) narrative whose very form and existence is like a pumped-up delivery system for heightened engagement with character, setting, emotion, and event.
I can shorthand my books to theme more easily than I can shorthand their (some would say overly complex) plots, plethora of characters, and emotional kick.
The Crossroads Trilogy contains, among other things, a disquisition on the nature of power and the degree to which power corrupts. Crown of Stars, among other things, examines the nature of the face people show to the world versus the reality of what is going on inside them; in the books I address this directly when I reference "the outer seeming and the inner heart." Both series address (in different ways) the disconnect between the stories we tell ourselves about the nobility, glory, and necessity of war and the reality of the terrible disruption, brutality, and pain that are part of war.
Crown of Stars also addresses inequality and how hierarchies protect a few and make the many vulnerable. (small spoiler ahead, if you haven't read CoS) Liath's story at the beginning of King's Dragon is the same awful story that happens to countless girls past and present who do not have the social connections or power to protect themselves from harm. Hugh can buy, degrade, and eventually rape Liath with the consent of the local community because his status allows him to do so with impunity (whereas WHY he does so plays a major part in the continuing story). Now, there's no requirement for a reader to like that particular plot nor to continue reading if they don't like it. But I do get puzzled by the rare criticism I have gotten regarding Liath's initial traumatic situation--specifically the stated assumption that I gratuitously played up a cheap and cliched device purely for dramatic entertainment purposes--because the issue of power vs powerlessness that drives that particular narrative is laid out pretty strongly.
It does give one pause, though.
Not about Liath's story in King's Dragon. That's the story I meant to tell, not as a dramatic device but as a story about hierarchies and inequality (and also about recovery). I don't ever want to forget how vulnerable far too many people are in this world, past and present and, alas, future.
Yet nevertheless it is "easy" for me to write about grim or difficult subjects from the comfort of my nice desk and my pleasant surroundings with a supportive family, an education, enough to eat, and health insurance, to name a few of the advantages I cherish. Does this mean I should not tackle such subjects? Who am I to think I have the right or the insight or the knowledge to write about so much pain?
I tend to think humans tell stories to try to make sense of things (as well as to share). Humans are pattern makers; stories are patterns.
By that I don't mean that I think narrative has to be edifying, educational, moralistic, or sermonizing. I just think we tell stories to get at hearts and minds, in varying ways and with diverse impulses and perspectives. Meanwhile, the real world happens to and around those of us who are telling, drawing, speaking, singing, building, or writing stories.
I suspect some of you are wondering what prompted this.
In the Spiritwalker books I'm writing a story about, among other things, revolution and breaking the chains that bind people to old obligations and oppressive legal structures. This is, by the way, a theme I have grazed through before in all my other works in one form or another. In the current project, Cold Magic (book 1) plants the seed of this thematic element. Unless I'm asked by my editor to make substantial revisions that change the way the story bends, Cold Fire (book 2) will further explore (among other things) the nature of freedom and the desire of people to struggle for greater autonomy and against rulers who rule in the name of and to preserve the privileges of those already in power. (Also, there will be sex, death, sharks, zombies, air pirates, hurricanes, guava, sports, sewing, and yet more about the intelligent descendants of troodons.)
Meanwhile, the world is watching (or not watching, because some governments have the capacity and willingness to shut down the internet) an unprecedented series of protests against autocratic governments across North Africa and Western Asia in countries including Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, and of course (I have not forgotten) Iran. People are out there putting their lives, health, freedom, and voices on the line.
In real time.
Now.
I cannot help but be charged, influenced, pierced, and even changed by the real events happening to real people in the real world, sometimes to me and obviously most often to the many billions who are not me. Yet I write fiction. For me, as a writer, story comes from that point of shared humanity in which we all have a part (although far too many people have no means to voice their own untold stories). I can be ignorant or unaware; I can put things aside or stand detached (sometimes as a survival mechanism and sometimes simply because I am able to); but at some deep level it seems to me there is an ocean into which all these tributaries run and in which we dip a toe or drown or paddle or surf or swim or dive, or breathe.
I don't mean that in the specific sense: this thing happened to you so I can take it and tell a story about it. I mean it in the sense that the human experience is vast, unpredictable, contradictory, emotional, and too profoundly driven by unintended consequences and butterfly wings to be quantifiable (even though people often try to chops things up to be cut and dried, profitable, and possessed). When I am physically, personally, out on the living ocean in a canoe, I swing between the emotions of humility and awe and peace, and of course if the waves and wind are up, the thrill of the adrenalin rush and its sisters fear and immediacy. That is what I mean.
What will happen today or tomorrow or the day after or next year or next century I could not say. I have my hopes, but I don't know. Novels are my personal way of making patterns, of trying to sort through my thoughts and if not understand then at least figure out what my questions are and to what I owe my hopes and dreams.
January 27, 2011
POV & Sympathy
As a reader, I often (although not always) tend to gravitate to fiction in which I feel some sort of sympathy or compassion or resonance with the point of view character(s). That is, either I like them and therefore feel a need to know what happens to them, or at the very least I feel a sense of engagement with them such that I want to know what happens to them.
On the whole, I tend to prefer to like at least some of the characters in a novel; if I don't, it can become difficult for me to push on. I have, in rare cases, simply stopped reading a novel because I felt no affinity or actual dislike for the protagonist even if other elements of the novel--writing, setting, pacing--were perfectly fine.
One advantage in using multiple character points of view in a novel or series is that the writer can deploy a variety of character types (depending on how many point of view characters you are willing to juggle), some of whom can be sympathetic and some less so.
In addition, I always remember that a character I love may be one some readers will feel indifferent toward or actively dislike. For instance, I received email from a reader who talked a bit about the different pov characters in the Crossroads Trilogy and the ones he felt most connected to. Mai was not one of those; and yet other readers have specifically singled out Mai as the character they felt most connected to. One reader found Cat, the protagonist of Cold Magic, to be bland, while others wrote about how engaging she was.
I expect every writer here has had the experience of a being told by one reader that X is their fave character while Y is disagreeable, while another reader has the opposite opinion.
We will not all like or identify with the same experiences, traits, and personalities.
So I wanted to ask you all, as readers and writers:
How important is it to you (in either or both capacities--that is, speaking as a reader, or speaking as a writer) that point of view characters be sympathetic? How would you define sympathetic?
On the whole, I tend to prefer to like at least some of the characters in a novel; if I don't, it can become difficult for me to push on. I have, in rare cases, simply stopped reading a novel because I felt no affinity or actual dislike for the protagonist even if other elements of the novel--writing, setting, pacing--were perfectly fine.
One advantage in using multiple character points of view in a novel or series is that the writer can deploy a variety of character types (depending on how many point of view characters you are willing to juggle), some of whom can be sympathetic and some less so.
In addition, I always remember that a character I love may be one some readers will feel indifferent toward or actively dislike. For instance, I received email from a reader who talked a bit about the different pov characters in the Crossroads Trilogy and the ones he felt most connected to. Mai was not one of those; and yet other readers have specifically singled out Mai as the character they felt most connected to. One reader found Cat, the protagonist of Cold Magic, to be bland, while others wrote about how engaging she was.
I expect every writer here has had the experience of a being told by one reader that X is their fave character while Y is disagreeable, while another reader has the opposite opinion.
We will not all like or identify with the same experiences, traits, and personalities.
So I wanted to ask you all, as readers and writers:
How important is it to you (in either or both capacities--that is, speaking as a reader, or speaking as a writer) that point of view characters be sympathetic? How would you define sympathetic?
