Where Have All the Editors Gone? (A Reader's Perspective)

Short break for a word count here:  46,717.  The end is in sight regarding my middle point (or part two, as I like to call it) in Aeris.  Thank goodness!  I was beginning to think that I wouldn't ever get to it.  It didn't help that I forgot to outline my "trigger" scenario.  In Compis, there were a clear set of circumstances that indicated a midpoint.  In Aeris, it's a bit trickier, because I can't just start up part two where Nikka moves from one tribe to the next.  All three characters have to reach a balanced tipping point.  However, thanks to some rather interesting events that have unfolded, I will be able to grab onto them and run with it.

Every time I think I know how things are going to go, my little world turns right around and reminds me that I'm merely the vessel to transcribe its existence.  I do not create it. :)

As for my goal: I think 50,000 by the Sunday isn't unreasonable.  I've been getting up about 15 min. earlier this week, and that has really helped me get the tiniest edge over my early riser son. :)

On to a less pleasant subject, but one that has been bothering my reader brain for quite some time now.  I read a LOT.  I know I've mentioned it before, but I do.  And I enjoy good writing.  I relish it, actually.  I'm not talking about blog writing or news articles, or forum posts.  I'm talking about honest to goodness, I took a lot of time and effort to put this together and it SHOWS writing.  Best example and the guru I will always look to for some of the best writing I've ever read, Barbara Kingsolver.  She has it all —the perfect mix of prose, metaphor, simile, storyline and characters of anyone I've ever read.  George is a close second to that, but even he can't match her for beauty.  It's like Mary Oliver decided to ditch poetry and become a storyteller.

I realize not everyone can meet this standard.  I don't demand it of many authors.  Certainly, the YA genre is not expected to live up to it.  Why should it?  Teenagers want short, well-written but to the point prose, and romance.  That is pretty much the gist of what the industry has been demanding.  Sure, you can throw in a love triangle or a pair of star-crossed lovers and make them especially happy, but really, their needs are simple.  Which is NOT to say that the writing must be simple or lack intelligence or prose.  I'm just saying, YA doesn't demand it, not like literary fiction does.

That being said, a book SHOULD live up to its self-imposed labels.  If you want to be YA fiction romantic comedy, you better be funny.  If you want to write paranormal fiction, you know this means phenomena unexplained by science, living in a real world.  Don't go putting cowboys in there, unless you want to relabel what you have to offer.

So here is where the short story The Strange Case of Finley Jayne comes in.  First of all, yes I understand it's a SHORT STORY.  Yes, I understand there is an actual NOVEL to delve into, if I want the chance.  I've already bought it, thanks.  What I question, is why this short story exists AT ALL.  What is its purpose?  To entice me with its $0.00 price tag and then convince me to buy The Girl in the Steel Corset?  If so, it has failed miserably and more is the pity.

There are a lot of ways to write a short story, I've written quite a few of them myself.  This is NOT the way.  Finley Jayne, who could be a perfectly likeable character, is stilted, chained to this detestable storyline that stumbles along till its inevitable end, and is given nothing, really, to highlight the coolness of her character.  The other characters are equally as shallow, and lend pretty much nothing to the story, except to bring us to the end of it.

It's almost as though (and again, this is a limited review, since I haven't read the novel) the author was approached by Harlequin, whom she writes ADULT ROMANCES for, and they said, "Hey, why don't you write YA, which you know nothing about, and we'll pay you."  And she was like, "Sure, that sounds like fun.  Steampunk is pretty popular now, I've heard, and you guys aren't publishing that through Harper Teen.  Why don't I try that?"  BAD IDEA.

I can tell the author has written in the time period before and has done research on it.  She calls objects by their proper names.  But the dialog and slang she uses are laughable.  It's annoying trying to read a book set in Victorian England, when you keep getting pulled out of the story by American slang that is set WELL AFTER the time period in question.  It's great if you want to throw in words like automaton, and such, but you need to DESCRIBE them to actually make us believe we are in the alternate world you've tried to paint.

At this point in time, all I can wonder is... where in the hell was the editor for this?  Who let this slide?  Where was the person circling words like pissed, icky, and racy with bright red pen.  Why didn't someone take the author aside and say, "They aren't middle schoolers.  You can use bigger words and longer sentences.  Don't talk down to your readers."

My hope is that this was a blip.  Maybe the publishers did a crappy job because this is just supposed to be a taste of a better book so they didn't dedicate any resources to it.  I'll find out when I read the novel.

On a lighter note, I started Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan, and it is absolutely the opposite.  What a wonderful, descriptive, well-written take on steampunk.  I wasn't keen on his Uglies series, but this one has been highly enjoyable.