Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
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End of the Trail
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November Read 2011: End of Trail
You guys didn't feel like Molly and Tommy were necessary to show why John felt like he'd be welcome if he showed up there and why Will felt obligated to take him in? I agree that Molly and Tommy weren't fleshed out well, and it is weird that he wasn't trying to get Tommy back first chance he got, but I'm trying to envision how the author would get across the obligatory welcome without having a the prologue information.
Of course, I'm no author, so maybe the answer to that is very simple :)
Of course, I'm no author, so maybe the answer to that is very simple :)
Mod
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Without Molly and Tommy, it's a completely different story -- a story where the author must actually have the characters talk and interact. Basically that's all avoided throughout almost the entire story.
Without Molly and Tommy, we have an opening where this lonely, embittered rancher helps an injured man who he later discovers is a bandit. But without Molly and Tommy to fill in the chapter, the characters would have to interact, and we'd have some sense of attraction or interest, so when John turns up in the next chapter, we'd have some clue as to his motivation.
Molly and Tommy are like a stall, from a writing perspective. They are a way to start the story without actually dealing with the concerns of the story. If that makes sense? The story does not actually begin until Chapter Two when John comes back.
I use the term "begin" loosely. Because At 86% I'm still struggling to understand who these men are, what the attraction is, and what they want from each other. I still can't determine what this story is about. I can tell you what has happened so far, but what is this story about? What is the point of this story?
It should not be a rhetorical question.
Mod
Well, yes... in my opinion that is maybe the only good reason that Molly and Tommy were introduced in the first place. But when you think about it... Will saved John's life first, then John saved Molly and Tommy in return... should Will feel any obligation at all to take John in? The way I see it they were even at that point. And I do realize that Will felt obligated partly because Molly had liked the guy...
....anyway, I think I'm already confusing even myself, so I better stop this chain of thought here. But I want to say this: sometimes I just hate it when I can't express myself well enough in english! Grrrr....
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By God it's interesting to see you writers to analyze writing! You have some excellent questions there - and I'm afraid you will not get the answers from the remaining 14% you have left.
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Oh jeez. Don't even get me started on a story where all the interesting stuff takes place off-stage. Whaaa?
What is this, Greek theater? :-D
Josh wrote: "Oh jeez. Don't even get me started on a story where all the interesting stuff takes place off-stage. Whaaa?"It must be art. When I don't know what they're doing, it must be art.
Josh wrote: "At 86% I'm still struggling to understand who these men are, what the attraction is, and what they want from each other. I still can't determine what this story is about. I can tell you what has happened so far, but what is this story about? What is the point of this story?
It should not be a rhetorical question. "
I was baffled when I reached the end of the story. I felt puzzled on all kinds of levels. Somewhere up thread where you were describing fanfic you said something about the author presuming the reader's interest or involvement in the characters. I thought so too, so this reads like an episode-in-the-life-of kind of thing rather than as a complete story. Maybe like a prequel to something else.
The other thing that struck me is that it reads like someone who watches movies or TV and then translates screenplay into a written story. Lots of scene setting, using exposition to stitch bits of dialogue or action together like joining scenes when you're film editing.
Oops. I think we're talking/reviewing early. Maybe I'll shut up for a day or two!
It should not be a rhetorical question. "
I was baffled when I reached the end of the story. I felt puzzled on all kinds of levels. Somewhere up thread where you were describing fanfic you said something about the author presuming the reader's interest or involvement in the characters. I thought so too, so this reads like an episode-in-the-life-of kind of thing rather than as a complete story. Maybe like a prequel to something else.
The other thing that struck me is that it reads like someone who watches movies or TV and then translates screenplay into a written story. Lots of scene setting, using exposition to stitch bits of dialogue or action together like joining scenes when you're film editing.
Oops. I think we're talking/reviewing early. Maybe I'll shut up for a day or two!
Mod
Yep, sounds like art to me. ;)
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I know. I need to finish the book before I get too deeply into this!
Josh wrote: "Without Molly and Tommy, we have an opening where this lonely, embittered rancher helps an injured man who he later discovers is a bandit. But without Molly and Tommy to fill in the chapter, the characters would have to interact, and we'd have some sense of attraction or interest, so when John turns up in the next chapter, we'd have some clue as to his motivation. "
Okay, I get what you're talking about now. And... this is why I'm not a writer. When something doesn't quite work for me, I just move ahead, I'm not able to dissect things and see how it could be better. But reading your thoughts, I can see how that would tighten up the story substantially without changing what the author seems to want to achieve.
And yeah, Kate Mc is right, we started early. Will hush now :)
Okay, I get what you're talking about now. And... this is why I'm not a writer. When something doesn't quite work for me, I just move ahead, I'm not able to dissect things and see how it could be better. But reading your thoughts, I can see how that would tighten up the story substantially without changing what the author seems to want to achieve.
And yeah, Kate Mc is right, we started early. Will hush now :)
Mod
I'm over half way and I just can't finish this, sorry. I want to be a good group member and do the reading but I'm really having a hard time here. Everything important happens somewhere off page (and I don't mean the sex - which so far has tripped all the wrong triggers for me). In the story I feel like I'm reading the filler with all the good stuff taken out. And nothing anyone said here makes it sound like it's going to get better. Maybe if I'd read more fan fiction I'd be used to this kind of story but I'm pretty addicted to fully human characters. I'll quit now and get the gist of the story from you guys as soon as you start with the spoilers. You're far more entertaining.
Mod
I can see why a fair amount of readers did enjoy this. First off, cowboys. Always a hits green on the readometer. Secondly, not a bad story. Or, rather, not a bad idea for a story, since we never did actually get the story.
What we have is a detailed outline. The writer has left out all the difficult bits -- most of the meaningful dialog and any conflict or action -- in favor of musings about the most tangential points: thus we get a couple of pages of describing John's clothing and Will's thoughts about writing, but I never had any real sense of who these men were and what they found to love in each other.
Elliot did research, but it's a superficial kind of research. It's the kind of research that reveals men of the era wore union suits to bed but describes Molly as hanging onto the family ranch because she "wanted to work with animals."
It's a cattle ranch, not a petting zoo. People don't run cattle ranches in order to "work with animals" even today, let alone in the 19th century. The pervasive historical mindset is all wrong through this. There's no mention of religion, there's no guilt or worry over homosexuality (other than being caught, which is mostly about the fact that John is a wanted outlaw), in fact there's little fear of anything. Indians, outlaws, lawmen and other potential hostiles are described in passing, but no threat ever materializes.
No conflict ever materializes.
There's basically no story. Two men fall in love in the old west and decide to move to Boston. THAT'S the story. Everything else, every other possible obstacle, is ignored or brushed over.
So too is the developing relationship. All the good bits -- and I don't mean sex -- are skimmed over. They happen off stage.
Which in a way is interesting because next month we'll be reading The Larton Chronicles, which definitely began life as fan fiction and where much of the good stuff happens off stage (in this case including sex) and yet we see in subtle, understated, dryly humorous scene after scene how these men fell in love and created a life together.
I'm speculating that Elliot's work began life as fan fiction, but I don't know that for a fact. I have noticed that fan fiction writers do sometimes have difficulty with original characters, mistaking dumping a lot of background info for character development. That's because they're used to working with characters whom readers already know and are already invested in. So the reader fills in all the blanks. The fannish reader perceives tension and conflict where the non-fannish reader picks up nothing because the fannish reader is reading between the lines.
But it could just be that Elliot is a newish writer and needs a good editor.
Mod
I think character occupations are important, but how important they are depends on the type of story and the historical framework.
If your character is an architect in a contemporary romance, then his occupation might not be a major point. But if your character is a wanted outlaw in the 1800s, then that needs to play into the story. Otherwise, why isn't he just another cowpoke? Why isn't he Will's ranch hand or a saddlebum or the neighboring ranch foreman? To make him a famous wanted outlaw cannot be an arbitrary decision.
You can't make a character a famous wanted outlaw merely to give an interesting touch to his background -- or so that both characters can have unlimited wealth and solve any problems that might arise. There has to be some point to it.
Secondly -- and I know this is what drove some of us insane -- you cannot keep referencing all the possible dangers: a former outlaw boss who won't let John go, lawmen searching high and low for John, hostile Indians, hostile neighbors, bushwackers, suspicious neighbors, terrible weather, etc, etc and NONE of these things come to pass.
None. Not a single interesting or exciting event takes place is this entire goldarned story.
Even the long lost Tommy and his stuck up auntie never materialize to make things awkward for Will and John.
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I think that End of the Trail was a fast and somewhat pleasant to read - even too pleasant. Like Josh said no conflict ever materializes and that was THE THING that was extremely frustrating to me. As I said earlier I kept waiting certain things to happen: the final confrontation with the neighbor (can't remember his name) and some conflict that would make the hidden hatch useful. Like both Jordan and Josh said earlier, everything just happened so easily: the whole relationship between these men, ranch work, Will being away from his son, John being an outlaw...
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Josh wrote: "...Secondly -- and I know this is what drove some of us insane -- you cannot keep referencing all the possible dangers: a former outlaw boss who won't let John go, lawmen searching high and low for John, hostile Indians, hostile neighbors, bushwackers, suspicious neighbors, terrible weather, etc, etc and NONE of these things come to pass..."
Josh wrote: "...Even the long lost Tommy and his stuck up auntie never materialize to make things awkward for Will and John."
*Nods and agrees* Yup, yup. I couldn't get over the fact that Will had actually given up his son - why? It really didn't seem so hard living in the ranch that Tommy couldn't have survived it. And the religion/homosexuality... that just fit together waaaaaay too easy.
And damn, Josh, why do YOU have to type so fast!!??
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Why, ma'am, they call me the Ten Finger Kid round these parts!
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That's very true. And I'm not a writer, but weren't there such a huge amount of hints towards things/threads that might happen that one could actually write a whole series of books out of them? As a reader I would have wanted to get to know these men through only few fundamental situations.
To me Will and John were likable, but without the edge. And I definitely have nothing against cowboys - even the smelly ones that have been mentioned here earlier...
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No wonder your hands hurt from shoulders down... jeeez. I only use two fingers and dictionary.org occasionally. :)
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It made absolutely no sense. Has Elliot not seen High Chapparel or The Rifleman or any of those old westerns? That was clearly to get an inconvenient child out of the plot, because the child's very presence was bound to require more writing. :-D
This is a classic case of making it up as you go along. We have the first chapter that apparently belongs to a different story entirely. Then we have the story start again with Chapter Two -- now everything has changed with lots of dramatic stuff happening off stage (dont' get me started on that bum leg) and the plot proceeds to mosey lazily along dropping hints of all the exciting possible stuff that might happen. Then suddenly, three quarters or so through, you can feel the writer change tack. Now Will is going to be a writer for the penny novels.
Now I thought that was quite a funny, clever move. That Will is going to write about John's exploits. That really did have wonderful possibilities.
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Granted, none of them were explored. ;-P
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That is a very interesting thought. When I read the book, Molly's and Tommy's characters (or actually the lack of their characters' stage-time) started to bother me pretty soon. But I never thought that the writer could have ditched the first chapter altogether. That might have been wise, though.
And now I realize that I am in a frantic phase when I wolf down m/m book after another and don't actually stop to taste and savor them afterwards. Or maybe it's all about the book at each time in question?
I liked John and Will. They were interesting characters but there was no character arc in the story. All the interesting bits were either off the page, or didn't happen.
Elliot set up all kinds of potential conflict, but never used any of it: John's outlaw status, the evil neighboring rancher, Tommy, the curious townsfolk. Nothing bad ever happened (except offscreen page) and any difficulties, including their sexual relationship were fixed much too easily.
My pet hatred in historicals: Making the setting feel like a dressed up movie set in the 21st century. You can get all the "color" right, and still make the whole thing feel anachronistic. Which this did.
Way too much exposition to cover up doing the hard work of developing the relationship instead of using dialogue and action.
And am I imagining it, or were the two mmf scenes with the whores the most detailed sex in the book? I could be wrong, because I admit to skimming at the end, but those are what stand out in my mind, not Will and John together.
I'm repeating Josh's points here and he covers them much better, so I'll stop for a bit.
Elliot set up all kinds of potential conflict, but never used any of it: John's outlaw status, the evil neighboring rancher, Tommy, the curious townsfolk. Nothing bad ever happened (except off
My pet hatred in historicals: Making the setting feel like a dressed up movie set in the 21st century. You can get all the "color" right, and still make the whole thing feel anachronistic. Which this did.
Way too much exposition to cover up doing the hard work of developing the relationship instead of using dialogue and action.
And am I imagining it, or were the two mmf scenes with the whores the most detailed sex in the book? I could be wrong, because I admit to skimming at the end, but those are what stand out in my mind, not Will and John together.
I'm repeating Josh's points here and he covers them much better, so I'll stop for a bit.
Mod
YES! A descriptive outline is exactly what this book is. You got it.
And you're totally right. I kept wondering why they weren't worried about people finding them as a couple. I mean, this is back when that would be a big deal, and neither of them felt worried or scared. That's not normal. At all. That, and the fact that Will just kinda seems to go along with it, when he'd never contemplated being gay or sleeping with another man before. huh? How do you go from straight to gay like that? *shakes head* makes no sense.
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Well said.
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I think character occupations are important, but how important they are depends on the type of story and the historical framework.
If your character is an architect in a conte..."
Ah, character occupations, yeah, I have to agree entirely with what you've said. lol, I think I'm just going to agree to everything you have to say about this book. Yup.
Because, what she did really doesn't make much sense. Okay, I get the fact that he was this famous outlaw and that Will didn't want him to do it anymore so he stopped. Well, that didn't seem like a hard thing for him to stop doing. Sure, he did it for love, but I think in order for it to seem more realistic, it needed to have been harder for him to quit.
Mod
Elliot set up all kind..."
Kate, I'm with you. Those mmf scenes ARE what sticks most in my head above everything else just because they were so detailed compared to everything else, even the scenes with just the two men having sex. Though I do vividly recall the one sex scene where Will's leg got in the way. I'll give her props for not making every sex scene perfect, like most readers do, but that was almost too painful to read.
I think because my expectations are much lower in general, I enjoyed it more than you guys did. However, that said, it was rather disconcerting that she kept setting up situations that never came to pass - the cellar, John going to get his money/clothes, the neighbor. I would tense up waiting for the fall-out and then... moving on, nothing to see here!
The easy release of his son was also pretty out of character for the person I was led to believe Will was. Sure he may have let his son go live elsewhere if he couldn't take care of him, but to not be plotting to get him back at all? To have the means of taking great care of him and just saying "Nah, he probably won't like us together". That's really not who I thought Will was drawn to be.
But I liked the setting, I liked the growing awareness of John that Will experienced, I liked that they up and left instead of staying where they were exposed to more danger. So many of these books have MC's that are too stubborn to leave even when their lives are at stake. Also while, yes, the m/m scenes were pretty blah, the mmf scenes and the way that Will was so aware of John and what was really happening were well done, I thought.
The easy release of his son was also pretty out of character for the person I was led to believe Will was. Sure he may have let his son go live elsewhere if he couldn't take care of him, but to not be plotting to get him back at all? To have the means of taking great care of him and just saying "Nah, he probably won't like us together". That's really not who I thought Will was drawn to be.
But I liked the setting, I liked the growing awareness of John that Will experienced, I liked that they up and left instead of staying where they were exposed to more danger. So many of these books have MC's that are too stubborn to leave even when their lives are at stake. Also while, yes, the m/m scenes were pretty blah, the mmf scenes and the way that Will was so aware of John and what was really happening were well done, I thought.
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It must be art. When I don't know what they're doing, it must be art."
:-D
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I think everyone goes through that at first. There's a sense of disbelief that there's so much out there. If you're unlucky enough to start with a great book, you're in for a lot of disappointment. But if you start with something relatively mediocre, you enjoy the good books and aren't so disappointed with the crap.
That's my take, anyway.
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Weeeeeell, I kinda started with JCP's and yours, so I'm heading toward rough times, I guess... *evil grin*
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Yes to Kate's point and yours.
The leg bothered me though and partly for the reason that it seemed to exist so Elliot could show us getting in the way of sex.
It's going to seem like I'm preoccupied with that leg, but I just don't get it.
The injuring of the leg is a dramatic-sounding scene that takes place (again) off stage. Now had that happened while John and Will were together, we could have seen an exciting and touching scene, and we could have seen how this lamed leg made a difference to Will (assuming it did and it wasn't there just as an eye patch -- a little costume accessory).
As it was, the injured leg appears to be an afterthought. Like, here's a good reason why Will might need a handyman. Except couldn't he find a handyman who wasn't wanted by the law? And isn't Will on the roof or a ladder or something when John shows up again? So...huh? And Will seems to have been managing fine all these months.
Anyway, it turns out that Will isn't a rancher after all, he's only there because his wife wanted to work with animals. It turns out that Will REALLY wants to be a writer. Oh, and John turns out to be a talented artist as well as a famous bankrobber.
Sheesh.
I know, I'm being too hard on this poor book and this poor author. But these are such silly and unnecessary mistakes. With just a little bit more thought and a little bit more work, this could have been a great story.
Ok, haven't read through all the comments but I am just going to post the things I liked with this story. I liked that is was a slow build and I liked that is was kind of a quiet romance. The characters of John and Will reminded me so much of the culture of the northern people we have in my country that don't speak much but just go on and do their thing without much internal dialogue. For me, that was very fitting for people living so isolated.I also really liked the description of the cabin and the way they worked and lived. I made me feel I was really there, seeing and experiencing what they did.
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Yes, that was refreshing, you're right.
Clearly lots of people found plenty to enjoy, so let's hear some of the bright spots in this. Because I have a very bad habit of thinking how I would rewrite, rather than focusing on what is already perfectly good.
Mod
I agree. I did like the slow build of attraction, the quietness of the story. I can't deny I was looking, hoping, for there to be a few more exciting scenes -- I did truly think there was going to be some kind of showdown, but I do believe that it's possible to have a quiet, gentle story of two men falling in love.
And it's true that I'd rather have them say too little than babble too much.
Josh wrote: "I agree. I did like the slow build of attraction, the quietness of the story. I can't deny I was looking, hoping, for there to be a few more exciting scenes -- I did truly think there was going to be some kind of showdown, but I do believe that it's possible to have a quiet, gentle story of two men falling in love."This is what stood out to me with this story and why I like to reread it, because it is like a quiet place in the storm. And I think their characters fits this struggling life in the vast wilderness. At least it reminded me of the culture with people living isolated that I have seen, I think the author hit the right spot there.
I was never expecting a big show-down or confrontation, it was just not the "mood" of the book.
Mod
Hey, you would probably like the movies from a Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. We Finns are (usually) pretty uncommunicative and Aki Kaurismäki captures that wonderfully in his stories! The atmosphere in his movies is inimitable! Try for example Drifting Clouds (Kauas pilvet karkaavat) from 1996.
Johanna wrote: "Hey, you would probably like the movies from a Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. We Finns are (usually) pretty uncommunicative and Aki Kaurismäki captures that wonderfully in his stories!"I am Swedish so we probably have similar experiences with these quiet types! Thanks for the rec.
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Yay! Nice to meet you. Heja Sverige! :)
Johanna wrote: "Yay! Nice to meet you. Heja Sverige! :)"*waves* (I wish I knew how to say the same in Finish!)
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Well, we all Finns study Swedish from the seventh grade, so I studied your language for 6 years. It's the other official language of my country... *waves back from the other side of the Gulf of Bothnia*
Josh wrote: "I did like the slow build of attraction, the quietness of the story."This is what I particularly appreciated. And the fact that there wasn't sex every two pages.
For the rest I see *now* all the points you've been stressing, and I agree about most of them, but I just want to go back thinking this was a lovely, quiet story. *pouts*
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Let us not forget that there are technically flawed stories or stories that someone doesn't like for whatever reason that are still much loved and even become classics. So the fact that I'm picking and pulling at threads doesn't really ultimately mean anything other than I'd have written something very different.
And that probably goes without saying. ;-P
Josh has said more clearly than I could what I felt when I read this book. I'm not sure I would have finished it if it wasn't this month's read. It was frustrating - I felt that there was a good book there if what felt like an early draft had been ruthlessly edited.Sagajo wrote "I liked that is was a slow build and I liked that is was kind of a quiet romance. The characters of John and Will reminded me so much of the culture of the northern people we have in my country that don't speak much but just go on and do their thing without much internal dialogue."
I would have been happy to read that book, but this was the nub of the problem for me: even accepting that it might have been the author's intention to show Will as being unable to analyse or vocalise (even internally) his relationship with John, his lack of reflection on what was happening between them was too much. I wondered if it was because the POV was too remote?
I was also distracted by trying to work out just when in the past the book was set, but I couldn't pin it down. I was almost relieved to see the suggestion in an earlier comment that the book was originally fanfiction, because it might explain why I couldn't get to grips with the characters and their relationships, and why there were so many extaneous details.
On a diversion - which fandom is it from?
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There you have me. I've heard of western fandoms but never read in them.
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True. The fact that these were men of few words was believable (until Will turned into a writer) but the lack of thought -- almost any thought at all -- made it hard to follow the trajectory of their emotions.
It's a classic, even extreme, example of telling rather than showing.
Mod
I agree completely with HJ on the point, that I would have enjoyed it more had everything been fleshed out a little more.
Something I've been wondering about is the correlation between the writer's personality and what the characters end up doing. For example, I'm an introvert and introverts tend to think something through before they talk about it. Thus, my characters tend to be a little "thinky". Is there a direct relation there? I'm not sure, but it is something to think about.
Q&A with Josh Lanyon
Books mentioned in this topic
The Larton Chronicles (other topics)The Professionals (other topics)
Paper Flowers (other topics)
The Professionals (other topics)
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I think I mentioned this earlier, but it's like that gun that gets introduced in Act I of the play. You expect it to show up in Act II and play some sort of major role. That's like everything that gets introduced in this novel except the store owner, and the two MCs. Everything else... yeah. I kept reading hoping for change, and it didn't come.