You have quite a devoted following. As you write, do you consider what your fans will think? Is that a consideration?

It’s a consideration, but it’s not the first one. The first one is ‘What’s cool?’ If I think something is cool, then other people will too, because I’m a fan. Something that makes me go ‘Ohh, tingly,’ that’s something that other people will share. I am the audience. When you’re thinking about the fans, you’re more thinking about ‘What do we not have enough of?’ and ‘Where do we need to be next, emotionally?’ But beyond that, you’re thinking ‘What makes me excited, what’s wrong with me, and how cool is that?’ It’s a playground.

What an energizing way to think of writing! As a playground. Obviously the medium of television is different from novels (or films, etc), but all writing reaches some kind of audience. But how conscious are all writers about that audience? How does that perception of the audience change as it grows from something vague (for a new writer) to a vocal group of devoted fans (for someone like Whedon)? I know some writers have added material, gone in new directions, or spurned input from fans when it comes to very popular media with devoted fan followings (e.g. the inclusion of fan-favorite details in the new trilogy of the Star Wars films). I like Whedon’s reaction: he’s not going to shape plots exclusively based on fan reaction, but at the same time, he’s a fan, too…

I’ve been told a few times that as long as you’re writing something that gets you excited and you’re having fun writing it, that eagerness and enthusiasm for the material will come through to your audience. It’s something I notice starkly with my non-fiction (especially in school): when I’m enthusiastic about the subject matter, the manner of voice and tone I adopt to write about it changes drastically from when I am ambivalent or apathetic on the topic. With fiction, the line is finer, and can sometimes vary from scene to scene, chapter to chapter. If one chapter’s writing is sharper, snappier, more exact than another’s, that’s a clear marker for me for revision. Every scene needs to matter to be in the book, but for it to qualify, it really needs to matter on a visceral level.

The bit I quoted struck me mostly because I’m always concerned about my audience — I’m incapable of writing anything without imagining even an amorphous audience. Often I find myself imagining my[precocious know-it-all of a twelve-year-old]self as my audience, but just as often I think of any number of people I know, or have known, reading it and responding to it differently. I’ve heard [a few] writers say they don’t care about what others think about their writing. To some degree, I write for myself, but I don’t only write for myself. I write for the girl I used to be, wanting a book like this to read. I write for the teenager I was, desperate for an enthralling fantasy. I write for every writing teacher I’ve ever had (and yes, I can almost hear their commentary as I edit, recalling what each of them taught me in their own ways). I write for librarians, I write for parents. I write for my family, for their reactions when they finally get the hands on the books I’ve been puttering around in for years. I write for people I’ve never met and may never meet, but who may one day pick up my book and be struck by it. I’m not really even conscious of this…but at the same time, I’m entirely conscious of it.

So what are your thoughts on this? How conscious are you about audience as you write? Does it change depending on your genre or specific project?

My opinion now on point of view is that it should, first and foremost, fit the story it is telling. Sometimes I’ve encountered first person (fantasy, usually) novels that do not do just that; in those stories, the  point of view is clunky or arbitrary rather than seeming native to the stories. The genre of fantasy is not any lesser or different, at its fundamentals, than any other genre.

First person isn’t about simply using “I” and running with it. Some people think that a viewpoint is just an afterthought when telling a story or that certain stories “must” be written from some viewpoint, regardless of the actual story’s needs. I believe firmly that it is one of the most important elements in the story and it influences everything about the way that story is told, organized, and how the plot is revealed. In first person narration, your narrator is your guide, your entry, into the world of the story. This is as important with fantasy as with any other genre. With first person, your narrator is present, by default, in every single scene. (Unless you pull a Robert Louis Stevenson in Treasure Island and switch narrators to tell something your narrator can’t know, but I hate that. Consistency is key, especially in fantasy where you are usually world-building as well as narrating.) Normally this determined focus on your narrator places the story’s emphasis on and around your narrator but this may also lead to certain difficulties.

A narrator-focused story, by default

Your narrator is telling the story, and characters can only tell us what they know, either from first-hand experience or second- or third-hand (etc) knowledge. (Unless they’re omniscient, which happens, but in that case that’s characterized and thus explained.) This limits how the story can actually be staged. This can happen in more or less three ways:

One, the narrator is the protagonist or main character. Everything that they tell us is actually happening to, around, because of, or through him/her.

Two, the narrator is close to or near the main character or protagonist and the difference in perspective yields an important narrative focus that lends a new gravity to the story (such as in The Great Gatsby).

Three, the narrator is omniscient or god-like and knows everything, and as such is either a very strange main character or tells a story about other characters that ends up being more technically classified in the third person narration category somewhere.

The one I’ve seen in nearly all first person fantasy I’ve read is the first, the narrator being the protagonist. Considering a lot of fantasy stories are heroic stories in nature, this may lead down interesting paths. (In fantasy there is also the possibility of the narrator in the third instance being “the storyteller” like in, say, a fairy tale, thus framing a more traditional third person point of view within a first person’s narration, similar to Wuthering Heights‘ narrative frame, but that’s more or less third person with a frame, not really first person in the same way.) The second style, as in The Great Gatsby, is as rare in fantasy as it usually is in mainstream fiction more or less because it’s not easy to pull off. But it happens.

The narrator-protagonist’s perspective limitation

In this most common form, the main action of the novel is happening to, around, because of, or through the narrator. Your narrator-protagonist is telling the story, thus is working from a base of what they observe, know, infer, and learn. They can’t relate things they don’t know, things that could be related through exposition in certain third person formats. Revelation of information cannot happen in any way that is not consistent with the narrator’s character. If the narrator is simple or stupid, they cannot believably give speeches or long passages of expository history or background information in the manner of a scholar — that sort of thing.

Additionally, they can’t be everywhere at once, nor can they see everything at once. What happens when your narrator is unconscious, asleep, or otherwise temporarily incapacitated? What happens when two minor or secondary characters have a conversation that is of the utmost importance to the plot? (Eavesdropping, dear readers, can only take you so far, so often.) In terms of relating past conversations or events the narrator is “remembering,” can he or she realistically remember everything all of the time? And accurately? Do real people remember every small detail at every perfectly opportune moment? (Do you?) The easiest way of thinking about the limits of first person narration is to think about yourself as the main character of your own life and see what you know and can know and how you know those things. It seems intuitive, initially, but it is easy for a writer to be tempted to just inject things in convenient or artificial ways. Deus ex machina, much, people?

Hopefully your narrator is a real person (or, in fantasy, at least firmly rooted in a familiar reality or playing by consistent rules of your own reality). Real people have limitations. Some authors forget that and make protagonists or characters with none, effectively depriving them of their humanity, while still claiming their character is human (or at the least, ordinary). (The omniscient god protagonist is different, but we’re not talking about him right now.) What happens if your narrator is busy fighting a duel with Character #1 but Character #2 over there behind him is doing something really important and the audience should see it, but your narrator is busy and can’t glance over and see it? Or, what if Character #2 is sneaking up dramatically on the narrator, about to deliver a blow to the head and your narrator is turned away? The narration has to find ways to dodge around such issues. (While avoiding overuse of “suddenly” or “all of a sudden”. Tricky, yes; impossible, no.)

Aside from the physical issue and the knowledge-base issue, there’s the issue of personality and reflecting that personality accurately in the narration. If your character is selfish, would they really notice everything about everyone, or have dramatically insightful observations about someone else’s behavior? Unless it relates to them in some way, or unless they can take that observation and swing it around back to themselves, probably not. Naturally it depends on the character, but this can also depend on the way you sell their personality. Some of the best first person writing I’ve read involves really exciting and enjoyable irony that comes out through the difference between the way the narrator views the world, characters, and situations, and the way things might actually be. A narrator may develop opinions, biases, and ideas that are completely factually wrong or misleading, the revelation of which can be exciting to read.

When handled well, these “issues” hardly seem problems at all. With a flowing command of the scene through the narrator’s eyes, first person can be seamless, engaging, and above all, immediate.

The device of voice

Voice is a device, make no mistake. It’s that which can illuminate a side of your character’s personality in a showing way that telling could never really do justice. It can (and in the best, does) instantly reveal your character’s views, opinions, background, social class, culture/heritage, and overall personality. A distinctive or unusual character voice can be that which takes the story from bland to fascinating or can take a traditional-seeming storyline and turn it on its head. The right narrative voice can completely change the story’s tone and flavor. It can sprinkle comedy in a hero story, give a dark novel practicality, give a whimsical story depth or mystery, or an action novel some tension-breaking humor. It is an essential but sometimes overlooked element in any first person story.

Sometimes authors forget this, that writing in first person means you’re automatically writing in a voice. Going along with limited perspective, when a narrator speaks out of voice, it can be jarring and pull the reader out of the story’s world. Not every character will speak as the author does or as any number of third person narrative styles/voices speak. Just because you the author are writing this character does not mean the character should or does sound like you; that was an important difference writing classes really showed me.

When reading a novel (or series) that consistently switches first person character viewpoints, this difference can be crucial but is sometimes overlooked. Just like in normal dialogue, when all of the characters sound the same and see the world the same, it’s hardly worth demonstrating that these are different characters. If you don’t show them as being different, telling us they are does meaningfully little. If I don’t feel it, why should I care? Reading a lot of first person middle grade fiction growing up, I did not even know such a thing as a “voice” existed— so many of those novels sound exactly the same. It’s most often the unusual voices, however, that stand out and make the best novels worth rereading. (Avi, Jack Gantos, Louis Sachar — they do first person voices well.)

The first person epic versus the first person romance (i.e. non-epic fantasy)

Fantasy stories can be generally divided into two broad categories: the character-driven story and the epic story. (There are a rare few stories that are character-driven epics but by definition that’s a hard thing to accomplish without sacrificing either individual character for epic themes or trope stand-ins or sacrificing epic realism for emphasis on individual character. I’ll discuss this at length in a future post.) Basically, this difference is the difference between J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. (Though one could make an argument for the entire Earthsea Cycle being an epic, but in this sense I’m speaking of the single novel.) An epic is rooted in themes of society, class, country, war, the world, good vs. evil on a grand scale, etc. Romantic or non-epic fantasy is character-driven and localized, focusing more often on themes of the self, self-discovery, personal growth and change, coming-of-age, character relationships, localized themes of pride, etc. The scale is the difference. (Get it? Vaguely?)

I generally dislike seeing first person narration being used to tell epic or tension-filled fantasy (suspense, horror) stories. A first person story, to me, is by default and focus about the character of your narrator and their view of the world. A single person’s view of the world is automatically rather small. A single person is rarely at the center of everything which is what is necessary and essentially by definition an epic. Epics therefore usually involve a cast of characters with third person views that swing between this cast to effectively capture the range of opinions, emotion, and depth of a world to vividly draw and illuminate the epic scale. Rarely is a single character poised to be the center of the world in a realistic and believable way that effects us with the level of emotion, character depth, and individual voice to really be a good first person story. Rarely. A first person story, then, with its natural emphasis on its narrator and their view of the world, immediately focuses the story thematically in a different slant than Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which is epic in scale and less about character than about broader themes and issues.

First person series fantasy on a localized, “romantic” scale

Telling a series from a first person point of view, then, is tricky, because unless it’s very serialized (i.e. every book has the same format/plot style) or the series is very carefully or trickily plotted, a series can quickly rise to the epic level (focusing more on the world and its events than mere character) or can become redundant (a too-serialized series can lose its freshness), making our interest in the narrator wane. Some of the more successful first-person series, to me, are those which cover a large, overhanging arc of character, plot, and growth divided across several books, enabling each book to give us more character growth and insight as it follows along the life arc of the narrator. Additionally, the fact that important things keep happening to the narrator has to make sense. Either he/she is looking for trouble or is in a position where trouble can always find them. “Normal” narrators fit strangely here, in a fantasy series; if they are “normal,” if their lives are “normal,” if they want desperately to only be left alone, what is worth reading about them? What is so fantastic? Thus the most successful first person fantasy series are those that have compelling, curious, or danger-seeking protagonists (regardless of actual occupation). (The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, The Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost, the Greywalker series by Kat Richardson.)

This is part of my issue with the later books of Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire series about Sookie Stackhouse. It’s first person from Sookie’s perspective and only so much can keep happening to Sookie without the series continuously trending toward an overly melodramatic or soap-opera-like style. She is only a waitress and isn’t really looking for trouble, yet trouble keeps finding her and she keeps running from it. Sookie’s evocative, real, and hilarious voice, however, saves the series and keeps me wanting more. The narrative voice is sharp and witty and pulls me in regardless of the other melodramatic elements that I’m not a fan of. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher is an example where the narrator constantly running from trouble works, because it’s in his personality to never run too far, because he’s just too noble to give up on anyone. Harry Dresden’s job makes him a target for trouble and his character (the often under-prepared white knight who feels obligated to save everyone all of the time) makes serialized danger really a necessity. He can’t ignore the damsel (or child, friend, or fairy) in distress — who knows that’s a shortcoming that keeps him from living a quiet life — and that’s always a good set-up for trouble. But not every series is so conveniently situated.

Epic first person fantasy

There is at least one perfect example of the successful employment of an epic story told through first person that I know of. (I’m still working my way down the science fiction & fantasy shelf at the book store, give me time.) This example is Robin Hobb’s Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, surrounding the narrator of Fitz. Fitz’s voice brings this story to life first in hindsight as something of a memoir and then as immediate action. He’s poised in the center of events of the Six Duchies in a believable way — he is a royal bastard with none of the power but all of the physical proximity to everything that’s happening in the heart of the kingdom. He’s related or consistently near everyone important, either by blood or occupation. As a result, he has a hand or an eye in everything. This is, obviously, rather convenient for the vehicle of first person in this series. Plot always, rather conveniently, happens to and around Fitz. Hobb addresses this “coincidence” and convenience of Fitz always being at the center of everything important by telling us he is a “catalyst,” a person around whom great, pivotal events tend to naturally swirl, thus explaining these coincidences with a (in this case somewhat minor) pinch of fantastic explanation. (She gives us just enough prophecy, too, to make this even more epic than usual. Note: epic stories almost always have prophecies, foretelling, or important signs or signals.) Hobb earns this, however, through the compelling gravity of interest she develops around Fitz. We are willing to suspend our disbelief that Fitz is the one, so to speak, because he is interesting. He might be heroic by his actions but because of his narration we know he only wants simplicity in his life, earning our sympathy at every turn that takes his life down a path that keeps him further away from peace. It’s a dream of his he desperately fights for at every turn but life keeps throwing obstacles of heroic proportions at him he must find his way through, over, or past before he can reach his desired peace.

His introspective narration and extremely perceptive personality make him an interesting and terrific narrator as well. Fitz receives training in how to observe, assess, and conclude in order to function as a spy and assassin; this training, then, serves as the explanation as to why Fitz’s “memory” of events is so detailed, sharp, and accurate: he was trained to remember everything in that manner.

But aside from this, I’m usually of the opinion that first person stories are better focused not on the nation or the world but on the characters and their relationships and how they effect one another — with, potential world-changing consequences. It’s hard to see the world changing from the eyes and by the actions of a single individual. When a first person story centers a whole world’s events around a single character without that substantiation, however, problems result. When there is no rationally believable reason why everything is happening around the narrator, then why are we interested in the story at all? If the narrator hates adventure, why do adventures keep happening to him? Sometimes this issue can be solved by the device of voice. If the voice is funny, compelling, and interesting, we’ll probably want to keep reading it. If it’s a plain story but well told we’ll come back to it. But when a bland story is told in a bland voice, nothing can really keep it from being bland.

A few [hopefully] illuminating examples

Stephenie Meyer’s Bella in the Twilight series comes to mind. She’s not nearly interesting enough to settle a series around and Meyer gives us no good reason why it’s told from her point of view. Meyer even switches first person points of view three separate times (à la Treasure Island), leading me to think that Meyer should have told it from third person if she couldn’t get a handle over her narrator’s inability to tell the story herself. (I could go on, but I’ll stop there.)

Sherwood Smith’s Crown Duel is a perfect example of first person (YA) fantasy done right. She even discusses point of view (and its attendant difficulties and benefits) on her website, making terrific points about each of the different points of view. In Crown Duel, Meliara’s narration is unreliable, compelling, hilarious, and ironic. We completely get the sense of Meliara being a stubborn, prejudiced, and angry narrator whose prejudices influence every character interaction and description she gives us. When she meets the Marquis of Shevraeth initially, for instance, she simply describes him as she sees him — he’s just some “evil” unnamed interrogator, and she gives him a straightforward description. But once she finds out he’s a dreaded rich aristocrat from the class and society she hates, oh does that change the way she views both him and everything he does. Every action she sees him take is colored by her biased description of it. Despite her view of him, though, we still see and get the sense of his individual personality (which is not what she mistakenly thinks it is) by his own actions, even if without careful reading it might take most of the first part (or first book, depending on your version of it). It’s absolutely terrific and terribly underrated, a perfect example of the strength of a voice adding to the strengths of a story.

On the point of first person narration done right, I just finished re-reading Halfway to the Grave and One Foot in the Grave (the Night Huntress books) and read the new At Grave’s End by Jeaniene Frost. For a (new) author writing paranormal romance/urban fantasy, I think she’s talented and I really enjoy her books. One reason I do is because of her definite mastery of the first person point of view’s range, vulnerabilities, and strengths. Compare it to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga and the differences are even more startling — and all go in Jeaniene Frost’s favor. In both series, the main female character is the narrator, and she falls for a deadly and powerful (and handsome) vampire. But Cat is so much more interesting, engaging, exciting, and kick-ass; every scene is important, immediate, and necessary. And Cat can easily hold a scene herself without Bones being present. As such, I think Cat is a terrifically drawn character and it’s hard to imagine the story being told from third person with the same level of vicious immediacy to every scene. Compared to drab, hollow Bella, Cat is real and exciting.

The best part about Jeaniene Frost’s style, though, is her revelation of information. There are no long passages of first person explanation of the world (like in Karen Chance’s first two Cassandra Palmer books) and the information comes out both organically and with enough dramatic heft to make every line matter. She doesn’t infodump. A lot of first person narrators infodump at the start of novels. (Carrie Vaughn does this to some degree.) This is annoying. Jeaniene Frost (along with Kat Richardson, Jim Butcher, Robin McKinley, and others) really has a knack for revealing the information, world, and character details slowly enough to be enticing without infodumping but quickly enough to give us a handle on the world. Sometimes authors plunge us immediately into the other world with everything fully formed and working around us (the opening of Sunshine by Robin McKinley does this perfectly) and sometimes the author brings us in a toe at a time, like a nervous swimmer entering a cold pool.

Sometimes the author or narrator directly addresses the reader (depending on the format of the first person novel this can be dismissible, natural, awkward, or intriguing), which leads to an entirely different format of character and world revelation. The first Dresden Files book, Storm Front, does exactly this. Jim Butcher stylizes the opening in a sort of classic P.I. noir voice, letting Harry Dresden, Wizard, tell us about his world and his life in a matter-of-fact, conversational infodump that feels natural because it’s following a specific stylistic pattern. Journal- or memoir-style first person (fantasy) can be even trickier. Robin Hobb gets around this with Fitz, as I mentioned, because Fitz has a trained memory for detail and you get to a point where you simply believe everything Fitz says. (Thus, Hobb wins.)

The Claidi books by Tanith Lee are trickier (crazy plot aside) but she wins me over (at least a little) because she’s absolutely, strictly practical about it. Her slave-turned-heroine narrator Claidi writes the events of her life in a journal that takes up several different-looking and -sized notebooks and pieces of paper across her journey as she goes from place to place. It becomes a device, almost its own character, one that is carried in a backpack or pocket, hidden from prying eyes, stolen, fought over, and which becomes a prized account to be read by enemies and friends alike. It is the story we are reading but it is also (meta alert) being read by other characters, too, who get to see Claidi’s voice and handwriting, her insecurities laid bare, just as we do. It also makes certain to take appropriate logical liberties. When Claidi is taken prisoner or stolen away or flees or hides, something inevitably happens to her journal, too, and there are gaps in time of “I haven’t been able to write in days because…” that make the account realistic and interesting. (The books’ only real downside, however, is its crazy plot, devices aside; the stuff that happens to her in this world…eesh!)

In conclusion

First person is varied and can be terrific, but it should also fit the story and the characters. As with any type of writing, it can be stylistically challenging yet yield interesting and compelling results when written well, and bland reactions when it falls sort of the ideal mark. Like any genre, fantasy has its perks and drawbacks, but it certainly doesn’t limit itself to third person.

As the article states:

If only Meyer had taken Buffy as her template. If only she had used that groundbreaking series as her foundation and built on it. If only there was a Whedonesque intelligence and modern, feminist sensibility informing Twilight and its successors. If only.

What you have instead in Meyer’s work is a depressingly retrograde, deeply anti-feminist, borderline misogynistic novel that drains its heroine of life and vitality as surely as if a vampire had sunk his teeth into her and leaves her a bloodless cipher while the story happens around her. Edward tells her she is “so interesting … fascinating”, but the reader looks in vain for his evidence.

(A disclaimer: I absolutely love Buffy and Joss Whedon; go rent Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Go. Now.)

After reading that, my first thought was, Oh, thank God someone just came out and said it in a respectable newspaper. We passionate, obscure bloggers can only do so much.

To stumble-upon-ers: I am a writer and lover of books about kick-ass girls who do things, who save their worlds, who break stereotypes and shatter tradition. I wrote a whole thesis on this. I am fervently critical and passionate about this. When I read a book in the genre I love that praises the passive female protagonist — or rather, praises her for being special when she is not — I get mad. Had the books been written from Edward’s perspective, or in third person, one could probably argue that poor Bella is not so much the protagonist — the one who makes the action happen… because she’s not — but rather the Female Love Interest, or Designated Love Interest to the more vibrant Edward. It’s so much his story. She reacts to him. In New Moon, when Bella is mostly on her own for the book with Edward’s decision to take a break, she isn’t alone. No. She finds a new male on to whom she can latch — Jacob. It’s not so much her story as the story of the dependent relationships she forms.

It’s Bella who is our narrator, Bella who is our guide into this fantasy world. But rather than guide is in and stake out her own space within it, she gets subsumed within it and dissolved by it, replaced with a character who is only a shadow of a strong, independent female; a shadow of the woman Edward keeps insisting she is. Meyer tells us how wonderful Bella is. She never shows us. Poor Bella loses herself in her relationship with Edward.

Granted, Bella has moments. Those moments are what kept me clawingly optimistic throughout my reading of the series. Whenever the plot pulled my hopes down, I clawed out of that hollow of despair and said, “No. Bella will eventually Kick Ass. She has to prove she’s Awesome. After all, why else would both Jacob and Edward love her so much? She has to be Awesome.” But that moment never came — not really. When it kind of did — in a subversive, (passive) way in Breaking Dawn (Bella’s shield) — I was disappointed. Bella doesn’t determine her own destiny, like some fantasy protagonists. She isn’t faced with a destiny she didn’t chose and proves she can brave it and make the best of it, like others. She’s not a fantasy hero or even a heroine. She’s a tragic gothic stereotype of a heroine who, rather than dying spectacularly, just keeps on living.

Here’s another disclaimer: I am engaged to be married. I will be married in March to my soulmate, a man for whom I would do anything and who would do anything for me. I am not some crazy feminist writer/blogger who loves Women Who Do Things and say that women can’t do things with men hanging attached to them. Of course women can do things while in love, while in relationships — any kind of relationship with any one, for that matter. Women can be independent and be committed at the same time. Isn’t that the trait the media most praises in a successful career mother? The woman who is able to balance kids, husband, job, personal life? She is the ideal to which we women in western society are supposed to ascribe, to shoot for.  (Which, in itself, is still sad; that women are still seen to have “complete” lives only when surrounded by that nuclear stereotype, regardless of her personal sense of completeness or fulfillment with her own life, whatever or whomever it may entail.)

And then there’s Bella. When she finally finds the balance, she’s not Bella at all, she’s some thirtysomething analogue whom we don’t recognize from the “normal” teenage girl she once was. One could argue Bella changes and grows throughout the series. I argue, rather, that she inconsistently fluxes between melodramatic anxiety and passivity until she transforms into someone who is most certainly not an organic incarnation of a grown-up Bella but rather a forced shell of who we’re told she is based on roles she is given — wife, mother, vampire… non-human being.

What’s interesting, in the context of me speaking about this on this blog, is the thought that’s occurred to me that criticizing books on this blog while being an author myself is a little… well, iffy? But I suppose the other way to look at it is this: If I met Stephenie Meyer in real life, and she asked me, “What is your honest opinion of my books?” I would, frankly, be honest. I immediately and superficially enjoyed her books — I did — but they left me unsettled. The more reflecting and discussing I’ve done, the more unsettled I’ve become. I am still unsettled, even more so after letting Breaking Dawn sink in. (My enthusiasm was so short-lived.) I won’t be able to re-read them. I know that. Having read them as a happily-in-a-relationship twentysomething, not a depressed 17-year-old bemoaning her lack of love life — oh, how those years changed me — I have a completely different view. Reading those books as a mother, I’d feel different yet again. I suppose the ultimate beauty of a blog is that you don’t have to read it or agree with what I say, but hopefully my point of view might have given you a new view from which to consider while forming your own.

But, strangely enough, I am glad these books exist. I am glad I read them.

I am sad about their ridiculous popularity, but I am a firm believer in the idea that dialogue is that which expands our minds and enables us to grow as human beings. Without two (or more) sides to any view or argument, where would the growth be? Without different opinions, what kind of people would we be?

I suppose, ultimately, what I’m hoping for is for more novels and stories (for children and young adults, especially) from the Kick Ass Woman (or strong, assertive young woman or girl) point of view. I want more books that show women doing anything and everything men can do — and have done — in both real life and in existing literature of every genre. I want female characters in fantasy that display the same depth, complexity, assertiveness, and power of many male protagonists in fantasy.

Some authors have and are succeeding at this in certain subgenres of fantasy (Robin McKinley, Tamora Pierce, Garth Nix, Shannon Hale, Patricia Briggs, Jeaniene Frost); some have partial yet luadable success (Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials). Some books featuring male protagonists have casts of female characters with terrific complexity and depth (Jim Butcher, Sherwood Smith, Robin Hobb, George R. R. Martin) and some with female protagonists have surprised and pleased me with the journeys of those protagonists (Trudi Canavan). We have to keep going, though. That’s why I write, that’s why I’ve always wanted to write.

As I’ve said, this also means novels featuring male main characters/ protagonists/ heroes with co- and supporting female characters who are equal to their male counterparts in complexity, emotion, and range of possibility. This is starting to happen more and more frequently; however the waif/weak/incompetent female love interest still exists, though, as supposed counterpart to her brave, heroic, and intelligent male protagonist. Why does this happen in fantasy? Think of the successful marriages you know: those couples are not fractionally as imbalanced and mis-matched as quite a few fantasy couples tend to be. Fantasy characters deserve to be as real as any real person, as any good, realistic character in any other genre.

Parents should get involved and responsible in this discussion, as well, for the sake of their young readers (in terms of children’s and YA literature). They should recognize which books contain which messages and be able to respond intelligently and with good information to the questions curious kids and teens will inevitably ask in response to books that provoke such thought. Regardless of the book, its characters, or its message, if it provokes serious intellectual conversation, I think that’s a terrific and laudable thing.

Anyway this post got me thinking more and more about Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind. I’ve both bashed and defended them on this blog, pretty recently, too, and her utter evisceration of them led me to two interesting revelations about my own opinions of them and fantasy in general: I am really haughty and elitist (or really, really contemplative?) about fantasy literature, what I like about it, what I hate, and what I write — but I do so enjoy the B-movie (or C-movie) novel or series every now and again. The part of me that in a very hick, low-brow manner really, really enjoys a movie the high-brow folks tell me I should disdain, or enjoy a fantasy book that the academic nerd part of me wants to beat remorselessly until it’s beyond dead. I’m that way with movies, too.

The first time (and subsequent second two times) I read Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World (the first book in his Wheel of Time series), I loved it. I still, deeply, do enjoy it. I read it when I was 15; I was in 10th grade social studies class when the kid behind me said, “You like fantasy books, right? You’d probably like this book.” And pointed it out to me. I went, bought it, finished it, and bought the second… and third… up to the eighth, which was all that existed in paperback at the time. The ninth was coming out soon in hardcover, but I was cheap. Anyway I devoured them during the spring of my 10th grade year, amid jeers of my high school softball team compatriots who thought I was a complete and total nerd for reading 800-page books. (Some thought I was insane, others were incredulous, others nodded and said really complimentary things that embarrassed me and my loath-to-brag-about-my-high-grades attitude; I was rather the reluctant good student in 10th grade as opposed to the bitter elitist I became as a senior in high school.) At the point I was at in my life, those books really made a difference to me. They were, now that I think of it, the first major epic fantasy series I read. (I read Tolkien for the first time almost eighteen months later.)

Goodkind was more of an accident. I stumbled upon Wizard’s First Rule in the bookstore (or was it on Amazon.com?) in the desperation of one looking to move their addiction from one drug to another. I stand by what I said a few weeks ago — I did enjoy Wizard’s First Rule. I devoured it and the subsequent five or six books — with a bit more pain and reluctance, each time. In fact, Wizard’s First Rule was the book that helped bring Bryan and I together — I saw it sitting on the desk in his room at college and pointed it out, saying I’d read it and enjoyed it, and we bonded over it. (Long story short, he never actually ended up reading beyond the third book, I think.) However, in re-reading it years later, in the fall of 2006, I stopped after a few chapters. I cringed. I’d been fully immersed in English literature and Creative Writing classes at college by then, and I’d also read a lot more fantasy. A lot. Not only fantasy but other genres as well; I’d discovered the 18th century, too, a century I’d somehow mysteriously skipped in my education in high school and college up until the fall of 2005.

I now, in 2008, have come to agree with Limyaael’s assessment, that the books are more or less full of excess, badly disguised tropes, and annoying, annoying things. (I’ve always been a hater of the Sisters of the Light, but I didn’t start disliking the Aes Sedai until later.) I think a lot of Jordan fans (speaking from experience as a former active member of a Robert Jordan fan site) idealize the books far beyond their merit, and in addition a lot of them take the framework of the books (which is more or less fun) and use it to imagine their own worlds, characters, and doings, all of which are a lot more interesting than what Jordan came up with. Also, there are a few particular characters (all female) that had me gnashing my teeth, probably Faile in Jordan’s chief among them. Oh, Faile and Perrin. Shoot me in the foot. Not to mention Rand and the three ladies, which me, the mostly liberated woman, found irritating for its sheer implausibility based on a bad characterization substantiation rather than its concievability as a basic concept. I’m all for well-written open marriages or polygamy, or what have you, but it has to be well-substantiated and based in concrete characters. When your characters are flimsy, which Elayne (sorry) mostly is (Aviendha was always a favorite until she started being all cuddly with Elayne in a manner that was so blatantly not the Aviendha we all know and love)… oh, on and on.

But I still think of them fondly, for all of that! I find I’m embarrassed. I too am embarrassed somewhat by how inordinately excited I am by the upcoming Legend of the Seeker series based on the Sword of Truth books. (There was a half hour preview on TV this past Saturday; I was all geeky about it. Gosh, I am really geeky.) I’m also excited about the movie Twilight, even given how much I’ve criticized the books on this blog. Why? Maybe it’s that I find I have a personal stake in the genre, and I am really emotionally connected to how well those series/movies portray their source material as well as how well they do financially.

(I always find myself wondering what I’d do if someone options my stuff. Depending on the contract I’ll probably have little say or choice but still… I just hope it doesn’t turn into a Seeker: The Dark is Rising atrocity. ATROCITY. They ruined Susan Cooper’s book! Not that the twelve year olds ever heard of the Newbery Honor-winning book The Dark is Rising before that film, but…)

True Blood, HBO’s series based on Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse books, is terrifically true to the books (as far as Sookie’s plot is concerned), but it also takes its own liberties in creating interesting, new subplots (Tara and her mother, Tara and Sam, Jason and his addiction) that aren’t in the books at all — but the show does it well, while still staying loyal to the source material. I’m also fascinated by the adaptation process (and Hollywood versus independent means (Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) versus television, both cable and network). Twilight is likely to be either decent or bad (it can’t be better than the book unless it halves the angst and quarters the melodrama, which from the trailer I can’t imagine it doing), and Legend of the Seeker looks, well, good. I doubt it’ll be amazing (even Sci Fi’s excellent take of the Dune novels wasn’t amazing, though I do own it on DVD, teehee). I don’t watch a lot of amazing television, but I do watch a lot of decently good television — more than I did in college, anyway. Fringe, Pushing Daisies — they’re not perfect or out-of-the-heavens wonderful (they’re not the pure, unadulterated nerdgasm that is 30 Rock, for instance), but I do enjoy them. And what, may I ask, is wrong with that? Nothing, I hope.

I was thinking earlier that this has to be one of the reasons I’ve always been compelled to be a writer. I’m a nit-picker, a perfectionist, one who constantly enjoys picking out things that don’t jive with me and explaining what would work for me and why. But rather than stop there (or merely point out what doesn’t work for me and bemoan the state of the world), I write. When I saw Disney’s Pocahontas as a 5th grader and was up-in-arms pissed and self-righteous about how utterly inaccurate it was, I knew I wasn’t like all the other kids. Or, even, some of the adults. (Yeah, I was over-dramatic from the cradle, ask my mother or my 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Galdeau. They’ll tell you.)  As a kid, I’d read a book about a male protagonist and the whiney female he saves and initially love it. The older I would get, the more I would question it. I’d wonder what if it’d be like this or what if that had happened instead. Eventually I’d get to the point where I’d get pissed and go write my answer to it. (Harry Potter evoked that in me. I was 13 and hopelessly annoyed at it after I was initially bubbling with giddy joy over it.)

As I’ve read more of the canon, as I’ve learned about writing, re-writing, hacking and slashing, editing, and all of the details, I find myself needing and demanding further complexity of myself, of my characters. I find my plots twisting in ways I’ve never seen in a book before, characters doing things I haven’t seen characters in books do before. I keep asking myself the questions. What if, what if. Why be confined to stereotypes or tropes? I’ve studied Campbell inside and out (and have the thesis to prove it) and knowing the formula I feel I’ve full license to break and bend it and find new ways to explore it based on the trends my characters take and the answers to the questions I find myself inescapably asking. Naturally someone’s done everything before in one way or another; I mean, there are only 36 basic plots and Shakespeare wrote most of them. I don’t know how much I really believe that. Our world is constantly changing. Our literature, our fantasies, should, too.

I write things that intrigue me — I don’t write to make myself happy. I’m not easily made happy. I enjoy challenges, being made to think, and yes, while I hate seeing myself mess up, I do it all the time. With enough hindsight, I look back on my mistakes, blunders, and unexpected happenings, and I learn from them. Or, ideally, I hope I do.

I just finished Breaking Dawn. Gasp. I’m still on hold for it from the library… which I should go cancel. My friend lent me her friend’s copy — haha — and so I devoured that between last night and this morning (while managing, might I add, to get a full night’s sleep). I’ve got an awful lot to say on it but in the interests of spoilers, I won’t say it all here.

I suppose I liked it. Some parts of it I somewhat hated. Some I said “Finally!” about. Overall, I think I am “bleh” about it.

Actually I think I would have preferred Books 2 and 3 to be a heck of a lot shorter and sweeter and this book to be tidier, and then just, you know, have that. Or, well, maybe Book 1 shorter, too. I think they’re just awfully long and filled with lots of stuff that doesn’t need to be there. Efficiency of language and all of that. It would have been an excellent trilogy. If the POV had been different I would have liked it more, too. I grew to dislike the first person the longer the series went on as Meyer seemed to have more and more trouble keeping a rein on her writing style to keep it within the bounds of the perspective she chose… I mean, she even switches perspectives (at the end of 3 and a part of 4) and that’s  just… not… well, I just didn’t like it. Write it in third person if you can’t contain it in one, I think. I’ve read some really, really successful first persons that play up on the inherent tunnel-vision-ness of the first person POV by which Meyer kept seeming stifled. Or be more consistent in the POV switches. I’ve read successful chapter-switching first person POV novels, and those are great if a bit complicated when done well. Oh, well.

I’m going to go spoiler lite and speak in (annoying) generalities for the rest of this, but as a general warning, stop reading if you don’t want any surprises spoiled.

I liked Bella’s character a heck of a lot more in Book 4. But that’s also because she changed significantly (which I incidentally didn’t like; if Bella in Book 4 was the only Bella, it would have been great. But I’ll get into that later.) The change wasn’t a gradual thing, like it should have been. I didn’t like the sudden, sharp shift in personality. It made sense given what happened — I doubt Meyer could have done it differently and had it still be convincing without reworking some of the plot or timeline, at least — but I didn’t like how weak Bella’s personality was all along, leading to this. Book 2 Bella is a miserable nuisance. Book 3 is all… oy. Better but still not ideal. She’s more authentically teenagerish in Book 3, though. I get that she’s not a modern heroine, she’s a throwback to the nineteenth century’s gothic heroine period (has Meyer read any of those early nineteenth century gothic novels? Did she expect any of her teenaged readers to have read them?) and maybe a bit of Austen. (The man-must-save-me-from-my-circumstances Austen, not the strong-willed, self-determined woman Austen; I don’t believe Bella had Elizabeth’s Bennett’s fire. Maybe something of Anne Elliot’s moping. Actually, some of that, yes, I see that. But probably only because I’m throwing Anne onto a Book 2/3 Bella and seeing if it might stick. It might.) Anyway.

The whole plot of Book 4 was sort of, well, unsurprising. I guessed every leg of it a few hundred pages before it occurred, and when it did, I was still shocked that I was right, because when I’d made those predictions to myself, I said, “Wouldn’t that be hilariously ironic? Because that would make this book long! And look how long it is!” And it happened. And I was… bitter? Annoyed that I figured it all out? For one of the predictions I actually thought to myself, “Too bad it’s going to turn out in Way A, because Way B would totally make things crazy! If that were to happen, then this and this and this could happen… But Way A is totally going to happen so there’s no use in further speculation.” And guess what. Way B happened. My speculation was correct. I was shocked because I had never thought Meyer would… do that. I do personally love figuring out the plot of books but… but… there were no surprises. None. Even the swooping-in-at-the-last-minute moment at the end was unsurprising. I was sort of “Sigh.” I suppose not every author can pull a fast one on me. I love it when they do, though.

But really, was I expecting this book to be amazing? No. I was expecting it to be just on the wrong side of tolerable. I am surprised that it was better than tolerable. Enjoyable, diverting. Fun. Was it because Meyer finally embraced more fantasy than she had ever used? Probably. She took risks and ran with them, trusting we’d follow. I think in doing so she lost some readers, those who followed her books for the love story and not the fantasy. (Though if they survived the werewolf revelation, I am surprised to think that they wouldn’t be able to survive anything. Vampires are one thing; shape-shifting can be something else entirely, but what came in Book 4 is no more shocking, really, than anything else — fantasy-wise. It was shocking for other reasons, which I can get into at another time.) And I was surprised too that I was in the vampire camp so firmly from Book 1. I am so often in the werewolf/shifter camp that I was surprised when Book 3 came down to it, forcing me to ally with Edward or Jacob, that I was unhesitatingly Edward.

And so anti-Bella. Really, I was fed up with her by the end of Book 3. The choice, ugh. Maybe I was more irritated with the marketing? Maybe. I am glad she was redeemed in part in Book 4 but in doing so she really wasn’t Bella. I mean, I can’t name it precisely. I think I felt condescension toward Bella in Books 2 and 3. The vast majority of my female friends and acquaintances are stronger women, plain and simple, than Bella was. I’m talking strength of character, of purpose, of will. You can’t feel so “meh” about a character for so long and then immediately cheer with her and enjoy her without stopping and thinking, “Wait. This is not the same character.” The changes she went through were abrupt and rough and told to me (ugh, telling versus showing) and I don’t think Meyer convinced me of why Bella changed except for the excuse of the new balances of power. She spends so much time on really strange moments and details but not enough time, space on the page, on this change of Bella’s that is so unbelievably crucial to the plot. I mean, if my life with the man of my dreams shifted that abruptly for the same reason tomorrow, my personality would not change that much in a few days and I can say that with absolute certainty. I know my loyalties and heart would change and grow appropriately, but I would not suddenly become a different person. Change takes time that Meyers did not make me feel I was living through with Bella emotionally. Additionally Meyer made it seem like Bella’s character jumped from 18 to 35, from self-conscious to ferociously self-assured, and I’m supposed to believe that easily, just like that. I don’t think so. She changed Bella too falsely, too rapidly, given what had transpired so recently in book time, in Books 2 and 3. If the change had been gradual, from the start of the series to the end of it, I would have bought it. But Bella was so eighteen years old in Book 3. Devil’s Advocate: I realize the events of the first half of Breaking Dawn were so earth-shattering, so life-altering that Bella really does have to change. But Meyer failed to convince me of the emotion, of the grounded-in-reality-truth of that change from Character A to Character B.

Other writers have done it and blown me away. To use a few fantasy examples from other authors whose books could be classified as “coming of age” or “young adult”: Robin McKinley’s Deerskin does it shockingly well. Heart-breakingly well. Lissar changes completely while retaining her sense of self and I believe every moment of it because of how grounded in raw emotion and power her experiences are. McKinley’s Aerin in The Hero and the Crown has a similar forged-in-the-fires-of-hell life-changing experience, and she changes because of it, too. I mean, hell, one of the best character changes ever has to be Frodo’s in The Lord of the Rings. Harrowing experiences over approximately the same time frame as Bella’s (actually Bella’s is more, I believe) and he is irrevocably altered in a gut-wrenching, proud, and really profound way. (Robin Hobb’s Malta in her Liveship Traders Trilogy is another character who changes sharply and realistically, as is Fitz in the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, though his change is over the course of years.) Bella’s change didn’t hit me like that at all. It didn’t feel real.

Getting more and more spoiler-ific here, I thought the events and moments in the series were certainly enough to have moved Bella to discover that sort of power of character on her own but Meyer made Bella’s humanity such a handicap, made being a vampire so perfect and desirable, it’s so hard to compare it. I don’t know how I feel about humanity being a handicap. How being painted as utterly frail and breakable and not… well, in any other way, is any way… relatable? I mean, we are breakable, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen humans painted that way in a fantasy series with supernatural characters. Humans are so much more than that. But then again, her vampires are so human — she doesn’t make them very different — I suppose I can see why she would malign humanity so much when her vampires are that unrealistically cool. In a way, that’s one thing I profoundly do not enjoy about the series. Bella cannot embrace herself as who she is, she has to become someone else — something not entirely human — to finally love herself. I don’t know how that settles with me. The analogy is imperfect, of course, to real life — as all fantasy should be imperfect, not one for one, analogies to real life — but even so. It’s discomfiting.

I sit uneasy with a message that in order to be able to love and be proud of yourself have to both find someone else to complete you and to fundamentally change (in essence, your genetics) in the process.

But of course, cynics will say that about any kind of all-consuming love, or that lots of life-changing events seriously alter the people they happen to. I’ve been asked to my face why I need Bryan to love, cherish, and marry me, when I have to sacrifice my single, individual self to become the us that comprises us? And it is a sacrifice to become an us. You are no longer your own entity in a couple. You are who you become together. You can change and grow and become wiser together. But… I’m also still irrevocably myself. Bumbling faults and all. Gah. It’s such a web of tangled thoughts, that. I could discuss that for a long time.

There are a lot of aspects of the book I’d want to discuss more but in the interests of remaining vague, I won’t. You can talk to me about it, if you like.

I suppose that’s how I think of the Twilight Saga. It’s good, it’s fun; it has its moments of utterly asinine melodrama that make me want to cry with frustration, and it has its moments of beautiful, really adorable romance. It also is pretty good with action and politics; its characters are varied, intriguing, and engrossing. I was without a doubt constantly engaged with the book. Will I buy the series and read it again and again like I do many others? No. It just wasn’t worth it. But I am glad I have read it.

And then there were the blatant Wheel of Time take-offs. Sisters of the Light, Aes Sedai… oy. I used to really whine about that, and I still am annoyed. I wouldn’t have been so annoyed if it’d been done more uniquely and if it’d been plain old written better. Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera‘s books have trite moments, images, and devices, but he uses them in his own unique and wonderful way. (And come on, who doesn’t like the familiarity of the old tropes? I certainly love them and use them!) Tavi is, initially, a lot — a lot — like Garion in The Belgariad, but he’s so unusually himself. His story is so great. The perspective shifts and subplots are all tightly controlled, unique, and well-written. It’s part of the genre of heroic epic fantasy, but it’s not anything that’s come before it.

(I wonder if I love the Codex Alera books so particularly much because I figured Tavi’s big thing out by about what, chapter 3? Compared to my other epic fantasy series, when the secret came out past the middle in Wizard’s First Rule and at the frickin’ end of The Eye of the World. Like, just around the time Rand figures it out himself. Oy, still annoyed about that. But I was what, 15…? I was naive yet.)

ANYWAY. I will watch it. Because Wizard’s First Rule is a book I would recommend to anyone who likes epic fantasy — legitimately, the series really does jive with some people. Some people keep reading to be completionist, some think it’s brilliant. I think it had the potential to be one of the best had it been condensed and written better. (Robert Jordan has Terry Goodkind’s ass spanked in the raw writing talent department, just so you all know where I stand on the RJ/WoT vs. TG/SoT question.)

Hm. On that note, any browsers of this post have any new epic fantasy series recommendations? Having read the books posted on my Books page, I’m looking for a new epic series. I probably always am looking for a new series. Because there’s still so much out there…

Whoa, parenthetical commentary much? Sorry. Eh. Um.

(Tangent: Acheron comes out next month. So. Frickin’. Excited. I never said I wasn’t a Sherrilyn Kenyon fan…)

It’s funny. I know I’ll never write romance but I do enjoy reading it (so long as it’s paranormal romance; even in the romance genre I need genre to keep me interested). Sometimes when I’m reading regular fantasy, though — for an adult audience — I do wish there was a bit more than, like, a chaste kiss going on. Or, like, “and then they had sex, and it was amazing.” I mean, movies tend to have more than chaste kisses going on, for Pete’s sake, when it matters. (Granted I’m only all for any romantic stuff if it fits in the plot. Gratuitious sex scenes need not be added for me, thanks.) Bitten by Kelley Armstrong is a good example, actually: more than chaste kisses but it’s not the plot’s focus, though those scenes are integral to the plot’s development in terms of the characters’ developments and emotion. In Bitten, Armstrong just basically makes the intimate scenes as descriptive as any other scene — it’s just another scene. But every scene in that book matters. Strolling through downtown Toronto on a business lunch break, running through a thick forest as a wolf, discovering a dead body half-buried under a bridge… And I appreciate the novel because of that. Her scenes also have really good pithy descriptions and are full of action, and none of the wonky romance language. (Sometimes the vocabulary in a romance novel has me rolling my eyes or laughing — like, really? Really? You used that adjective and adverb combination? Really? Whenever things fit stereotypes, I laugh.)

It’s a fine line for me, I suppose, the “sex scene” business in a book. And in YA Fiction, it’s an even finer line. Yes, some teenagers have sex, yes some abstain until college or marriage or what have you — but you see a very interesting sort of reflection of that reality in YA fantasy that makes it seem as polarized as I’ve made it sound. For the most part, I’ve seen, it’s sex or no sex. Kiss or all-the-way “and they had sex.” Fantasy is a reflection of our reality placed within a fantastic background. It stands to reason that all aspects of a teen’s reality should sort of make their way into a well-written novel, if there is a legitimate place for it. For teens, it’s not just sex or no sex. There’s a hell of a lot of confusing, angsty middle ground. And there’s so much drama associated with it, ripe for the novelizing. Rarely do I see teen novels — in the fantasy category, mind you — that actually make use of that middle ground when the need arises. It’s sort of an all-or-nothing thing, and that confuses me. (i.e. Right before the climax, or at the very end of the denouement, the characters either kiss or they do it.) For example, you have Tamora Pierce’s Trickster’s Choice/Trickster’s Queen with Aliane actually, well, having sex, and then Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl‘s Princess Isi being all, well, chaste in an utterly Princess-like fashion. Both characters are approximately the same age — seventeen to eighteen, ish — but that sort of polarity (and you’ll see more of what I mean if you’ve read those particular novels) is what I’m talking about. Admittedly, for Isi it fits her culture and character, but I was a little put out by Aliane’s sort of, well, what happened there. (Those aren’t my favorite Pierce books, and that’s one of the big reasons why.) It seemed sort of added.

For my books, my characters’ sexual activities (or complete lack thereof) are based on a wide combination of factors, just as any person’s sexual activities are. In what I write, as in reality, there are situations and characters who will and do experience the plenty, the lack, the good, the painful, the awkward, the embarrassing, the misunderstood. Et cetera. I’m not planning on purposefully including or not including anything unless it fits. And I both like/hate the pre-climax/end-of-denouement kiss/sex thing. I mean, you either need the bolstering before you go to battle or you get the reward once you’ve survived — it’s an overarching fantasy thing, not just YA. But in real life you have bumbling flirtation, awkward kissing,  betrayed lovers, stuff that’s a heck of a lot more complex than just the pre-battle bolstering or post-battle reward.

This whole discussion brings me around in some ways to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga and its beating-around-the-bush with teens, sex, love, commitment, and marriage. (I won’t actually reveal the plots here but I do plan to get into it, so watch out.) Oy. I have and can go on and on and on about this. Bella is presented as a stereotypical (and in a lot, a lot of ways uninterestingly stereotypical) teenager. But she and Edward have nothing short of a ridiculously, unusually atypical relationship with its attenuating circumstances involving physical, well, involvement. Edward and Bella, for lack of a better way to say it, can’t get jiggy (cough, 1997, cough) — or, for that matter, even a little carried away — without consequences. Jacob throws a wrench into the chaste machine in his own way in book two (and by wrench I mean some repressed-hormone-tongue-action) and by the third book, it’s all a bunch of non-real confusing relationship-y stuff. How’s a normal girl supposed to look at that fantasy plot (admittedly involving werewolves and vampires but ultimately still about teenagers) and apply it as a mirror to her reality? (Believe me, if you’ve read these books, you’ll see what I mean; you’re probably hopelessly confused otherwise.)

So my biggest criticism with these books is mostly the fact that I have trouble reconciling Bella’s predicament with anything any normal teenager would face in her own reality. The choice between two different guys’ loves is one thing — unusual in and of itself outside of a Hollywood script; and Bella is still, by the third book, relatively unremarkable, mind you, despite Meyer’s failed attempts to prove otherwise — which makes the whole Bella / Edward / Jacob quandary even more complex. If Bella were a hero/heroine worthy of their adoration I would put this whole argument aside. Entirely. But she’s not. She’s just… well. As far as I can tell she is The Right Girl at the Right Time, and barring any Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix-like bombs (after-the-fact prophecies), I am not convinced she’s very special. Plus, the issues that arise when discussing anything involving teens and sex arise in an even more mature format here between Bella, Edward, and Jacob — sex, marriage, children, immortality versus mortality, even potential suicide! (Romeo and Juliet, gag a little) — and make Bella’s choice a bit, well, unreal.

Or, well, EMO. EMO EMO EMO EMO. All she’s missing is the black eyeliner and My Chemical Romance on repeat on iTunes.

Cough. Um. Yes. Moving on and circling back.

Fantasy is not unreal fiction. Fantasy holds a warped mirror to reality to better highlight issues, ideas, and characters through a fantastic lens, enabling an author certain storytelling freedoms. But ultimately fantasy, like any genre, is still rooted irrevocably in our reality and as such still needs to feel real. And I want — I really do — to feel like I’m in Bella’s shoes. But I can’t. By the end of that third book things have gone so far out of my own spectrum of understanding and experience that I cannot even really enjoy it anymore. That said, I know others do enjoy it — others not as flippin’ critical as myself, and I know I am critical — but I wonder just how many feel absolutely rivetedly connected to Bella and her CHOICE. Because really. Really? Who has that choice? Who can even symphathize enough with Bella to the degree to feel riveted by that choice? Evidently a heck of a lot of teenagers. And it makes me so confused. I am not that far out of my teens. Is this what teenagers think is hopelessly romantic? Is Meyers warping the romantic dreams of teenagers by hinting that this could happen to any average girl? It makes me wonder if she is. And if she is, it makes me wonder and worry a little about the elements on the table for discussion in these books — sex, marriage, children, immortality versus mortality, even potential suicide, as I said.

It’s not even that, per se. It’s also to do with Meyers’ inconsistency — though it may also be her attempt to display a teenager’s wide-ranging, ever-changing emotions and feelings and beliefs.

I wonder if these teenagers have read Jane Austen. (Talk about consistently chaste and lovely stuff. Ah, Austen.)

I’m getting really worked up about this!

So.

Let me pose a spoiler-filled scenario to myself, non-fantasy, and let me see if I can wrap my head around this. So let’s say Bella’s choice is not between a century-old vampire who looks 17 — Edward — and a Native American werewolf who really is 16 — Jacob. Rather it’s between a sensitive, handsome, book-loving, science guy who’s an expert in martial arts, but he has had a disease preventing him from being able to father children — let’s call him Sedward. Sedward wants to wait until marriage to have sex, and he’s promising a happy, un-divorce-able eternity together with him and his loving (but strange) family. In the other corner we have a 6’5″ football player with a love of motorcycles but with a surprising intellect and winsome smile — let’s call him Racob. Racob is perfectly healthy in the testicular sense. Racob is much younger and more immature than Sedward but he’s got that much in common with Bella, who’s more around Racob’s age. Bella’s dad loves Racob and is cooler to Sedward, but he wants Bella to be happy. Both boys are Bella’s type, in their own way, and she’s torn between her older, more persisting love with Sedward, whom she believes to be her soulmate, and her fiery, sudden passion for Racob, who is vociferously offering her the moment, contrasting with Sedward’s promise of eternity. See the quandary? Now, see, I’ve made the situation somewhat human. BUT. What girl is really going to have that choice — at eighteen, no less? For “Sedward” Bella would give up college, give up a normal life, but for “Racob” she would give up Sedward. And then there’s the whole sex thing. She can’t have sex with Sedward — gah, Edward, until marriage with him, as per his deal, at which point he’ll turn her. She wants to be turned Oh So Badly. Then there’s Jacob with his hot mouth (ugh) and muscle-y physique and his “but you can have my babies, Bella” ridiculousness — THEY ARE TEENAGERS, COUGH — and his hatred of Edward. Jacob’s a hell of a lot more immature than Edward.(Jacob cannot see that he too is a monster as Edward is, being a werewolf himself, whereas Edward is consistently The Bigger Man and is much more, well, frickin’ mature. Though he is a LOT older than he looks.)

So that’s the LONG — or the short, depending on whether or not you really believe that’s all I have to say on the matter, cough — of why I am so quasi-excited/not excited for Breaking Dawn. Because really. The book’s plot more or less revolves around Bella’s choice and such. And I hope to goodness she chooses Edward for my own sanity. And I’m shocked by that actually because I’m almost always in the “Have the werewolf babies!” camp. (Yes, it’s come up  a few times across the genre. Yes, I am usually anti-vampire. Yes, werewolves are usually awesome.) But the way Meyer has characterized them… I mean, she characterizes them as a part-gang, part-football team, part-frat house. I can see the appeal to a teenager but really…? Really? Frick, REALLY!?

Obviously I have no opinion on the matter.

EDIT: Read my rant on Breaking Dawn here.

Things accomplished this past weekend:

We saw The Golden Compass on Saturday! It was terrific, or at least I think so. (SPOILER ALERT. If you’ve read the book and you’re curious about the movie, this won’t really give anything away.) The film was generally well-adapted, though its flow was a little clunky at times. It was terrifically well-acted though by all, though the choice of Ian McKellen’s voice for Iorek Byrnison sort of threw me a little consistently. I kept going, “Where’s Gandalf?! Where?!” and naturally he’s not in this film. Dakota Blue Richards (Lyra) was phenomenally good playing such a fiesty character and I enjoyed that they kept true to her gutsyness throughout. The ending was good — they cut it off right before the scene with Asriel, Coulter, and the gang with Cittagaze in the sky beyond — but despite that it ended well, full of anticipation. Lyra says, in regards to the aleithometer, “It says we’re bringing my father exactly what he needs,” and Bryan and I giggled a little. Oh, that book. It’s so marvelous. But the scene with crossing over will be a lot better to start of The Subtle Knife, though, assuming that movie gets made (I haven’t started Googling New Line’s decision yet — they said they were not going to start production on it until they heard the outcome of the box office). I hope they make it! Will Parry is probably my favorite character in the series. I can’t wait to see who they cast for him.

Now! On to other events of the weekend. We watched Junebug last night (Amy Adams’ Oscar-nominated performance was really worthy of that nod though the movie itself was a little odd) and I spent a large part of Friday through yesterday reading both New Moon and Eclipse, both by Stephenie Meyer. Having read both, I think New Moon, oddly enough, was the best of the series so far. Eclipse left an odd feeling in my mouth, so to speak. (SPOILER: I get very anxious when the main character professes undying love for Character A then realizes she’s also in love with Character B and there’s kissing all around. I get all loyal to the first relationship and I’m very anti-switching-things-up. That, and I don’t like how Jacob treats her opinions — he makes a lot of assumptions that not even Edward made in the beginning; he’s so stubborn he doesn’t hear her. He loves her, yeah we get it, but she loves Edward more so let’s move on. I really just want to see her married to Edward already. I am hoping Meyer doesn’t drag out the Edward versus Jacob for too long. Really. It’s been long enough with the delaying of Bella changing over, I’m just not in the mood to keep waiting for whether or not Jacob’s going to do something insane (because that’s what she’s setting it up to be, what with the epilogue and Jacob running amok. Is he running to stop the wedding? I really hope not… Really. This is why I can’t love these books — it comes down to their being series instead of, well, a tightly wrapped story. If it’d been a simple trilogy… or one novel, it’d be better. But now that it’s going to keep going… I enjoy the characters and situations — New Moon was decent; the Italians won me over, really they did. — but I can’t like the dragging-the-plot-on-for-thousands-of-pages part. COME ON. END IT ALREADY. But depending on how it ends is how I’ll feel about the whole series, I know it.) Me, opinionated? Never!

The one non-spoiler thing that these Meyer books have gotten me thinking about is first person narration. McKinley’s been doing it too lately — with Sunshine, with Dragonhaven – and she’s certainly not the only one. The Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs is written in first person (though the Hurog books were written in third) and that intimacy is interesting; it allows for a lot of casual observations that in third person must be much more carefully inserted to feel organic (and I obsess about the organic). I’m still clinging to third person in my own [fantasy] works at the moment because I have this obsessive need to make all of my voices sound completely distinct (and if they were in 1st person that makes writing three or four books at once, as I’m sort of doing, a lot closer to intellectually impossible — ouch, the brain hurts just thinking of that) and considering my books all star different heroes and at times switch perspectives (though I’d ditch that if I were doing a first person narrative voice, naturally) I keep forcing myself to keep it in third for my own sanity. Even so my narrative styles vary really widely — my language and the way I tell the story moves with the minds of the main characters even when it’s in third person (because even with third person it’s very omniscient and I don’t have a ‘narrator’ character) so it’s a lot more intimate than, say, John Dickinson’s The Cup of the World, which is styled completely differently (more on a deliberate echo of romantic/medieval styles and therefore more detached and focused on language and idiom). At times I think I get much too academic about my creative work. I think I need to stop reading so much and start writing a heck of a lot.

In regards to that: I had a long talk with Bryan yesterday regarding writing, schedules, deadlines, and getting my creative work back on track. He’s said he’ll be happy to bug me about deadlines if that will encourage me to actually work as opposed to sitting around and being lazy; he’ll do whatever it takes if I need him to be there for me. He even said if I finish Story A and realize that’s not the best one to start sending queries about, he has absolutely no problem with waiting for me to work on Story B or C to get that ready. He’s really completely and totally focused on making me simply work, first of all — everything else will come. He knows what I have is good and I know what I have is good, it’s just a matter of me not being lazy about getting it from brain to Word document — because really, that’s what the issue is. The whole brain-to-Word document transition is really just a long process of me getting hand cramps and butt cramps and all of that. He’s completely and totally supportive of me so long as I promise to slog away at the computer (and tolerate the cramps). So I’ve promised. And I am being good; even just blogging gets my fingers moving and gets me in the writing frame of mind. As to that, I go to be a good writing girl.

I finished Shaman’s Crossing (started 9/19; finished 9/21) the other day and promptly read and finished Forest Mage (started 9/21; finished 9/23), its sequel. Surprising, and very different from her other trilogies, but I was nonetheless absorbed and addicted. What is it about her first person narration that seems so different from other first person narration? There is a running theme in her Fitz/Nevare books now of a very close attention to the body and personal space and changes therein. The physical aspect of her characters’ lives is very important (as it should be) but so often authors tend to concentrate, I think, more on the plot and action rather than updating us on how the narrator physically looks and feels. It’s gritty and real, and I think I like it.

I’ve just finished Sunshine by Robin McKinley, and it’s gotten me thinking about a lot of things, not the least of which is writing. But also of vampires, of characterization, first person narration, and the not-so-odd idea of obsessively needing to keep a library, for various reasons. (Not the least of which is because I am a voracious re-reader of books.) (Do I say ‘not the least of which’ a lot?)

I also find, in retrospect, that I write my blog entries and daily musings—but only about 10% of what I write fictionally—very much like Robin McKinley. It’s odd; maybe it’s because she was the first author who really floored me with stylistic grace, with the elements of capturing a character’s essence in text. She also has taught me how to use semicolons, colons, and emdashes—which I abuse profusely. (That was not a ‘not the least of which’!) I also fall back to parentheticals. Which she uses…a lot. Well, when she’s writing a quirky modern character, or when her narrator is feeling particularly ironic.

Sunshine was fantastic, but not for any one reason. I’d avoided it initially because it was (a) specifically McKinley for adults (Two words appear that are not age appropriate even for the most daring of YA editors, content aside); and (b) it involved vampires. But this time I picked it up, read every single one of the review blurbs, and was convinced that all this book was was McKinley taking up the reigns of a new horse and finding she could teach it a thing or two about equestrianism. (Oh! See that? I’m using absurd metaphors. You’d find the irony if you’d just read Sunshine, too.) What Sunshine ended up being was, well, shockingly original yet intensely familiar. A vampire fairy tale rooted in fundamental realism. (I love it—LOVE IT—when a narrator looks you in the face and tells you about his or her world without actually explaining anything utterly fundamental.

There are two ways authors tend to deal with the supernatural and fantastic when describing and laying out a world like that of Sunshine. Here, I’ll give you an example. Say you’re writing a story in which a character lives in a world in which Christianity exists, and that turns out to be integral to the plot. (Oh! Boy!) Say about 70% of the people in that world—locally—are Christian and the main character goes to church, and he/she’s a bit apathetic, but his/her mother is really obsessive and so he/she does it for her sake, even though the character’s got a crush on this adorable Islamic boy… yadda yadda. You can see why religion would play a role in the plot, right? But obviously wouldn’t BE the plot (that would be more about the character dynamics and world challenges, blah blah). The author—via the narrator—can either (1) assume you know what Christianity is, generally, so only tell you the details that are pertinent only to the main character’s peculiar situation (perhaps why the mother is obsessive and why the character is apathetic; maybe it’s the particular church, etc.), or (2) they explain to you what Christianity is. They either go back to the 300s and the Gnostics and give you the Byzantine/Roman adoption through the Dark Ages and the burnings of heretics and the Vatican and the Crusades and the converting of the British pagans and the seventeenth century religious wars and Puritans settling America… or they give you a piece of that whole thing—but they give it to you assuming you don’t know nearly enough about Christianity as they do so they simply must educate you so you can appreciate their storytelling (or history telling) genius.

Robin McKinley is the former. Even better—she drops thick globules of interesting things (slang, curses, hints of gods and a cosmic backdrop, personal histories, character quirks) so that you KNOW she knows—or suspects—this whole world’s details and minutiae down to the last atom, but she never downright takes you behind the painted cardboard set to show you the two-by-fours holding it up. And that, to me, makes it richer. Not knowing makes a story richer, not only because you can dream up the minutiae yourself as a reader, but because you can really fall into it and trust in the all-knowing power of the author. Because, to me, if an author is jumping up and down yelling, “I’m awesome! I’m awesome!” then clearly, they haven’t let you decide that for yourself, as the reader, and that reader’s decision is a power I like to have—and a power I would like to grant as an author myself.

Sunshine was so real to me because I didn’t know the back stories of every character—enough to understand their pertinence and personality, but not more than what our narrator could realistically know—and that there was no real point where the narrator truly broke the fourth wall, so to speak, and laid it out straight. Her tone was consistently flippant and a little half-mad (she talked to herself a lot) but that’s what made any foray at all into pseudo world-explanation bearable—because it was believable. And not all of it came at once. That’s what a lot of bad fantasy authors do (I am thinking of Terry Goodkind again)—throw a lot out at you all at once and expect you to keep that all in your head for the duration of the series. (That’s the other flaw; the 800-book series. I’m not so much a fan of the unending series. Yay, single self-contained novels. Heh. Personal preference…

What I particularly liked was McKinley did throw a lot out—in doses. First dose—a full slam into Rae/Sunshine’s hectic life at the coffee shop, as a baker, filled with details familiar to anyone from our world, so the sinking into the world is guided by gentle hands. Then, a healthy dose of thick characterization and situation-ing. (By that I mean presenting the situation of the main character and what got her there and why she should all of a sudden get dunked into a series of supernatural events. Sounds like screenplay, eh? Read my thesis; I discuss it as ‘stasis’.) Then boom, the no-mercy plunge into the new world. She gives us enough to understand the world but never a history lesson. She’s done this in The Blue Sword as well; a thick immersion into Harry’s life at the General Mundy before—plunk—into the hands of the Hillfolk. This way we as readers are rooted so firmly in the character’s own reality because of that steadying real world (or at least familiar and safe) introduction that we, like the main character, cling to that as we’re doused with all of the new and supernatural information and practically drowned by the series of events that follow.

Now, if there is any downside to Sunshine it’s that it lacks high consistent action—though believe me, I was not bored, ever. Ever. (By the by, I define ‘action’ as fighting, high adrenaline running-for-your-life cool cool stuff. Not that there wasn’t any—there was quite a bit—but it was, well, cast in a normal sort of light, as the whole book was.) A lot of the “happenings” were informational, or incidents and conversations—and believe me, conversations have to be the best thing to write or read for me, ever. I love that revelation of plot and character through dialogue. But unlike in Harry Potter, where Rowling has the convenient ability to pull Death Eaters out of her magic Death Eater maker and throw them at anyone she wishes—because clearly, there are an uncountable number of Death Eaters—McKinley doesn’t ever really use that Ultimate Villain of the World with Unending Henchmen to the same effect. (This principle is the same principle with Storm Troopers. It’s the evil henchman thing: so long as you’ve got a base world principle or world villain rooted in some terrible tyrannical plot of domination, you as a writer get an unending supply of henchmen to throw at your main characters. Think of the Bond movies.) Basically, I was expecting a vampire attack every ten pages, but no—retrospectively, thank the gods and angels, to use her (never explained in the book but often used) phrase—it was…classier?…than that.

Oh. And the climax was good. Even the “resolution”—I really always want to call it the “aftermath” in these genre instances, because, really. When you’re fighting vampires, there isn’t so much a resolution as a mess to clean up afterward, which I would prefer to call an aftermath—that was good. Really good. Though I find myself, like one of the reviewers in the front matter desperately wanting a sequel. SEQUEL! I just can’t not love that world. And characters. Oh, I’d go into further detail but. Well. You wouldn’t understand unless you’d read it.

By the way, I am finished with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—have been since the day it was released. Heh. Though I have a lot to say on it, I won’t really say it here. Who knows whose dreams might be spoiled?