Writing: I’m doing it rong
This is a shortie, since I’m supposed to be At Work and not Playing (don’t tell) but I just peeked in on a Much Loved Blog That Shall Not Be Named, and the writer had mentioned this little graph she’d made for her new WIP, with character names going across and things like Beat 1, Beat 2, etc. going down, and I thought…beats?
(She also used a word I’d never heard before, which made me feel hugely unworthy to call myself a real writer, since here I am, blithely writing books without knowing if I’m doing…whatever that is. 
)
I’ve heard her talk at length about these things before, and while I’m impressed as hell (if not slightly intimidated), from everything I can tell she rewrites her stuff as much as I do with what I call my Stumble Around in the Dark Until I Find the Switch method. I mean, I suppose my books have beats, just don’t ask me what they are. Let alone where they are. 
The SAITDUIFTS method can basically be boiled down to:
1. Rustle up some characters.
2. Give them a conflict.
3. Toss in some stuff to make the conflict worse.
4. Repeat #3 several times, but in different ways.
5. Make Things So Bad They’ll Never Be Resolved.
6. Resolve.
So there you have it. A workshop in less than a hundred words. Go forth and apply, my work here is done. Of course, she does have a few more fans than I do, and she’s in hardback and all, so there might be something to this “finding the beats” thing. So maybe I’ll look into it. Some day.
When I finally get tired of stubbing my toes from all that stumbling around in the dark.
Apropos of heading to Wal-Mart this morning…
more cat pictures”>
Um, authors have comfort zones, too?
Interesting. Was just reading this review over on Dear Author of a book that just the review alone is causing readers to want to dry-clean their eyeballs. At last count there were 19 responses. Nary a single one refuted the reviewer’s take on the book as being eminently squick-worthy. Clearly, for these readers, boundaries have been breached and sensibilities ravaged. Others just found the subject matter — and the handling of same — laughable, certainly not worthy of being taken seriously, and definitely not romantic.
While I’m sure there are readers who luuuurved this book — although no hardy soul has yet to own up to it, with good reason — those readers who’ve read the review and thought, Nope, not my thing, have every right to choose to not read the book, let alone like it.
And yet…let an author suggest that she has boundaries and comfort zones and preferences, and she’s often branded (generally by other authors, which makes this even sadder) as close-minded, a prude or simply out of touch.
Why is it that we can (hopefully) convince ourselves that our work won’t please all readers — nor should it, otherwise it would be bland and generic and pathetic — and yet not cut our fellow authors the same slack? Why is an author who honestly states that she can’t judge books with certain elements — from werewolves to religion to alien sex — seen as The Enemy?
Now, saying books with those elements have no business being published — nope, no right to do that, no matter what your personal feelings. Readers, OTOH, have every right to voice those opinions. Or vote with their dollars. Readers are our customers. Our job (collectively) is to write stories they want to read. It is not to police the industry and dictate what’s “suitable” or not for publication. But being an author does not automatically divest us of personal preferences in what we choose to read, or what we’re comfortable judging. Not wishing to read/score something that squicks us out/offends us/we can’t take seriously doesn’t make us bad people, it just makes us…
Readers.
It’s just a book, people
Hiding out over here in my little cocoon, earth-shaking phenomena (literary and otherwise) have been known to pass right over my head…until the intertubes ’splode with accusations of shark-jumping or some such. Case in point: the whole Stephanie Meyer BREAKING DAWN bruhaha, which has me seriously .
To begin with, not only have I never read the books, but I was only vaguely aware of the author before a few days ago. Don’t ask me how I missed it/them/her, but I did. So this post isn’t the book, but rather the whole ohmiGOD-what-was-she-THINKING-how-DARE-she? reaction bleeding all over the blogosphere. Fangs are out, baby, and not only in the book. Theories abound about everything from the author’s motives in writing the books (which must be suspect), to how her religious beliefs have tainted the story (excuse me?), to whether or not she even wrote the books herself (some speculate someone else wrote the last one, because it’s so different from the others; others the opposite, that clearly the first one was ghostwritten, as were possibly the second and third, then she decided to pen the fourth on her own, which is why it’s so “horrible.”)
Brother.
Okay, I get that some people were disappointed. Or even hated the last book. Hey, it happens. What I don’t get — and never have — is how much readers take the experience to heart, to the point where their frustration at not getting the product they’d hoped for gets blown waaaaay out of proportion to its importance in the larger scheme of things.
It’s a book, people. A book that didn’t work for you, for whatever reason. I run across books/movies/restaurant meals that don’t work for me far more often than I’d like…but I shrug and move on. So I don’t buy that author/watch that director’s work/eat at that restaurant anymore. But I never, ever, take it personally (well, unless I get food poisoning or something).
Simply because you’ve laid out a few bucks for something doesn’t guarantee you’re gonna like it. And just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean no one else will. To wit, I hated SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and KNOCKED UP. Does that mean I should be ticked off that the producers/writers/directors of those movies dared to put something out there that didn’t meet my personal expectations for an “entertaining” experience? Was I disappointed that Spidey 3 left me feeling “eh,” when Spidey 2 knocked my socks off? Yeah, sure. Did I demand my six bucks back? No.
So excuse me while I shake my head at the above-and-beyond reaction going on at a blog near you. Because I can’t help but think what might happen if people channeled all that outrage into, say, the situation in Darfur, or the rampant child abuse going on in Afghanistan. Or even fixing a few potholes in this country’s policies. Y’know?
Priorties, folks. Priorities.
A true hero
Been connecting on Facebook recently with folks I went to college with maaaany years ago. It’s been a real trip seeing the hippie dudes and gals from the early seventies morph into these middle aged people, yeesh (although what’s with the guys all having gray beards???). Anyway, one guy actually loaded a series of photos of his life, starting when he was about three and ending in the present, with lots of pics of him on adventures in Costa Rica and Iceland and such. An actor/director, the photos were labeled with such quips as “Even at three, already in costume” (since he was attired in full cowboy regalia, chaps and all). The last one, though, was simply entitled “Taking my best girl to the prom.”
The photo showed our intrepid adventurer (now balding and bespectacled) standing beside a wheelchair, in which sat — in a stunning gold-and-black lace frock — a young woman challenged with some major disability or other. His daughter, I’m assuming, judging from the pride and love radiating from his grinning face.
I’m sure, if I were to ask him, that he’d say his biggest adventure came to him, rather than the other way around.
My guess is he’s been more than up to the challenge.
