How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?

Over at Mysterious Matters, mysterious wrote a post recently in which he says that, no matter what they say, more readers (at least of genre fiction) don't want their characters to develop. I can't speak to mystery fiction -- I don't read much of it, and I don't write mysteries -- but I wonder if that's a problem with series fiction moreso than genre fiction. If you're writing a trilogy or something, I think it would be a good idea for the characters to develop, but I can't imagine what you would have to say about one character over the course of ten or fifteen or twenty books. It seems...impossible. So if I were a writer of a series like that, I wouldn't work very hard on character development. I wouldn't want my characters to develop very much. Mysterious points out that in Agatha Christie the detectives didn't develop because they weren't supposed to--the focus of the reader was on the mystery and the puzzle, and the detective was jus...

1. I've been watching The Real World D.C. this season and I have to say that the women on the show thus far have been pretty cool. Sure, they have their issues, but they also seem to be bright and fun and they seem to stick up for each other and other women in a way that you sometimes don't see on reality shows.* 2. On the other hand, The Deep End , which is about first year lawyers, is not a good show. It's too melodramatic and silly, and the first years are allowed to do stuff that no first year would be allowed to do without any guidance or help. There are so many shows about lawyers, it's hard to understand why there are so few any good ones.** 3. I just got these shoes: Nice, right? Linea Paolo at Nordstrom . As an inveterate wearer of high heels, I can tell you that all of their shoes are superbly balanced and make it feel like you're not wearing a 4 inch heel. I also like the Gianni Bini line at Dillards, which has the same balanced quality. 4. Huma...

A while ago, Kathy Teamen posted a list of things that editors are thinking about when they read manuscripts. The whole list is good, but my favorite item on the list is this one: Am I personally moved by this story or situation? This is a question that matters in two ways, I think. First, this is the way I edit. At some level, when I revise my stories, I'm always gauging how I feel about what's happening. In every book I've written, there are parts that I find myself skimming over or moving past without really seeing them. These are the parts, I have learned, that are the boring parts. Yeah, that's a harsh truth. But it is a truth. When I, the author, am not moved by a certain scene, that means that it's not, well, moving. Of course, every scene doesn't have to be high melodrama, but even the parts of stories where characters have to share information or things have to be described, the scenes can be moving. There can be conflict and character detail. ...

A long long time ago in land called 2007, I wrote a little bit about characters and likeability . Here's how I feel about it: Characters don't have to be likeable. They have to be relatable. There's a difference. The reason why this topic comes up again now is that I read a post on the Bookends blog in which Jessica talks about characters and likeability . She says, in part: I do believe that characters have to be likeable for a book to work. That doesn’t mean, however, that characters can’t have flaws or unlikeable characteristics. I tend to use Hannibal Lecter a lot as an example, but I think he’s such a fabulous example and tends to be a character most people are familiar with. Who could imagine creating a horrific serial killer who is actually likeable? On paper that doesn’t make any sense. On the book page you see how it works. Okay, maybe he’s not entirely “likeable,” but he’s certainly fascinating enough that you need to keep reading about him. Sure, he eats peopl...

I was going to write a big long email about how some people on the internet are jerks, but I think the easiest thing to do is just link to an example * of what not to do, and move on to something that is awesome. So what is awesome today? The combination of this song and video by 30 Second to Mars.** But let's back up for a second. A long time ago, in a land called 1994, there was a show called My So-Called Life . It starred Claire Danes as a teenage girl trying to figure out who she wanted to be, and even though it was an amazing show, it only lasted a season.*** And on that show, Claire (who played a girl named Angela Chase) was in love with a boy named Jordan Catalano. Oh, Jordan . Don't you just love the way he leans ? Anyway, Jordan was the Bad Boy. He probably wasn't going to graduate from high school, he had a LOT of girlfriends, he was a musician , and he was totally wrong for Angela. But she loved him and so, by extension, did the audience. Jordan was played...

Point of view is one of those things that happens so automatically that a lot of writers don't really talk about it. I've found that my stories fall naturally into a point of view and rarely slip from that, but an experience I had with The Book* had led to me to think carefully about what point of view does to a story and what changing it can do. Then I read this post from Marie Brennan over at Fangs, Fur, and Fey about the difficulties she's having with a project. This is how she puts it: the damn thing can't decide what point of view it wants to be in. When I started writing, it defaulted to third. I cranked out a couple thousand words like that in the first day of "whee fun shiny new toy!," but then when I came back the next day, I got a couple hundred in before I noticed it had morphed to first. And ever since then, it's waffled back and forth. Heh . I feel her pain. What this means (t0 me--I don't know what it will mean to Brennan) is that at...

1. Not only is Elmo (my new car) cute, but it turns out he's also a tax deduction. I love him more every day! 2. Bravo channel doesn't seem to realize that showing ads for Millionaire Matchmaker and Tabitha's Salon Takeover and Pimp My Line * during reruns of The West Wing only makes those shows look stupider than they are.** 3. Speaking of, we've reached the point in The West Wing where I stopped watching the last time (after Zoey Bartlett's kidnapping), so I literally have no idea what's going to happen now. Despite the fact that this is, essentially, a new show to me now, I may give up on it again. It's...not good at this point. People say it picked up toward the end of the run with the new candidates, so I might stick with it, but I say you know what would have made this a good show all the way through? Rob Lowe.*** 4. I spent a couple of hours this weekend writing backstory for the Next Book. I don't do that before I write (because not ...