A book is not a child

Susan sent us a link to a Charlaine Harris blog entry about the nature of the writing process, and the part readers play in that process.

I’ve noticed lately that quite a few readers seem angry if books don’t turn out in a way that would have made them happier. That’s an attitude I find hard to understand. (Maybe it’s my age? I don’t know.) … I know that readers have every right not to be happy with the way a book ends, or with the way characters meet their fate. But to be angry with the writer? The characters belong to the writer. I know in a certain sense they belong to the reader, too; but the characters live in the writer’s mind and at her/his will.

Well, there’s anger, and then there’s anger. But I don’t think the feelings of betrayal are that inexplicable—Misery is an effective horror novel because Annie Wilkes is a rather mundane, everyday creature exaggerated to grotesque extremes, which tends to be a specialty of King’s. She’s your biggest fan—and you don’t want to piss off your biggest fan.

Reading for pleasure is a deeply personal process—and when you’re reading fiction, it’s also a deeply emotional process. I know I’ve become angry at authors for fucking up their stories. It’s not the personal, directed rage I’d feel towards somebody who had actively done me wrong, and it’s not the deep, sustaining slow burn I feel when I encounter what I perceive to be social injustice. Later on in the blog, Harris mentions that the writer is God, and I think she’s hit the nail on the head, because you know what? People get angry at God all the time. It may not be rational—it may, in fact, be a completely useless endeavor, but it’s a very human urge.

There are different types of anger, too, and I think it’s important to distinguish between them. There’s the anger I feel when I finish a truly awful book. When the craft displayed isn’t inept so much as in need of major reconstructive surgery—so much so that I have no idea how the book got published—I tend to feel pissy at the time and money I’ve wasted.  I don’t expect a choir of angels singing every time I open a book, but I do expect a base level of competence.

And then there’s the anger at an author when she starts out terrifically, and then fucks it the hell up further down the line (with certain authors, like a certain somebody whose name starts with “L” and ends with “aurell K. Hamilton,” the fucking is literal as well as metaphorical). In a rather strange way, it’s a compliment to the author. The readers are obviously emotionally invested in the book and the characters; the fact that they’re unhappy with the turn of events may be tiresome (and I’m all for an author staying true to her vision, because writing solely to please the fans is a pretty disastrous proposition) but it shows that at least somewhere down the line, you did something right.

I do find the question of who the characters belong to to be an interesting question. The author has ultimate control, but the reader plays a crucial part in the interpretation process. They may not spend as much time with the characters and story as the author does, but the ties that are created can be every bit as strong and real. The readers don’t—and really shouldn’t—get a say in how the story goes, but I can certainly understand their proprietary urges.

The writer is determiner of fate for his or her characters. Writing is a lone pastime, not a group endeavor. It doesn’t take a village to write a book. It takes one person, shut up in a room for hours on end.

This little bit here made me think about the creative process and how we tend to have this idealized vision of the author as this Glorious Isolato, struggling with her vision and her muse. And then she hands it in to the editor, who asks her to cut 5,000 words so the story is tighter and finds a continuity error that needs to be fixed, and the copyeditor, who catches some typos and points out gently that switching tenses every other sentence makes for a jarring read. Yes, a book is written mostly alone, and as I’ve already said, when it comes down to reader whims vs. authorial vision, authorial vision should win, but I think writing a book is a somewhat more collaborative effort than what we give credit for. A good editor is worth her weight in gold; it’s not a coincidence that certain authors start sucking when they hit the big time and are given more space to be self-indulgent. Cf Rice, Anne and BATSHIT INSANITY.

So some things to think about (and if they sound a little like textbook discussion questions, blame law school for putting me in that frame of mind):

What was the last book you got angry about?

Why were you angry?

Were you mad at the book, or at the author—or both?

Who do you think the characters truly belong to: the author? The readers? Both? Neither?

Authors out there: how strongly do editors influence your vision?

Editors out there: How do you keep your authors happy?

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Random Musings

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  1. Denise says:

    What was the last book you got angry about?

    I’m rarely angry over a book.  Disappointed, yes.  Surprised that some titles were considered for more than bird cage lining, but not angry.  I usually express my disapproval with my pocketbook.  I won’t buy the author’s next book. 

    For me, I’d have to say Mary Balogh’s latest stuff.  I’ve loved MB in the past, but the last two books I read were stylistic nightmares.  The opening line in one of them was so convoluted and poorly executed, I had to read it three times just to make sense of what she was trying to say.  Flat characters, dull sex, two-dimensional or weak villains, unsympathetic heroines…ugh.  She used to be an auto-buy for me.  No longer.

    Why were you angry?

    See above.

    Were you mad at the book, or at the author—or both?

    Author.  The book isn’t a sentient being.  And if an author claims to be god in his/her universe, then he/she best prepare for folks to be angry.  They get angry at deities all the time.

    Who do you think the characters truly belong to: the author? The readers? Both? Neither?

    Initially, I’d say they belong to the author.  However, a reader emotionally invested in the story will adopt the character.  There are certain expectations the author sets for the character in the beginning of the story.  The reader picks up on those expectations and expects to see consistency throughout.  I’m all for the author playing god in their own universe, but I also hope they follow the ground rules they set.  I, as a reader, will get irritated if the author suddenly takes a sharp left into la-la land and blows her character creations out of the water by having them do something suddenly out of character with no supporting backstory or explanation for why such a thing has happened.  That is truly a WTF moment for me.  I’m okay with an author using “I’m god in my created universe.”  I just expect as an all-powerful deity in that universe, the author keep tight control of it.

  2. Last book I got angry about?  Not sure.  Mostly I just get bored and wander away.  I do remember my greatest anger at a book was years ago with Susan Isaac’s ALMOST PARADISE.  It was a big, juicy, wonderful romance.  At the end, the heroine died.  I was so furious that she broke that major promise.  I don’t necessarily need HEA, but I sure need living h and H and/or a little hope, if you don’t mind.

    I was actually mad at the author for taking my totally reasonable expectations and having nonconsentual (sp?) buttsecks with them.  I still love Susan Isaacs, but I’m totally wary when I read her books since then.

    Characters “belong” to the author in an objective sense.  In a subjective sense, if the reader doeesn’t feel attachment/investment/ and even a degree of “ownership” of/in the characters, nobody cares about the book and the question is moot.

    My editor for a thousand years and counting is very careful with the suggestions she makes. She never fixed a thing that wasn’t broken.  And when she says there’s a problem, I listen and fix it. I’ve had other editors in the meantime for various reasons, and temporarily.  Most asked for more changes than my regular ed. I felt I learned from making those changes, learned from taking what that ed said didn’t work and fixing it in my own way.

  3. Jane says:

    Can you imagine it in an art gallery?  “You know, she used more blue in her last painting, and I liked it so much better.  This painting should be blue!  And all her future works should feature blue as well—because I like blue!”

    Ah, that actually happens all the time.  People give their opinion all the time, not just readers.

    Suzanne Forster for The Morning After.

    Never going to read that book.  Ugh.

    Harris is being totally disinegnuous.  She’s taken a lot of flack for killing off Martin in a Fool and His Honey, a series which is pretty much dead in the water after that book came out (interestingly its a mystery book and it was her mystery fans that were upset and not buying her next books, not those emotional-off-their-rocker romance readers).  Her response is I get to do what I want with my characters.

    That’s fine, but don’t be surprised then when readers are angry and get angry with the creator.  And really, if the author is god of her characters what does she truly care what peon readers think?

  4. Thinking it over I realize I have two different reactions to two different things.

    1. If I don’t like the way a story is going, or the way it’s written, or the characters, or if for whatever reason it’s just not compelling to me, I’ll stop reading it. Life is short and there are many books I haven’t read yet that I’ll probably like better. (I will read some pretty awful books if I find them gripping—witness The Da Vinci Code.) I don’t blame the book or the author; we just don’t click, clearly, and it’s nobody’s fault. (Although if I find the writing style clunky enough I will bitch and moan about it for a few days, and probably read out random passages.)

    2. If the ending of the book suddenly takes a 180-degree turn from where it was going, for no discernable reason—if the author is being God for the sake of being God, not for the sake of the story—THEN I get mad. I may not like an ending, but if it fits with the rest of the book, if it’s a progression that makes sense to me, I can live with it. But if there’s a random or illogical or arbitrary ending (“And then they all got run over by a bus. The End”), where the author is in effect saying to me “I’m the author and I can do anything I want!”, that’s annoying. Yeah, the author CAN do anything she wants, but why go to all that trouble of creating characters and a plot if you’re not going to give them a decent ending? And I’m not saying the ending has to be happy. Sometimes the book is all headed for a sad ending and then everything gets nicely cleared up in the last two chapters and everyone lives happily ever after and I think… huh? Where did that come from?

    (Tangentially related: sometimes I get a bit annoyed if the H&H move from “I despise you and everything you stand for” to “I was a jerk, forgive me” to “I love you forever” too fast. There are some books where I feel one party or the other could stand do do a little more atoning before they earn their HEA.)

    I guess I’m saying I don’t have to like the ending of a book, but I do have to find it satisfying. I see Jenna said all this much better than me a little further up. 😉

  5. Jo says:

    Katie W asked:

    (Speaking of… does anyone else have a husband/SO who is somewhat embarrassed by your love for romance novels? Mine tries to be understanding but he turns red when I pull one out of my bag to read.)

    **

    No – my husband has stacks of D&D sourcebooks and novels bigger than my romance and knitting books will ever be…  He has even picked up the odd one and read it after hearing me laugh out loud (although he more surreptiously listens to them on CD so no one can ‘see’ what he is reading).

    **

    As for being angry at an author – well, I am not sure anger is the right emotion.  I’ve been distraught over the loss of characters (but honestly, that only stays with me really until the next book I read) – but if an author disappoints me a few times I am imminently free to read other books not written by him/her.

  6. Vienna Mars says:

    I believe the author is god and should be allowed to whatever he/she likes with their characters. In that regard, plots don’t make me mad.

    What makes me mad is reading a whole bunch of great reviews about a book or author, deciding, whoa! I’d better read that, then being horribly disappointed. Three examples:

    “The DaVinci Code” (OMG WTF INRI)
    “Honest Illusions” (Apologies to Nora. I hated it.)
    “Odd Thomas,” Dean Koontz (One word: Elvis.)

    Obviously, since they all got good reviews, my opinion is in the minority. And it’s not that any of them is a terrible book (okay, except for Dan Brown’s). It’s that my expectations were built up and then dashed.

    Conversely, I tend to gush over things that I thought were going to be bad, but turned out to be not bad, even if they weren’t actually GOOD.

  7. Flo says:

    I will toss in with those rectchedly disappointed with Laurell K. Hamilton’s crap.  I wasn’t mad at the direction of the series.  She can porn it up anytime she wants too.  I was mad that the OBVIOUS MISTAKES in grammar and sentence structure and all those other things that make books readable (using the world spill more than 10 times on a page is a BAD thing mmk?.  I was mad that they were ignored. And when people pointed them out Hamilton’s PR person told everyone to go F themselves.

    I COULD have kept reading.  I COULD have suspended belief and checked my brain at the door to get some enjoyment out of the stories.  But not after I’m told grammar and spelling and recalling important characterization isn’t important.  Writing is a CRAFT damnit.  You may not do it perfectly every time but you should strive for it and you shouldn’t shit on your readers who ARE willing to point things like that out.

    Another set of authors that left me tossing the book at the wall and wishing I wasn’t so far from the US to send my book back, was “Rebel Fey” by the Barb and JC Hendee.  It was flat out awful.  Seriously awful.  It had started out as various POVs from all the characters.  It was a nice change from the grating 1st person POV that is everywhere.  But in this latest book they kept switching every other paragraph.  One minute it was one character, the next the dog, then another character then another.  A scene which should have taken MAYBE 10 pages dragged on for over 25 because EVERY POV had to be touched upon.  It was just awful.

    Other authors have disappointed me and they no longer get my money.  The only one who deserves my rancor and my internet time is LKH because of her extreme idiocy.  I just have to keep going back for the humor of it.

  8. Susan says:

    I don’t remember the most recent book I got mad at.  Happily, I have trained myself to stop reading a book if it doesn’t grab me in the first few chapters.

    What makes me mad is when a writer changes a character to be completely opposite of what they started out.  That’s what pisses me off about LKH.  I’m all about character growth; Anita was character degradation.  Plus I was annoyed that the character descriptions never changed from book to book.  Copy and paste is wonderful, but not wholesale.

  9. --E says:

    Electric Landlady said:
    But if there’s a random or illogical or arbitrary ending (“And then they all got run over by a bus. The End”), where the author is in effect saying to me “I’m the author and I can do anything I want!”, that’s annoying.

    —>I agree 100% that this is annoying. I don’t however, jibe with the motive you are ascribing to the author. Oh, sure, some authors may have such a motive, but I’d be more likely to blame deadline woes.

    Writing the ending of a book is really, really hard. Pacing in general is extremely difficult, and pacing the ending is worst of all. Since most people write more or less in order, that’s often the part that gets the least attention, or has the least time available.

    Within the industry, editors are usually crunched for time (most editors do their actual editing outside of the office). They are encouraged to not tie up a lot of capital in stock these days, so whereas in the past a list would be scheduled two years ahead, nowadays the lag is much shorter. Everyone’s under the gun to get the damn book in.

    So if the author is a month late, and the editor is over a barrel in workload, and it’s June, July, August, or December, the book is going to be rushed. The ending will be rushed.

    It sucks, I know. Most of the bean-counters, unfortunately, have a hard time with the subjective nature of “a good book” vis a vis “a crappy book.”

    As far as I can tell, the real sign that an author is about to take a nosedive in quality is that they have taken a leap in popularity. Suddenly they’re being pressured to produce, more and faster, to maximize profits, to keep them on the radar. Often they’re offered fat multibook contracts, and that’s a very, very hard thing to turn down.

    Unfortunately, no one does their job best when someone’s standing behind them shouting, “Hurry up!” Do I blame the authors for accepting these situations? Partially I do, but is it really fair to blame people for being human?

  10. Nora Roberts says:

    ~As far as I can tell, the real sign that an author is about to take a nosedive in quality is that they have taken a leap in popularity.~

    Well, that seems seriously like sweeping everyone into the same pile—and incredibly unfair.

    Popularity=poor quality?

  11. Ann says:

    Joanne:

    I bought Stephanie Laurens’ Beyond Seduction because I love Devil’s Bride and I read a review that said it was her comeback book, that it was great and lovely and sexy and all things wonderful…

    Oh. My. God.

    By the end of it, I was reading one sentence per page—and it STILL took me three days to finish.

    I spread the pain though and gave it to my sister. I don’t hate my sister, but she kind of pissed me off by holding me responsible for her confusion while reading MelJean Brooks’ Demon Angel, a book I liked and recommended to her.

    So, suck it, Colleen. Ha ha ha

  12. Michelle K says:

    There are a couple of things that will enrage me about books.

    First is not clearly marking a book as part of a series, and then having a cliff hanger ending. That makes me mad enough to throw the book across the room, and then get up and go stomp on it for good measure. (This has happened multiple times, and made me leery of trying new fantasy novels if there are not multiple books by the author available.)

    Second is bad or stupid science. I will never read another Michael Chriton book, because I could not comprehend the sheer stupidity of the scientist in “Jurassic Park”. If I knew about species that change gender, than how did the scientist not consider that when creating the dinosaurs.

    The third was a book I took back to the book store after 20 pages, Michelle Hauf’s “Seraphim”. The author quite blatantly is trying to hide the main character’s gender (despite the cover and book blurb) that she used incredibly ridiculous and clumsy sentence constructions to attempt to describe a scene without using she or her. It was just so poorly done that is was completely obvious that the author was attempting to hide the gender of the character. Which ALWAYS means the character is female.

    That entire scene made me feel like the author thought I was a moron who would never see through her not-so-clever plot trick. So I guess I was more insulted than mad.

    But an unfinished series. That enrages me. Usually my husband has to placate me with chocolate if that happens, or I’ll rage for hours.

  13. --E says:

    La Nora said:
    Well, that seems seriously like sweeping everyone into the same pile—and incredibly unfair.

    —>LOL on me, because I thought to myself, “I should include a disclaimer that this OF COURSE doesn’t correlate 100%” and then couldn’t come up with a way to make the grammar flow, so I bagged it. That’ll teach me to omit the equivocation.

    However, notable exceptions (and let’s face it, Ms. Roberts, your success and output are an exception beyond most exceptions!) aside, the list of writers whose quality dropped sharply within a few years of their careers taking off is pretty long.

    Note I don’t say their careers nosedived; many authors coast for a good long time while the readers keep hoping for them to “come to their senses” or whatever (the number of people I know who keep buying the next Anita Blake novel, and then whinging about how crappy it is, astonishes me).

    But with extremely rare exceptions, both author quality and author success tend to follow a ballistic trajectory. Some peak fast and come down hard, and some get a long, sustained flight, occasionally with second-stage boosters. But very few make it into a non-degrading orbit.

    There aren’t a whole lot of authors about whom we can say, “Their final book was their best one.” Of the authors we can say that about, most of them died young.

    Now, it’s certainly an academic point whether their quality become objectively slack, or if it’s symptomatic of an ageing author whose tropes have passed beyond fashion. Considering how often the nosedive seems to correlate with a sharp boost in popularity, I’m not leaning toward the ageist explanation.

    My mental list is mostly speculative fiction writers, since I’m most familiar with that genre. Maybe it’s not as true in other genres, but judging by the number of people in this thread who aren’t happy with, for example, Stephanie Laurens’s latest, I wonder. I think it’s no coincidence that Laurens jumped to the top of her publisher’s list four or five years ago, doubled her output three years ago, and now readers are expressing dissatisfaction.

  14. Micki says:

    I agree very much: it doesn’t take a village.

    In fact, if a writer listens to much to outer criticism, I think it’s bound to lead to a screwed up book.  The old saw, “Too many cooks spoil the broth” seems really apt here.

    And think: the readers who take the time to complain are a vast minority! And they are not normal! They *may* represent the majority view, but sometimes I think they are just lone crackpots. (-: Of course, this works both ways—the readers who take the time to compliment are also lone crack-pots—just a very nice sort of crack-pot.

    The market doesn’t know what it wants. It just knows what it likes when it sees it.

    And if a reader doesn’t like what she’s read, she should go out and write her own damn book!  Lord knows, careers have been launched by wallbangers. Fabulous ones, too.

    Just my two cents.

  15. Missy says:

    The ending of Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer was a little frustrating to me.

    **SPOILER**
    *
    *
    *
    *
    *
    The fact that Bella has been from day one professing her love for Edward, and then goes off and KISSES Jacob and is “confused” about who she loves blah blah blah… it really pissed me off.  And Edward doesn’t even get pissed off about it.  WTF!?  I personally love the series and want Edward and Bella to be together, and her being wishy-washy completely went against her even wanting to become a vampire to be with Edward.  Argh!!
    *
    *
    *
    *
    *
    *
    *
    **END SPOILER**

    In the end, I’m not mad at Stephenie Meyer; in fact, she is one of few authors who really evokes such real and raw emotions in her writing (you really feel like an angsty 17 year old when you’re reading it!) and I love her books. I guess I am just pissed off more at the character for not doing what I thought she should have 🙂

  16. THANK YOU Kate Duffy!!! I cried for days when Lady Helen died, I’m still furious about it.

    It wasn’t just the death. It was that we waited four years for her to have that baby, too.

    And then she added insult to injury by writing another book about the same story.

    The death moved her from Autobuy to Buy Used, but “What Came Before he Shot Her” was so contemptuous of EG’s readers I won’t even read her for free anymore. I’m done.

    This is a subject I get very passionate about. Yes, my characters belong to me. Yes, it’s my story to tell.

    But if it weren’t for the readers I wouldn’t be paid to tell it.

    Doesn’t mean I won’t write what I feel, but it does mean I won’t rub their noses in it afterward with patronizing diatribes (and I’m NOT referring to Ms. Harris here) about how it’s none of their business what I do with *my* characters.

  17. Chrissy says:

    You know, I’m realizing something as I read these responses. I simply don’t give that much of a rat’s ass if a book disappoints me UNLESS it’s a romance.

    I know it’s wrong… I mean I KNOW IT’S WRONG.  I’m a writer, for shitsakes, so I know it’s fiction. 

    BUT

    When authors have lead characters who seem genuinely confused about love, or when they seem to switch affections from one to another… when they are “confused” about their affections, I find myself wondering about the relationships of the writer.

    I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW!!!  Fifty beatings with wet noodles.  Wrong, bad, naughty!

    Can’t help it.  Yes, I have had relationships that had me confused.  Yes, I have vacillated between more than one person.  But never, at any time, have I been under the delusional misapprehension at these times that I might be “in love.”  And never, in moments of confusion and uncertainty, was I feeling this about THE ONE. 

    Having found THE ONE (which is what most of us read romance for, right?) I never question it.  I mean NEVER.  Attracted to another guy or girl?  Sure.  Angry at him and concerned about our relationship a few times?  Why yes, indeed, we are human.

    Is he the one?  Will it last?  Yes, yes, and if you open your mouth about “things happening even in the best of blah blah” I will completely tune you out because you don’t know what you’re talking about.

    Now… there are always the speeches about those mythical marriages/partnerships that “seemed perfect” and fell apart.  I have yet to see one of those.  I see relationships OTHER people may think of as ideal fall apart, but I’m never surprised.  Never.  And the friends I consider to be solid—never seen one of those fail yet.

    So perhaps my anger at some romance novels is more anger at others’ perceptions of love, true love, and romance.  I mean, I don’t get pissy about a fantasy novel I dislike, or a sci-fi novel, or a thriller.  I stop reading.  But when a romance goes bad I feel like LOVE is getting shafted.  So my reaction is more visceral.

    Believe me, I know how irrational this is.  I think that’s the crux of my point.  I read romance to be emotionally engaged, swept away, and left a little limp with wonder at the magic of love.

    Fuck with that and I am going to stab you in the eye with my pencil. 

    Just sayin’.

  18. Susan/DC says:

    I read the column and had one very specific book in mind, only to open the comments and have the very first one be about the book.  I’m not angry at Elizabeth George as a human being, and I firmly believe authors need to follow their muse.  My problem is that when an author is good and over the past 20 years has created characters who become living, breathing parts of my world (at least of my interior world), then when something very bad happens to one of them, I think I am entitled to my reaction.  This book has some of the most beautiful passages about grief I’ve ever read, and as painful as it was, I was awed by their near poetry and poignance.  However, I don’t think I can read any of the future books because there is no way I can envision any happiness for Tommy, not after losing the woman who’d been part of his life for so many years—as friend as well as lover and then wife.  So perhaps it is testimony to Elizabeth George’s skill, but I think I’ve bought the last of her books.  On the opposite end, I loved Alexander McCall Smith’s “The Right Attitude Toward Rain” precisely because he allowed me to believe in the possibility of happiness.

  19. Angela James says:

    Thomas Harris

    Hannibal

    SPOILERS

    Except I don’t really care if I spoil this book, because IMHO, people need to be warned off.

    Clarice Starling, one of my all time favorite strong, female characters, becomes a drug-addicted, cannibal love slave.

    There are other parts of the book that are merely, wall-bangingly bad. But the ending is an abomination.  It doesn’t just read as a character violation, or shameless cash grab by the author.  It’s as though Harris wants to punish his audience for liking Hannibal Lector too much, and demanding too much gore and depravity.

    Yes yes and yes again. I was wondering if someone would bring this book up. It’s the most vivid disappointment of my reading career.

    I’m surprised no one has mentioned Candace Steele’s books (unless I missed it), as I recall those sparked a hot debate about the need for   a HEA in romances, within the past six months.

    Other authors I’ve stopped reading because I’m unhappy with the direction they took their characters and/or feeling that the books weren’t moving anywhere are LKH and…um, LKH (both Anita and Merry).

    Most recently I was disappointed with the way Lover Unbound by JR Ward went, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop reading her.

    I think the authors own the characters, yes, and of course they get to decide what to do with them, but I think there does come a point when an author needs to really be sure they want to take the course they’ve set (like killing off a main character) and not cry foul when readers get upset about it.

    Because readers are, at heart, consumers and I think they want to feel as though they’re getting the product they expected. Even if they do know in their subconscious there are no guarantees, when it’s a tried and true author, I think a sense of betrayal when the reader orders a cheeseburger and ends up with chicken nuggets (I just couldn’t resist the fast food analogy) is not completely unwarranted. But neither can we blame the authors for wanting to keep their work fresh and unpredictable, to keep readers interested and to create a buzz. It’s an interesting dilemma and I think finding a balance is quite a difficult one.

  20. lisabea says:

    “Most recently I was disappointed with the way Lover Unbound by JR Ward went, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop reading her.”

    Wait. Doesn’t that come out next week?How did it go? Badly? Crap.

  21. Angela James says:

    I got an ARC. My post about it is on my blog, still on the front page if you’re curious, lisabea.

  22. iffygenia says:

    readers are, at heart, consumers and I think they want to feel as though they’re getting the product they expected. Even if they do know in their subconscious there are no guarantees, when it’s a tried and true author, I think a sense of betrayal when the reader orders a cheeseburger and ends up with chicken nuggets

    I can partially agree that “when it’s a tried and true author”, expectations are unavoidable.  But the more general “readers are… consumers” is problematic for me.

    When I go to an art exhibit, I don’t always go for a particular experience.  I’m happy if I either love what I see, or discover something I hadn’t known/seen before.  E.g. I’ve loved exhibits of unusual works by famous artists, or works that bucked a trend.

    Books are similar—it’s less important that I “get the product I expect” than that I have a good or interesting reading experience.  If I buy what I think is a genre romance, and it turns out to be more sci fi-like or historical, or it has an equivocal ending, I’m not automatically pissed off.  My P.O.ness depends on whether the book worked overall, regardless of what label was stuck on it.

    I’m with Electric Landlady:
    I may not like an ending, but if it fits with the rest of the book, if it’s a progression that makes sense to me, I can live with it.
    and
    I don’t have to like the ending of a book, but I do have to find it satisfying.

  23. Angela says:

    Hmm…on the Charlaine Harris tip, I hate the way the relationship between Harper and Tolliver went in the second book of her new series, but never for a moment did I scream for Charlaine Harris’ blood. *shrug* I know I’ve thrown books across the room and have been made angry by them, but the only time I’ve actually cut eyes at an author is if the writing was pure dreck. Bad writing, and the continuance of a writer to never mature in skill is my particular bete noire.

  24. sandra says:

    I think that when there are a whole series of books with the same characters, the readers become more emotionally involved than in a single book.  Take Harry Potter, for instance.  Plenty of readers hated that she killed off Professor Snape (who turned out to be the tragic hero ) and married Hermione Granger off to that dweeb Ron.  I’m sure JK Rowling is being beseiged by readers demanding an eighth volume in which Snape turns out to have faked his death and Hermione winds up with him after divorcing the Weasley twit.  Not bloody likely, as Eliza Doolittle would say, but there’s volumes of fan fiction in which she does exactly that, usually without marrying Ron first.  Thanks to the internet, its readily available.

  25. Alyc says:

    I don’t know that I agree that “a book is written alone”.  A writer is constantly drawing from the public domain of collective stories, imagery, assumptions, archetypes.  The writer’s contribution to this is to spin all these ingredients in new, interesting and engaging ways.  There are more great quotes about writing taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar (or vice-versa) than I could list here.  The imaginary of writing as some noble, solitary endeavor divorced from the world, or lived interactions, is a very popular one that some writers like to trot out, but I think that “bullshit” can be called through the pairing of these two quotes. They come in sequence on my favorite quote site, and the gender-theorist in me loves the irony of it:

    What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out of the window.  ~Burton Rascoe

    The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.  ~Agatha Christie

    Who the fuck is Burton Rascoe (answer: a little known turn-of-the-century literary critic and journalist).  I’d much rather be like Agatha Christie.  Writing is no more a solitary process than living is.  If I had to acknowledge everyone who contributed to even my smallest piece of writing, I’d go mad.  So, yes, I feel some proprietary interest in the particular ways I construct a story, but I also understand the story as a conversation between the people who inspired the story, and the people who read the story, with myself not as a God, but as a translator.

  26. AJArend says:

    KatieW Said:
    Someone else mentioned about not liking Nora Robert’s Circle Trilogy and I think that’s a good point. Some people just don’t like vamp books. My Mom and I take turns buying Nora Robert books because we share them but as soon as I saw the Morrigan’s Cross, I called Mom from Target and said that she wouldn’t be liking this new Nora Roberts book. Vampires and witches are not her thing at all, whereas I squealed to my husband that Nora Roberts was writing about vampires now!

    Personally, I think Nora’s circle trilogy is a perfect example of an author not just writing something to be self-indulgent, but writing something that’s different…a genre she wanted to try…but also keeping her fans in mind as she wrote it.

    Of course, I could be completely off base with this because as Nora said previously, none of us knows what went through her mind when she wrote it. But, if Nora will forgive me speculating here, I think Nora is a writer who understands what her readers want, and tries to give that to them while still being true to herself and what she wants as a writer.

    I say this because I myself don’t care for Vampire stories. I’ve read a few, and I just don’t like them. BUT…the Circle Trilogy felt more to me like a “Nora Story” with some vampire aspects, instead of a “Vampire Story” with some Nora aspects. There’s a BIG difference, and I think that went a long way towards me viewing the series favorably.

    I LOVED the series, and LOVED Cian, despite the fact that he was a vampire, and I generally dislike vamps.

    Now, that also could be because I’m a huge fan of Nora’s. I like her style a lot, so there’s rarely a book or series of hers that I dislike. But I have to think…is it just because I’m a fan that I like what she’s written even though its a character or genre I wouldn’t otherwise like? OR, is it that, again, she knows what her fans expect, so she writes those characters and situations that might be “foreign” or unpalatable to her readers in such a way as to make them palatable?

    Or both? Or neither?

    I guess only Nora knows for sure.

    AJ

  27. There is one historical romance novel which pissed me off to no end many years ago.  I hesitate to name names, maybe because I’m an author, I don’t know, but I can’t bring myself to do it.  But I will describe the book. 

    First, let me say that I write historical romance myself, and have done at TON of research on Medieval and Georgian England with a VAST library to fall back on, so basically I know what I’m talking about. 

    But there was one book that made me want to scream and write I VERY nasty letter to the author, but which I refrained. 

    The problem:  It wasn’t the characters, not by far, they were actually very intriguing which is why I kept on reading to the end, it was the author’s historical inaccuracies and (the most frustrating thing of all) her ability at NOT explaining everything in the end. 

    The hero and heroine had met and fell in love but she was forced to marry another.  Well on the night before she was to wed, they made love, fully aware this would be their one and only time.  Nine months later, she give birth to a boy.  Throughout the ENTIRE book, the author drops hints that the boy is the hero’s son.  And then, when we finally get to the end, SHE FORGOT TELL THE READERS!  But that wasn’t the only thing she forgot to wrap up.

    But the BIGGEST clincher for me was when she had the bad guy KILL HIMSELF WITH A CROSSBOW!!!  Okay, so this still gets my goat every time I think about it.  For those of you who may not know, crossbows in the 1200s were HUGE cumbersome weapons, and sometimes took TWO men to load (depending on size).  Even personal crossbows were very large and heavy and would have been IMPOSSIBLE to kill ones self with.  Not to mention that men (in general) did not commit suicide back then (but that is neither here nor there). 

    Anyway, that was the first and LAST book I read by that author.  And it was the only book that I ever threw across the room.  Usually I will give an author three chances before I stop reading her books, but not this one.

    As to whether characters belong to the reader or the author or both, well that is difficult to say.  As an avid reader, I have come across some fantastic books with characters which still “haunt” my mind, but I don’t consider myself the “owner” of them.  Now as an author, you have to understand that once an writer begins the journey to creating her novel, the characters DO take a life of their own (I’m a pantser and that’s how it works for me).  For example, In one of my books, one of the secondary characters (a woman) gets raped and beaten.  I cried like you wouldn’t believe while I wrote the scene, and though I desperately wished it had been otherwise, I could not change the course of her history.  It was her “fate” to be raped.  My only solace was knowing she would have her own book and therefore her happy ending.  Maybe that sounds strange, but my emotions are deeply tied in with every character (good and bad), I cry and laugh and feel anger right along with them, but to be honest, I don’t think of them as “mine”.  They are who they are, and in the universe of my mind where they live, they are real.  (And no, I’m not ready for the rubber room just yet!)  They make their own decisions, they have a certain fate which at times I can guide, and other times I cannot.  I know this may sound lame to some, but that is what writing is like for me…it is being lost in a world of mine and the characters’ making.  But I digress…

    Another pet peeve I have when reading, is when an author associates the word “quiver” with a man.  I’m sorry, but men to do NOT quiver.  I’ll never forget when I read the line of book of a very well known author, and the hero said to the heroine “you make me quiver…”  (Excuse me while I stick my finger down my throat.  LOL)  I’m sorry, but that has to be one of the most UNBELIEVABLE lines I’ve read in a book.  Men may shake, tremble, shudder, quake, etc., but they do NOT quiver!

    My last pet peeve is head-hoping.  Now head hopping during a love scene is fine by me, in fact, I think it enhances the scene to see and feel what both characters are going through, but PLEASE do not interject the POV of a character who will only ever appear in the book on that single page for one paragraph!  It completely disrupts the flow of the story and the thoughts of the main character whose POV you were in, in the first place. 

    Thank you for giving me this opportunity to rant, it is much appreciated…  LOL

  28. Chrissy says:

    Women may quiver, but neither men NOR women say that shit out loud.

    If I looked right at my husband and said “you make me quiver” he’d burst out laughing.

    Nobody says it.  Get real.

    I’m being generous.  I mean, people look at us funny because we use the word BELOVED out loud, and we only do it because Ahmed (hubby) loves the word… English is his primary language but it’s not the language of his birth and I think he likes the sound.

    Some words are just not conversational no matter how lovely they are for narrative.

  29. Kate Duffy wrote:
    WITH NO ONE AS WITNESS by Elizabeth George.

    OMG, the FIRST response in the thread is the book I would have named and for EXACTLY the same reason.

    I will never read another Lynley because I will never forgive the author for killing off Helen.

    Bad, bad author!

  30. Lennie says:

    I’m late here, but cowardly or lazy authors make me furious.  If I don’t like a book then I might be annoyed that I wasted my time on it, but I don’t get mad at the author. (Unless the book was bad because it was ragingly misogynistic or something.)  I’m sure they would have written a good book if they could.

    For real anger, it takes more. I read a fantasy book years ago that wasn’t quite to my taste but the story was interesting, the characters were well realised and the author kept it all moving along at a cracking pace, so I was enjoying it.  The story was built around an unusually reasonable love-triangle, I totally understood why the heroine was torn between these two guys.  And I didn’t know which one I wanted to win more.  Luckily, as the story went on, it got more and more obvious that it was actually heading towards a threesome and I thought that was the best thing ever.  There were hints like anvils, carefully arranged historical precedent, UST like a punch in the face.

    And then in the last chapter the author pulled one of the biggest cop-outs I’ve ever read and had the heroine have an monogamous HEA with Guy A.  And suddenly Guy B was completely okay with that, even though that essentially meant agreeing to the end of his culture and living on the sufferance of Guy A.  It made NO sense in the context of the rest of the book. If Heroine and Guy A had tried to pull that on the Guy B who’d been in any of the preceding chapters he would have just stabbed Guy A in the face.  (And been a bit sad about it, but you gotta do what you gotta do.)

    She let her characters down, and they really deserved better.  If not the threesome they were so blatantly heading for, at least a resolution that didn’t invalidate them.  I don’t know if she wimped out or if the editor convinced her it was too much, and I don’t care.  I don’t remember the name of the author or the book, so I might accidentally read something of hers in the future, but I wouldn’t do it deliberately.  And if I do stumble on her again, I hope she’s grown some goddamn balls.

    I can’t believe I’m still this angry after something like five years.

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