Sequelitis for the Writer

Over the course of the past few months, I have read a number of books that were parts of a trilogy. Specifically, the first and second books. In both cases (I'm not going to name the series, but if you want to hunt around Goodreads and find the reviews, go ahead) the first book in the series blew me away. It was a great read, fantastic storytelling, original concepts, etc. Everything you could hope for in a book, particularly when in both cases these were the first books by those authors that I had read. In one case, it was the first book by that author (though the author was working in collaboration with another, more established author). Things were good.

Then I read the second book, and things became less good.

Some of this is simply a case of expectations. As a reader, if the first book is good, I expect the rest to be. After all, if the author did it once, they should be able to do it again. (Presumably. The writing profession has it's share of one-hit wonders, too.) I don't expect to always like every book an author puts out - though I hope to - but that's okay. Everyone has off moments. What I do expect is that if an author takes the time to plan a trilogy, then they've put the time in to think it through and carefully craft it. Such is not always the case, but such are my expectations.

Also, having started with such a phenomenal book, there is probably pressure on the author much the same as pressure is put on a successful film when it moves into sequel territory. The need to go bigger, or more complex, or to in some ways shake things up because the first one broke so much new ground that it's impossible to follow it otherwise. Or they go in the other direction, and the sequel is a formulaic copy of the first.

That happens, too, but for both of the series I read it was more the first trap. Nor did it work out well for either series. The first series introduced an essentially useless macguffin in the second book that opened up massive plot holes and seemed a sad throwaway device. The second series padded out the center section of the second novel by adding in police procedural details that were at worst wholly unnecessary to the plot and at best could have been dealt with in much shorter passages.

Nor is this the first year this has happened with books I've read. I really enjoyed the first volume of Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series. The second book was not only disappointing but downright silly. Enjoyable, but at nowhere near the level of the first one.

All of which is a roundabout way for me to make the following plea: Authors, if you're going to write a trilogy, and the first one gets really good reviews and press, please, please, PLEASE, do not f*** up the rest of them.

I don't think that's too much to ask.

People You Should Already Be Reading

[Note: Last week(ish) in the blog I answered some questions about what I was working on, because I had been "tagged." Think "drive-by" but with less shooting. That was Part I. Which you have read. (And if you haven't, go do so, and I shall wait. Done? Good.)

This is the second part.

We're also going to pretend this is my Thanksgiving, "I am thankful for being able to read these people," post. Which it kind of is.]


Part the Second
Wherein, somewhat less accordingly to the rules, I shamelessly pimp other people's work. Not because I hope they shall do the same for me some day (though, *ahem*, that would be nice) but because they truly deserve it.

Question #10: Tag, you’re it!

This is the part where I am supposed to "tag" five more authors. Unfortunately, and oddly reminiscent of high school, I have a small social circle. Somewhat consequently, most of my writer friends have already been tagged, as it seems I was tagged last. Which is beyond oddly reminiscent and downright eerily similar to high school. I may start having bad flashbacks any moment.

But this is not high school, this is the internet, and unlike high school I can't burn the internet to the ground. (Not that I did that, I add. Nor can anyone prove otherwise.) So, instead, I'm going to cheat.

I'm not going to tag anyone, but I am going to point you toward five writers I know, all with stuff you not only can buy but that you should buy. Because these guys work hard, write great stuff, and with one exception don't get enough press. But the exception is worth buying anyway.

These are in absolutely no particular order, other than the order in which I thought of them and/or remembered I wanted to steer people to them.

 Reagan Summers - Also does vampires in Alaska, but honestly does them much better than I will. (I did have the idea long before I met her, I swear. I work slow.) And more importantly, she does her vampires much differently. And MOST importantly, you can buy - and read - both of her books now.

Tiffany Allee - Whom, in full disclosure, I have not read yet. BUT, other people I know have read her, and say nothing but good things, and she also has books you can read and buy.

Abner Senires - Sci-fi serial goodness. Much of which is online, but there is a book you can buy. Which you should. (You may notice a theme here with these descriptions.)

Damien Grintalis -  Debut novel Ink is out soon. Which I got to read it before any of you. So there. However, perks of being a beta aside, you should read this. Especially if you have tattoos. And then you'll never sleep again. You cannot buy this yet, but when you can, you should.

Diane Dooley - Sci-fi, romance, and sex. Yes, I said sex. Do I need to say more? She has two books out, and you should buy both of them.

Alice Loweecey - Ex-nun PIs and mysteries. What more do you need to know? These ones are even in your local bookstore. Might even be in the library. So no excuses like "but I don't have an e-reader." (Which, admittedly, I don't either, but you do know you can still read e-books anyway, right? RIGHT??)

Alex Adams - Whom, again, I have not yet read. (Check back in a week or so.) BUT - again - there have been many great things said about her book. End of the world stuff, getting absolutely fabulous reviews. Really, you should of heard of her by now.

Also, she's sort of kind of a neighbor, so the more books you buy, the richer she gets, and the more people I have to turn to when the crazy thoughts overtake me and I wind up muttering to myself and in need of a place to stay. (Just kidding, Alex. ... You can stop the emergency packing now, really, I'm kidding.)

.... and that's it. This is, I know, by no means a complete list of all the people I know with books out, I tried to constrain it to those whose authors I know personally, and, for the most part, people I've read, so that you can take these recommendations seriously.

And if, for some reason, you have *zero* book budget right now (though, I have to ask, do you really need to eat?) - Christmas is coming. They all make lovely gifts.

Er, their books do. Not them personally.

More Graffitti-ish, Less Playground-like

I have been "tagged." And while this is meant to be something along the lines of a playground game of tag amongst writers, I can't help feeling I've been whitewashed in the dead of night and then covered in garish neon hues arranged in abstract forms.

I was tagged by this guy:  http://misfitmusing.blogspot.com/ who, amongst other things, has some of the most eclectic yet also coolest hobbies I know. Seriously. Old cars, singing groups, and bees. You should check him out. (Plus he is often funny and witty.)

There are two parts to this tagging business. I shall deal with Part 1 now, with Part 2 to follow a little later, because this was already getting pretty long.

Part the First
In which, according to the rules, I answer some questions about a current project.

1. What is the working title of your book?

Well, it had a working title centered on the name of the town where the action takes place. Only, as I started to work on it, I realized that I had named the town after the wrong yearly calendrical event. Which is somewhat embarrassing and I've not yet figured out how I want to fix it. Yes, I could use the right event, but sadly, it sounds much less cool than the wrong one. So for right now, it's got the awesome title of [Series Character] Book #3. 

Catchy, isn't it?

2. What genre does the book fall under?

In an effort to be trail-blazing and/or entirely unpublishable, I've discovered I write in that interstice between Sci-fi and Urban Fantasy. I had an idea once that boiled down to "What if you took the characters of a UF book and dropped them into a neo-noir near-future setting?" Then I wrote on it. Then I wrote another book on it. And now I'm working on another one.

It does lean more sci-fi than UF, for the most part, but there are elements.

As I said, trail-blazer or forever unpublishable.

3. Which actors would you choose to play your characters for the movie rendition?

Jeremy Irons. But a younger Irons. Not too young. Die Hard 3 Jeremy Irons. Maybe Daniel Craig, if he could summon up a little more inner villain/anti-hero. That's my lead.

For the female lead, I'm tempted to list actors I want to meet. Which is terribly unprofessional. But, that said, Eva Green, because a number of her characters have just enough edge to them.

4. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Insomnia (the Nolan version) but with one vampire, a pack of werewolves, a more twisted killer than Robin Williams can ever hope to be, and all set slightly further into the future than where we are now. So robots and cybernetics and the like.

No flying cars, though.

Yes, I know that was more than one sentence.

5. Will your book be self-pubbed, e-pubbed, or represented by an agent?

The day I decide to self-pub is the day I decide I'm done. (No offense to those for whom it works, but it's not my route.) While I think e-pubs play a valuable role in the market, I still want an agent. It means something to me, not least of which is, someday, I want to actually see my book in print, on paper.

And don't tell me print is dead, because they've been saying that for decades. Books will be around, trust me. (Even if you don't, that's a longer blog post.)

6. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I'm still working on it, so I'll let you know. Chronologically, this one has been in the works for a couple of years, but there were other projects and some personal stuff that snuck in front of it.

Also, I tend to work slow.

7. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Ideally? Cross William Gibson with Jim Butcher. If you don't know who either of those are, I don't want to talk to you.

8. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

It was honestly watching Al Pacino stagger around in the film Insomnia and thinking to myself, "What if I took my lead vampire and sent him there instead of Al?" I frequently borrow (or steal, if you want) ideas from other works. I think if we're all honest, a lot of us do this, usually under the hubris of "I could do that better/more interestingly."

Which is what's led to a couple of my projects.

9. What else about your book might pique a reader's interest?

Pique is a great word.

Seriously, though, if vampires, werewolves, and robots wrapped up in a psycho-killer mystery set in a neo-noir near-future (think Bladerunner but less rain, more daylight, and, again, no flying cars - or a slightly less cutting-edge technobabbly William Gibson, whom I adore but would never consciously strive to emulate because I'm just not quite that egocentric) - if none of that has piqued your interest, I'm not sure how else to sell it to you.

Though there is some sex, so maybe that?


Part two to follow shortly.

The Art of Pretending

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. In fact, aside from Christmas, this is probably it. I should, in the grand tradition of thing, devote this to my top horror reads or something, but the truth is I don't read a whole lot of horror. Nor do I watch a whole lot of horror films, in part because so many of them are just so very, very bad or else very, very stupid. Sometimes both - looking at you, Saw franchise. I'd have a tough time coming up with a top ten list, and it would likely be derivative of somebody else's.

Instead, I thought I'd try and figure out why I like the holiday so much. After all, I don't eat a lot of candy anymore, and I've not been to a costume party since I stopped being home for the annual church party - which was back when I left for college. My daughter and I do make a big deal out of it, creating our own costumes and taking months to plan out what we'll be. (Don't hate me. My costuming skills rely largely on a hot glue gun, a minimalist approach, and heavy imagination.) So sure, some of that enthusiasm rubs off. But my love of Halloween goes deeper than that.

I think part of it can be explained by the same part of me that likes the creative part of the writing process. In writing stories, I get to imagine different people, different settings, and to some extent pretend to be them. I don't see myself living vicariously through my characters, nor are any of them extensions of myself beyond the usual psychological borrowing we all do when we write. But by the same token, when I put on a costume I don't really see myself suddenly getting to do everything that person or creature would do, either.

Which is good, because one year I was a fish, and really, who wants to be a fish? It's not like it was in Finding Nemo, folks.

But there is a bit of that vicarious aspect to it. We can, by putting on a costume, pretend to be something. We can play at being someone we're not, from a Star Trek redshirt (should that be capitalized?) to a shuffling zombie, from a mermaid to a rock star. And if we're not pretending to be something, we get to capitalize on our sense of humor, or irony, or whatever other trait we put on display via our costume. It's not perfect, it's not complete, but it is there.

Which makes Halloween the only holiday where as writers we can vent the kind of creativity we normally only get to display on the printed page. Unless you're the arts and crafty type that does all those homemade Martha Stewart-esque home deco things. In which case you probably don't write, because I have no idea how you'd manage to find the time to do both. Assuming that's not the case, though, Halloween is the one time of year our creativity gets turned into something tangible. Something that can be - is meant to be - displayed, in probably the most welcoming venue any of us will ever submit anything to. (Neighbors and friends tend to be far more forgiving than editors and critics.)

Plus, there's candy. Lots and lots of candy.



PS: I was sorely tempted to start this little missive with the opening credo from The Pretender, but I'm not sure how many people would have actually remembered that.

Hauntings

It is better to be haunted by the dead than the living. The dead are, by far, more easily dealt with. The dead tend not to want much, just someone to listen to them. To observe and note that they are still around, still have something to say. Once so acknowledged, they move on or fade into the background. The dead are largely ambivalent to our existence beyond that need to have someone notice them.

On the rare occasion when the dead become more persistent, more pernicious, there are ways to deal with that. These ways are effective, and permanent, and guaranteed. Banish a ghost and it is gone. Destroy a spirit's link to our world and it remains forever sundered. Be gone and haunt no more.

I was visited by a spirit, once. Not a ghost. Ghosts are more permanent fixtures. This spirit was passing through. It did not shake me to my core. It did not alter my perceptions. I do not see dead people unless I visit a funeral home. The spirit had a message to convey, and that was all, and I have not heard from it since.

The living are different. They can be thousands of miles away, living out their lives, oblivious to the ways in which the ghostly memories of them constantly intrude upon another. Unlike ghosts, which can be ignored (you would be surprised at how quickly your mind relegates the ghost on the landing to just another personal landmark, like the table with the vase of flowers at the end of the hall), the phantasmic souvenirs of the living command your attention.

This is not about obsession. This is not about wanting to be reminded, about looking for signs and portents in the mundane minutiae of the cereal aisle or the particular path a leaf takes when falling. This is about trying to forget, then coming around a corner and finding yourself face to face with a reminder that is as specific to that person as it is out of place in its location. Not just one item, but half a dozen, each unique and specific, each undeniably linked to that person.

Like a bumper sticker in support of a college a thousand miles away, suddenly there on the car in front of you, when all you were thinking about was what to make for dinner. Or a news article about how hard it is to find this little spot, this little piece of something, that you found once before, and not by yourself. As out of place as a palm tree in Maine, as random as a star falling into your backyard.

The dead do not apologize for haunting. It is what they do. The living, if confronted, say that they are sorry, though rarely what they are sorry for. And what have they done that they should be sorry for? It is not on them, they are not doing anything but going about their lives, oblivious to what is inadvertently left in their wake.

The dead know they haunt.

The living do not.

******

The above is part of the October 2012 blog chain over at Absolute Write. There are a number of other great writers (and soon to be great writers), some you may know, some you may not, participating in this event, and I don't really have space to list them all. That said, you can find the two in front of me here:  http://hillaryjacques.blogspot.com and here: http://erlessard.wordpress.com and I encourage you to check them out. (Hillary Jacques also has a new book coming out, which you should preorder.)

And the full list can be found over at Absolute Write.

In case you're wondering, my entry is entirely fictional. Except for the parts that are not.

C.S. Lewis, Heavy-Handed Bastard

I am coming to realize that, sometimes, an attempt to enjoy a classic work of literature can be marred by the attitudes of the author. This came about over the past week or so as I have begun reading the Chronicles of Narnia to my daughter. Now, I know all about the Christian overtones, though to be honest I never noticed those as a kid. When I first read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, I missed all the religious symbolism. It wasn't until much later that I read about the amount of allegory lurking in the Chronicles, and I didn't think much about it afterwards.

But, having seen the first movie one rainy Sunday, we thought we'd read the books. Aside from learning that TL,TW,&TW was not the first book, narratively speaking, I learned some other troubling facts while reading The Magician's Nephew.

First, TL,TW,&TW is downright subtle when it comes to the religious stuff in the rest of the books. Chapter after chapter was "Hey, this is Genesis in Narnia! Look, there's a tree! With fruit you can't eat!" and other things where I found myself wanting to say "Yes, I get it, can we please move on with the story?" I did not say this, because I was reading to my daughter, and I try not to editorialize when I do so.

(I do stop, at the beginning of each new Lemony Snicket book, and ask my daughter if she wants to go on after we've read the part where the author advises us not to. It's become a thing now that we're halfway through the series, and it's in fun. But that's a different sort of narrative aside.)

I'm not sure how I feel about this heavy-handedness, not because it's religious - I go to church, and I drag my daughter with me, although Lewis' persistent proselytizing gets old - but simply because with the first book in the chronicles, it feels like the allegory got in the way of the story. I can foresee this becoming a bit of a problem later on in the series. (I am familiar with Neil Gaiman's short "The Problem of Susan" for example, in which he, too deals with some of this.)

Second, and by far the more troubling, is the sheer sexism in the book. Now, I know that books are a product of their times. Kipling was heavily influenced by the English Imperialism than ran rampant over everything at the time, and reading some of his works today leads to some cringing. Fenimore Cooper's portrayals of the Native Americans are nowhere near as balanced as that last movie made them out to be. But those were books for adults. Narnia is for kids. Lewis had to have known young girls.

And as far as I can tell, his message to them is "Know your place." He makes blunders in biology (it is the female elephants that are in charge, not the males- which may or may not have been know at that time) based solely on his own chauvinistic leanings. Of course the men are called to a meeting and the women left behind; that's the men's job. And the female character is not only shunted to the sidelines, but is physically cowed by the male character at one point, and it's all very casually dealt with. Too casually.

So, while we will continue to read the series, I foresee the need to have conversations with my daughter about what's going on. We've had similar conversations about the Disney Princesses, too, because as a general whole they are piss-poor role models for young girls.

Or maybe we won't have to. She may not be quite old enough to grasp some of the connotations lurking beneath the surface (which are not as direct as Ariel's whining or Cinderella's "I need a Prince") and I confess to editing some as I read. Where Lewis wrote "he-elephant" and "he-beaver" I left off the gendered pronouns, as it changed nothing in the narrative to do so. And I'm hoping that the rest of the chronicles, most of which were actually written before the first book, will not be as bad.

But if they are, then we'll deal with them, and have a talk about why they are the way they are, and how you go about separating the message from the story. Because this won't be the last thing she reads where that may become necessary.

The Letdown

Let me start by saying I stuck with the X-Files from beginning to end, even after they'd clearly gone off the rails. (Then again, I also liked the last movie, though that took a couple of viewings. On first viewing it was kind of like watching one of those last seasons. It grew on me, though. And not like a mold.) So with that clear caveat and embarrassing reveal of just how long I will stick with something, there are times when you just kind of have to give up on things.

I say this in the wake of the new Fall TV season, and also in the aftermath of a couple of books I was disappointed in. However, this isn't about having just one bad book. Every author is entitled to at least one of those, if not two or three depending on how long their career lasts. These things happen, for various reasons, and an author can and should be forgiven so long as they don't continue to repeat the error.

Sometimes, though, they do. Sometimes the error seems to become the norm, and where once I looked forward to an author's latest output, I start to have that internal debate with myself. Is this one going to be better? Are they going to "snap out of it?" Will it be worth my time? Now, maybe someday when I am old and less active and return to the halcyon readership days of my youth where I could sit around for hours and hours with a book, maybe then that last question will be less pressing. But now? I've got things to do, or things I should be doing, and spending time on a bad book isn't one of them.

So how do you know? When do you quit? As I said at the start, I'm inclined to give authors a bit of leeway. I know many were disappointed in the last couple of Robert Parker's books, and perhaps had been for a while. I kept reading him, and while I might be generous in saying his last few outings he was maybe batting .500 (maybe only .300), there were still good reads in there. I was saddened when he died, and am sorry there will be no new tales of Spenser, Sunny Randall, or Jesse Stone. (Books penned by other authors using those characters do not count. I am always leery of such things, but that's for another post.)

On the other hand, I gave up on Tom Clancy over a decade ago, when after a hundred pages into his China vs Russia book, nothing interesting had happened. When his characters started making long, dull speeches instead of doing things, I quit. Though I add, it was not something that started with that book, but that had actually begun happening the moment Jack Ryan became President, if not before. If Tom Clancy is still writing (is Tom Clancy still writing?) I honestly neither know, nor care.

There are other authors I could beat up on (Laurell K Hamilton and Jack Higgins for instance), but the point wouldn't change. In most instances, the author got lazy, and stayed lazy, or wandered so far afield from the earlier style or tone or premise that made their early works good that it was impossible for them to come back. Sometimes they do. I think Dean Koontz cycles through unreadability every so often, but that also implies that I keep coming back to check. Which I do. I've not quite stricken him from the list just yet.

Quitting on television shows is easier; once they start feeling like a chore, it's easy enough to cancel that particular weekly appointment. Authors are harder. Each time they put out a new book, each time I see it in the store or on the bestseller list or Amazon or wherever, that little bit of hope rises. I pick it up, leaf through it, and cross my fingers. (Which makes it hard to turn the pages, let me tell you.)

It's not an endless cycle. Authors can crush that hope too often. The trick, as a reader, is knowing when to quit, even if the authors don't.