Living the Fictional Dream

Back when I was on bed rest with darling daughter number two, I read Raised by Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. I’ve enjoyed all of JLB’s books thus far, but I thought this one was particularly good. It had her verve and style, but it was more action packed, both physically and emotionally. It resonated better than some of her other Y/A novels. I think part of that is the fact that she’s studied animal pack behavior as part of her academic work, so she was able to apply real-world knowledge to the structure of her werewolf pack.

Raised by Wolves is an appropriate title for this series. Bryn, the main character, lost her parents to a rabid werewolf attack, and is adopted and raised as the one of the few humans and one of the few females in the biggest werewolf pack in North America. Bryn struggles, being neither supernatural enough to fully belong to the werewolf pack nor normal enough to fit in with the regular humans. Her best friends are the only female werewolf of her generation and the pack’s first metrosexual teen male werewolf. And then she meet’s Chase (a boy who was bitten), and her world is turned upside down. But not because of romance (a la Twilight), though there is romance, but because of what Chase represents in regards to Bryn’s life in the pack and her beliefs about everything that happened before. When her whole life explodes, Bryn has to pick up the pieces, avenge her parents, and embrace the scrappy/fighter side of herself like she never has before, without getting anyone killed doing it (especially herself)!

I was pleasantly surprised last weekend to discover that RbW is a series, and the second book, Trial by Fire, came out this summer. I won’t say too much about the plot of this one, because if you haven’t read RbW already, knowing even the nutshell plot of TbF would spoil the ending for you. I will just say that TbF was even more action packed than its predecessor, and it gives us even an even more comprehensive look at what it takes to be an alpha and what pack and family really mean. Anyone who thinks that family is what you make it, not necessarily who you happen to be related to, would find a kinship in this series.

I really don’t know why the RbW series hasn’t taken off as a best seller. It’s well written, the characters are fleshed out (even the supporting cast — and paperdoll supporting cast is one of my biggest pet peeves in a novel), the main character is a girl is someone with agency (unlike Bella Swan), and there are layers upon layers of plot/intrigue that our cast has to get through to solve the mysteries in the end.

My only complaint with the series is that there is a big info dump in the first scene of RbW. That could have been smoothed out and the information brought to us later when needed. The fact that it’s in the first chapter might make someone not already sold on the author stop reading. However, once you get past that, you’re swept into a unique and interesting universe that is worth visiting and spending a little time in, and then, later, worth re-visiting.

People should get the word out there on this series. I mean, seriously, if you liked Twilight, you’d really like this. It’s so much better. I’ve done my part. Now you read it, and you start telling people. And then we can all wait for the third installment, due in June 2012

When I posted yesterday, I thought I’d found my favorite self-pubbed author (Barbara Pandos), but I was wrong. Thanks to some ill-timed caffiene, I had horrible insomnia last night, and my companion until 3:30 a.m. was Destiny Binds, by Tammy Blackwell (book 1 of the Timber Wolves trilogy).

This is a Y/A paranormal about a girl named Scout. It has the typical tropes — human girl, mysterious new guy, finding out her world is not what it seems, a love triangle… But this book raises the story above and beyond the formula.

Scout (the main character) is hyper-logical and would never believe in things like werewolves or shape shifters. And then she meets Alex. But, one of the interesting twists, is that Alex is not the only supernatural element in the story. Things Scout has taken for granted her whole life, she discovers, were not at all what they seemed.

One of the great things about this story is that, not only are Scout and Alex well fleshed out and not generic character archetypes or Mary Sues/Harry Stus, but the supporting cast are unique characters, as well. Scout’s brother Jase; her long-time, pre-Alex crush, Charlie; her best friend Talley; and even her six-year-old baby sister, Angel, all have their own personalities, traits, and motivations, as well as hidden depths that we gradually learn about over the course of the novel.

My only wish, as it came to supporting characters, was that I wanted a little more of Scout’s parents and some of the extended family members, like Toby. But, I suspect more light will be shed on them in future installments of the Timber Wolves trilogy.

The romance between Alex and Scout, as well as the love triangle that happens when you factor Charlie into the mix. Though there is an instant attraction when Alex and Scout meet, there are factors in play that keep them from even starting to get to know each other for quite a while. It was refreshing to have the main couple of a Y/A paranormal not fall instantly into complete soul-searing, teen angst love. Scout and Alex were no Bella and Edward, instantly ready to give up their lives for each other. But the story builds Scout and Alex’s relationship up over time, logically, until the payoff of that kind of devotion is actually justified. Imagine that!

And Charlie is a valid third leg of the love triangle. Scout had genuine feelings for him for years that the advent of a hot new guy was not just going to dispel. He was actually a real challenge to Scout and Alex’s relationship, as opposed to Jacob, who never stood a chance of winning Bella.

I also enjoyed the pop culture references in this book. They felt realistic to me, like they came from Scout, as opposed to feeling shoe-horned in. And I liked that the references were casual instead of obvious. And I liked that they ranged over a lot of pop culture, as opposed to being limited just to today. I particularly appreciated the nod to the Winchester boys that she snuck in there.

And Tammy’s writing in this novel is really well done. Scout has her own voice, not just generic first person. Her narration feels like Scout, not like just anyone. And I think I noticed maybe one error (even professionally pubbed books can have an error or two included). And her writing felt professionally polished, not like she scribbled down a first draft and slapped it up on Amazon as an e-book.

My only criticisms of this novel are the title and the cover art. With the plethora of self-pubbed Y/A paranormal novels out there, I think the title and/or the cover art really need to draw the reader in to get the novel noticed. I passed right by Destiny Binds at first, as neither of the two jump out, but are really fairly generic.

After having read the book, Destiny Binds works as the title. If you were going to boil the whole story down to two words, these two fit the bill pretty well. And, after finding Tammy’s blog  (which was surprisingly buried in the list of links on Google) and reading the titles of the next two novels in the trilogy, I understand the naming scheme she has going on. But, the title just doesn’t pack much of a punch or make the novel stand out from the crowd.

And the cover art… just the title and a graphic of a wolf on a black background. Nothing much to catch the eye, especially compared with whatelse is out there in the Y/A market.

In fact, I would not have even clicked on the novel, except for two things. Amazon popped it up on a recommendations page for some other book I had clicked on and then decided not to purchase after reading the reviews. It was the phrase “Timber Wolves” that really hooked me in. If not for that, coupled with the fact that Destiny Binds is only $0.99 for Kindle right now, I would have passed on by without a click.

However, I’m glad that I did not, because I enjoyed this book so much. I have read Y/A paranormals that came through an actual publishing house that did not have such quality writing. I’m astonished that this book is self-pubbed, and am dying to know whether or not the author tried the traditional publishing route.

Compared with what’s out there, this novel could totally hold its own. It would appeal to fans of this genre and compete whole-heartedly with stories such as the Wolves of Mercy Falls series (which was good and well written, but had some pacing problems, IMO — I very much prefer the Timber Wolves). If the author did try the traditional route first, I’m completely shocked that she didn’t get picked up, and if she did try, my only guess as to why the book didn’t sell is that editors and agents were just giving blanket “no” answers to all werewolf/shifter stories due to a preceived saturation. But who knows?

If you like Y/A paranormals and/or you enjoy werewolves/shifters, you should definitely give Destiny Binds a try. A great story for just $0.99? How can you go wrong?

Since getting my Kindle (best first Mother’s Day gift ever!), I’ve taken to stalking the free fiction available on Amazon.com. It’s interesting what pops up there. Some good, some bad, and some just meh. And then I started noticing the self-published books that are available. For $0.99 to $2.99, you can buy whole novels. The number available in Y/A paranormal is mind boggling. You have to wade through some dreck, but you can find some decent reads for a much cheaper price.

The first one I read was Amanda Hocking’s Trylle trilogy. The first one, Switched, showed up in the top 10 on the best selling list. It was only $0.99, the premise (trolls) was intriguing, and the reviews were good, so I picked it up. And liked it well enough to splurge on the remaining two books in the series at the higher $2.99 price.

Over all, they were a good read. If only Amanda Hocking had better critiques and copy editors for her self-published work. Grammatical and punctuation errors jarred me out of the stories sometimes, and she falls into a lot of beginning writer traps that my writing group has helped me get away from (using “just” and “almost,” passive voice, repeating the same word multiple times in the same page/paragraph, using complex verb constructions when a single one will do, etc.). She also really could have used someone to tell her that the climax of the third book needed a little more build up to be believable and to help her smooth over certain plot issues (like the abrupt switch in the heroine’s “one true love” and how the ending of the trilogy was just too happy and too perfect).

But, despite the flaws, the concept and the heroine’s voice drew me in and held me there until I finished the story. I think the ability to do that is the most telling indicator of a writer’s talent (despite valid criticisms of her plotting and writing style, Stephanie Meyer has that gift, too). The mechanics can be learned and honed. (And maybe now that Hocking, self-publishing phenom, has signed a deal with a major publishing house, which includes re-release of the Trylle trilogy, she’ll get some guidance in those areas from the trained editors.)

Next, I tried Hocking’s zombie apocalypse story, Hollowland, at $0.99, and I liked this one even better than the Trylle books. The heroine was awesome, the world building was spot-on, and the supporting cast had a lot more purpose. There were still editing and technique issues, but the story was so much better, it was easier to ignore. I’m still hoping that another book in this series will come out, but I guess that will depend on her schedule with her new publishing house.

I’ve tried a few others here and there, and I seldom have as good of a reaction as I did with Hocking’s work. I need something outstanding to get into a book. A good character and can identify with and/or root for. A unique, intriguing, fresh twist on a concept that I haven’t seen a zillion times. Quality writing that doesn’t jar me out of the story, or a story so compelling that I don’t notice the sub-par writing skills (or at least can ignore them).

Without one or more of those attributes, I can’t commit to the book. I tried Hocking’s vampire series, My Blood Approves, but I couldn’t get into them. Sadly, I did not realize this until I’d already purchased them (my new rule, only buy one book of a completed series at a time to make sure you still like it when you finish the next installment!). The vampire series was just so… meh. The narrator never did anything but react. She really seemed more passive than Bella of Twilight fame, if you can imagine that. And things kept happening that were just too convenient. Once sure, but over and over again? Strains my ability to suspend my disbelief.

I alway skim the reviews of self-pubbed books . If one or two say there are grammatical problems or writing issues, I move on, even if there are a ton of 5-starred reviews, as well. Also, if the concept seems tired or a rip off, it would take very stellar review to get me to even take a peak. The Vampire Journals self-pubs that have been popping up on Amazon lately make me cringe. I think L.J. Smith was there first, people, and even if you weren’t into Y/A in the 1990s, her stories are back in the public view thanks to the TV series.

However, I think I may have finally found a winner on the self-pub Y/A market this weekend. Barbara Pandos, who wrote The Emerald Talisman. Pandos can actually write! She doesn’t use the same words repeatedly, but has a range of vocabulary (even a couple of higher priced words thrown in from time to time). And I don’t think a single grammatical or punctuation error jumped out at me. Her descriptions were vivid, and her characters were unique and interesting. Her take on vampires was different (at least to some extent) than the plethora of stories on the market right now. Her heroine had a gift of her own, and was not completely passive. And, also, her book is (as of today) available for free on Amazon, so the price was definitely right. I enjoyed the book a lot, and just downloaded the sequel, The Sapphire Talisman.

My only complaint with Pandos’s story is that sometimes the emotions felt by the lead couple weren’t completely justified by the text and there were a couple of plot holes that could have been fixed by just adding an extra scene. But I’ve seen worse in books released by an actual publishing house (Need, by Carrie Jones, for example — blarg, good concept, but what a mess!). What the book had going for it, far out weighed the bad.

I wonder what it takes to jump into this self-publishing market. So much is out there. Of course, if you go that route, you most likely give up your chance at publishing those books via a traditional outlet, and I’ve heard it makes it more difficult to get a traditional agent, even if you were shopping around a different project. However, that’s not 100% the case, because Hocking’s Trylle trilogy has been taken down and will be re-released by St. Martin’s Press in upcoming months.

Too bad some of these self-published authors don’t seem to care about grammar, punctuation, prose, writing style, and critique. I could make a good living whipping these novels into shape. They’d probably all hate my comments, though, and refuse to pay!

Well, I’ll sign off for now, but hopefully I can find the time to blog again soon. I really want to write a blog about the titles of self-published books. I know titles are not easy, but some of the ones out there are just so, so bad that it’s hilarious.

It’s the end of an era. There will be no more new Harry Potter. The books are long done, and now the movies are, too. I got to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 tonight, and it was quite good.

There’s always a sense of loss when something really good ends, isn’t there? I’ll never have that sense of anticipation again of waiting for the next Harry Potter book to come out, of attending the midnight release party, of holding a brand new, unread copy in my hands. The story has been told, and it’s over. I can re-read them and visit the universe again, but it will never be new again.

R0wling created such a vivid universe with the Harry Potter series. And it was so well plotted. Things from the beginning that worked fine then, but take on a whole new meaning when seen in the context of the whole series. Sometimes I wonder how much was painstaking outlining and revision to make things match up and how much was that wonderful sort of zen thing that comes over you when you’re with story and somehow you get to the end and the most brilliant things line up that you hadn’t even realized when you were trying to get it all down as fast as you can type.

Coming down from a story like that is bittersweet. Part of me always wonders if I will ever be able to write something that good, something that will touch so many people. Or even a more modest number of people. Then again, I bet Rowling never thought her little stories would become such a phenomenon when she was scribbling them down in a cafe in England. So, anything can happen, right?

Anyhow, good bye, Harry Potter. I will come visit again. Definitely when the girls are old enough to be introduced into your hallowed hallways, and possibly before.

Happy 2010, readers! I hope the new year is treating you well so far, and that the writers out there have already begun to garner plentiful word counts and loads of acceptance letters!

The Preditors and Editors Reader’s Poll is live. It honors print and electronic publications that published in 2009. Click here to vote for your favorite ‘Zine.

There are a lot of good ones nominated this year. I had a hard time choosing! If you’re a fan of 10Flash, Residential Aliens, Everyday Fiction, or a score of other magazines, go over there and place a vote for your favorite.

To elminate ballot stuffing, you have to give your email address and click a confirmation link to make your vote valid, but that’s understandable. I hate polls where the same person can vote as many times as they want to.

Well, I have to run. The day job beckons, as do plans for my sister’s wedding. It is going to be a busy January at my house!

The premier of The Vampire Diaries on the CW this month led me to pull all my old L.J. Smith young adult novels off the back shelf where they had been collecting dust and give them a re-read for the first time since the ’90s. Strangely enough, I don’t actually own a copy of The Vampire Diaries book trilogy, but I have copies of what (in my opinion) were Smith’s better trilogies — Dark Visions, The Secret Circle, and The Forbidden Game.

It’s been fun to journey down memory lane by rereading these old books. I loved them when I was the right age for them. In fact, Dark Visions was one of several inspirations for one of my novels-in-progress.

But, reading them now, with much more writing experience (and life, too) behind me, I can recognize their flaws much more readily than I could back then.

I may come back and address other flaws in these books, as I can think of several, but today I wanted to talk about eye color.

For some reason, writers love to take liberties with eye color. Why have boring old brown or blue eyes when youre characters can have aquamarine, violet, or amber colored eyes?

Now, I will admit to having done this on occasion. One character in my urban fantasy ‘verse, a werewolf, has the distinguishing characteristic of ice blue eyes. Though, I did do some research — there are a few wolves who have blue eyes.

But these L.J. Smith novels take eye color way over the top. One heroine has pine green eyes. One hero has blue-gray eyes that, every time they are described, are comparied to the sea. A villain has eyes that are bluer than blue — described as the blue that you see when you close your eyes, an unearthly blue (though, he is a Shadow Man from an evil dimension, so maybe he has a right to crazy colored eyes). A villainess has eyes alternately described as amber and golden, which are paired with honey-colored skin and a mane of black hair. A supporting character is always described as having emotionless or cool gray eyes.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that character descriptions are a powerful tool for drawing your reader into your world and for helping them to remember a character. All characters really do need one feature that is uniquely there’s so that the reader can distinguish that character from all the rest.

However, that distinguishing feature does not always have to be the eyes. And if you use too many crazy eye colors in one story, it starts to feel absurd and/or cliche. Maybe just give one character unique eyes, and let other characters have something of their own — a unique hair color, thick eyebrows, unusual stature (tall or petite), large hands, etc.

Now I have the urge to revisit my young adult novel in progress and see how many crazy eye colors I put in there. I remember emerald green and violet off the top of my head. Uh-oh!

The other day, I suddenly had the urge to pull my copy of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew down off my bookshelf. If you’ve never heard of the Peppers, they were the stars of Margaret Sidney’s children’s book series, which was originally published from 1881 to 1916. It took me a year or so of active Ebaying, but I finally managed to get copies of the whole Pepper series.

I remember finding the first Pepper book in my elementary school library and devouring it as a child. I always loved classic children’s stories from the turn of the century. Little Women still tops my favorite books of all time list (as well as being the book I’ve read the most ever), and some of my other childhood favorites included A Little Princess and The Secret Garden.

The great thing about these books is how uplifting they are. They create likable characters that you can whole-heartedly root for as they navigate their way through various imaginative and home-spun situations. Good always wins in the end, the villains are either truly evil or redeemed, the good guys are stalwart and true, and happiness is ultimately attained for those who deserve it.

Part of me has always longed to visit a world in which there was both the time and gumption to think of elaborate theatricals and perform them for one’s friends. A time when a trip to the store was an event to be dressed up for, not an errand to run. A time when occaions were marked with imaginative and homemade gifts, and good-natured frolics and outings were encouraged regularly. A time when sitting around telling each other stories was a favorite way to pass the time.

I suppose some people would think these stories too sweet or that they have too few dimensions. I will admit, they are not adult fair, but as a child, I loved them. And I still appreciate them today. When Jasper and Mr. King invite the whole of the Pepper family to move into the mansion in the city so they can have a better life than the hand-to-mouth existence they eeked out on Mrs. Pepper’s sewing and brother Ben’s wood chopping, it still gives me a little thrill of excitement. They met their hardships and travails with courage and good humor, and in the end, they got everything they ever wanted. It’s the same kind of thrill I get when Sara Crewe from A Little Princess wakes up to find that her cold attic bedroom has become a wonderful fairyland full of food and new clothes.

However, going back and reading these books as an adult does give one another perspective on them. There are some strange points of view in these old stories that were probably prevalent when they were published, but that seem very strange to the modern eye.

For instance, there is a scene at the beginning of The Five Little Peppers Midway in which the youngest Pepper, Phronsie, decides to bake a pie for her sister Polly. She asks Mr. King’s cook for help, and, of course, the cook is thrilled to help her with her project, as Phronsie is the pet of the household. Phronsie reaches out to take the cook’s hand as they walk to the kitchen, but the cook, a black man, is afraid to let her take it because (he says) he is too black to sully a lily like Phronsie.

I must admit, reading that scene made me cringe. If I ever read this to my little girl, I will be tempted to skip right over that scene entirely, and go straight to the baking scene. The fact that someone would feel that another person was worth more than them based on the color of skin — it rubs me the wrong way. And, it also says something about the attitude of Sidney that she would write it this way instead of, perhaps, that he was afraid to take her hand because he would get in trouble for stepping above his station, not because he thought she was that much more wonderful than he. But, the scene is moderately redeemed by the fact that Phronsie does not let the cook get away without holding her hand, because it’s his hand, therefore part of him, and she likes him just the way he is.

There is also a prevalent attitude that it is bad for children to cry. I suspect it was prevalent at the time of publication — or at least very strongly believed in by Sidney. That tempertantrums are things to be avoided is not so strange, but so are tears shed for sadness or other reasons that today would be encouraged as self-expression or being in touch with one’s emotions. If a character in the Pepper books has the need for a good cry, they are always begged not to let the tears go for the sake of their health (it will make you sick!) and so as not to distress their mother, Mr. King, or whatever adult happens to be around.

But, despite some foibles because these books were written over 100 years ago, over all, I still like them. And, even as an adult, every once in a while, I like diving into that simpler time. Staying there all the time would be too much, but an occasional visit to the old fashioned land of the Peppers, the Marches, or Sara Crewe can be quite refreshing.

During my dip, though, I will have to be careful not to follow Sidney’s writing style. She seldom uses the word “said,” instead favoring more descriptive terms, no matter how absurd they seem (e.g., cried, screamed, laughed). And don’t get me started on her overuse of adverbs and words that don’t mean anything — like “just” and “almost.”

And when I’m reading about the Peppers, I find myself wanting to use their pet phrases, such as “I almost know” (i.e., I almost know that Mom will let me adopt this puppy), in every day conversation.

If you hear me utter one of those old fashioned phrases, just smile and nod… and perhaps grant me an invitation to your next amateur theatrical, if you please!

I’ve been reading a series recently that, despite having intriguing characteres and a well-drawn fantasy world, repeatedly commits what I consider a big sin for an author — leaving emotional moments out of the story.

The author has such an engaging voice and conceives such good characters, I don’t know why she keeps making this misstep. I’ll be reading along in the story, and she’ll start building up a dramatic moment or event. In the most recent book, basically one of the main female characters had to participate in a magic spell. The spell would kill her — something that had to be done to achieve the end result they needed — but someone would be standing by with another spell to (hopefully) revive her afterwards.

You can probably tell just by my description that such a moment should have been pivotal. It’s the potential death of a major character — talk about a moment rife with drama. The idea of this spell was mentioned in the second-to-last book of the series, and when the character’s husband heard about it, he lashed out at the messenger and then nearly died himself because the messenger had a magic mirror that reflected the blow back on the caster. For the rest of that book and the beginning of the last book, the other characters utilize all this effort convincing the husband that there is no other choice and this risk is their only option. Either his wife is killed to save the rest of them and possibly revived, or all eight brothers and their wives die.

Finally, the husband is convinced. Then we spend pages getting more detail than I personally needed about the mechanics of the magic involved and what would happen. Then there is a scene break, and the beginning of the next scene starts after the spell has been cast and the wife has been revived without a single hitch.

… WTF? …

Talk about feeling cheated! I endured all that set up — some interesting, but some, frankly, a little boring — and then I don’t even get to see the moment of truth? What happened? How did the husband react when his wife was dead? Was there any moment when it seemed as if she would not be revived in time?

And this is not the only time that this author has committed this sin of omission. She doesn’t do it with every emotion-packed moment, but several times throughout the series she had the chance to write a very impactful scene, a scene that she’d been building up to for a while, and then just doesn’t write it. Instead, she skips over it to the happy conclusion and moves on to the next plot point.

As a reader, I feel cheated. As a writer, it amazes me that the author of this series is willing to skip these moments. The climax may be a challenge to write, but it’s the big pay out. It’s why we’re all there? Why would you ever want to skip it, when that’s the moment that affects your characters the most?

Perhaps its an offshoot of a problem that I sometimes have in my writing — being too easy on my characters. My characters are my babies — I created them out of nothing and I want the best for them. Sometimes it’s hard to hurt them and so I wuss out (when I do, though, my sister and my writing group mates always call me on it!). Maybe this author has the same problem and just can’t always manage to write about the dramatic/bad/hard stuff that happens to her characters?

In this instance, I enjoyed the world enough that I was a forgiving reader and kept going, despite my dissatisfaction with this tendency. However, if I’d been busier at the time or had other books that I wanted to read, I would have been more likely to drop this series and move on to the next one.

As a writer, you can’t guarantee that readers are going to forgive such a faux pas. Instead, the writer needs to do their utmost to keep the reader immersed in the fictional dream — don’t let them escape until you’re done with your story, and you have a much better chance that the readers will keep coming back for more.

Over the weekend, I started reading the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries by Charlaine Harris. (These are the books upon which the HBO TV show True Blood is based, but I think the books are better than the show — different, but in a good way.)

I won’t do an in-depth book review on the series right now, as I’m still in the midst of reading it. However, this series really has me thinking about one thing writing-wise, and I wanted to get some thoughts about that down while they are still fresh.

Reading this series, really got me thinking about what makes a good character.

It’s fairly inevitable that the Sookie Stackhouse series would get compared to the Anita Blake series written by Laurel K. Hamilton. They are both urban fantasy. Both include significant vampire and werewolf/shape shipfter action. Both involve vampires “coming out” as legal citizens of the United States. Both have strong female protagonists with supernatural abilities of their own, and both women have significant romantic relationships with other supernaturals over the course of the series.

Despite all these similarities, I find myself heartily preferring the Sookie Stackhouse books to the Anita Blake books — both the books themselves and the heroine. I started asking myself why this was, and when it gets down to it, it’s all about the main character. (There will be some points in this post that would be considered spoilerish if you have not read the series, but I’ll try not to get too specific.)

I read a lot of the Anita Blake books when I first discovered the series, and I really enjoyed it at first. However, as the series continued, my enjoyment in it began to wane. The focus of the series seemed to me to shift in a direction that just wasn’t to my personal taste. Even if you have not read the Anita Blake series, you may have heard it described as “erotic” or “sexy.” At the beginning, though there was a lot of sexual tension and romance, it wasn’t the focus — the focus was more on the plots and mysteries, as well as on Anita’s life. But, by the point where I finally gave up the series, it felt to me like the plot in the books was merely an excuse to allow Anita to have crazy supernatural sex with a huge harem of guys — the love triangle beween Anita, vampire Jean-Claude, and werewolfe Richard widened to include more vampires, more shifters (especially the werepanthers), and others.

My other problem came with Anita herself. Over the course of the novels (I gave up the series after reading Narcissus in Chains), she became more and more powerful — to, what seemed to me, an absurd degree. In the beginning, Anita was a normal woman who just happened to be an necromancer. She also had trained herself physically to be a vampire hunter. As the series went on, she gathered more and more powers and titles to add to her burgeoning collection — lupa of the werewolf pack, part of a triumverate of power with Jean Claude and Richard, alpha of the werepanther pack, etc., etc. And then she suddenly developed Jean Claude’s talent of drawing energy from sex (and getting weaker if she didn’t get said sex), which made things even crazier for her personally and for her huge amount of powers.

I liked Anita when she was a normal person with one significant power and some skills that she’d trained into herself by working hard. I didn’t like it when suddenly she was all-powerful.

Sookie Stackhouse starts out her series similar to Anita (I’m currently in the middle of Definitely Dead). She’s a normal girl, a barmaid in a restaurant, but she has one supernatural power to deal with. She’s a telepath. Then she meets Bill the vampire and discovers that she can’t read vampire minds — she is immediately intrigued because it is restful for her to be around Bill — she doesn’t constantly have to fight against being bombarded by stray thoughts.

Through her association with Bill, Sookie is introduced to the supernatural world (both the world of the recently legalized vampires and still underground supernatural creatures, like Weres, shifters, and fairies), and becomes embroiled in supernatural affairs.

Like Anita, Sookie is given some enhanced powers — the difference is, they don’t last. In Sookie’s world, humans gain power from drinking vampire blood — it enhances their strength and speed, their looks, and other abilities. However, the effect is temporary, based on how much she’s had and how old the vampire in question was. So, she has these abilities, but only for a while. Other than that, she never adds to her supernatural skills, though, over time, she does learn how to control her telepathy better and use it in new (and believable) ways, such as projecting thoughts to other telepaths (but not to regular Joes).

Also like Anita, Sookie becomes greatly in demand in the supernatural world. However, unlike Anita, the supernatural world doesn’t fall at Sookie’s feet. She’s dragged into it (or sometimes rushes into it head first), but she has to work for the acceptance that she gets there (and she is not always accepted).

For example, Sookie meets a werewolf named Alcide and they are attracted to each other. However, (1) they do not hop immediately into bed together and (2) Sookie does not gain any type of leadership position in his pack. She is named a “friend of the pack,” but that is because she alerts them to a problem in their territory and helps out a pack member who gets hit by a car. In fact, despite dancing around the issue for a couple of books, Sookie and Alcide never actually have a relationship. They are interested in each other, but each has a load of personal baggage (in the form of exes and other issues) that gets in the way, and the relationship is never even consumated.

Sookie does have a relationship with vampire Bill, and a couple of other supernatural guys are interested in her, but the interest is believable. I never wonder why all the guys are so taken with Sookie (like I did with Anita), and there are plenty of guys in the series who aren’t actually taken with her. Also, every supernatural guy Sookie meets does not automatically become her bedmate.

The difference between Antia and Sookie, I’ve decided, is the Mary Sue phenomenon. If you haven’t heard of a Mary Sue, this is a term that came from fanfiction writers. A Mary Sue is a character written into a story about an existing universe (Buffy the Vampire Slayer was always my fanfiction neighborhood of choice) who basically represents the author’s wish fullfillment. This character is instantly loved and embraced by the main characters of the existing universe — all the guys fall for her and all the girls want to be her best friend. Everything a Mary Sue does comes easy for him/her, and she gets everything that she wants in the end. And any “weakness” a Mary Sue has is usually a strength in disguise and never gives her much trouble.

As the series progressed, Anita felt more and more to me like a Mary Sue. Everything came too easily for her, too many guys liked her (without enough reason) and liked her so much that she was able to treat them like crap and they would still give her whatever she wanted. Her powers got exponentially stronger to an insane degree, and even her weaknesses just don’t seem that bad.

Sookie, however, doesn’t feel like a Mary Sue to me. She feels like a real, vibrant character of her own accord. She’s strong, but she has real weaknesses. She might have a selection of cute guys to be interested in, but she doesn’t get to have all of them. And the relationshpis she does have include real life issues and don’t always work out. She also has issues in her life that don’t magically get solved — like money problems, problems with her brother, and problems with the law. Sometimes she will find ways around them — like earning a significant sum of money using her house as a hide-out for a vampire on the run — but inevitably something will happen to set things back again — like a house fire resulting in a huge expenditure setting her finances back to ground zero.

The writing lesson I’m taking away from all this debate is a reminder of just how important characters are to a story. Without characters the reader can really invest in, they are more likely to stop reading (like I did with Anita Blake, whom I could no longer relate to). But a character a reader really likes becomes an old friend that they want to visit in every subsequent novel (like Sookie is for me — at least so far, I’ve got a few more books left to read).

Part of making characters that readers will like and identify with, in my opinion, is being willing to be hard on them. They need real obstacles to overcome. You can’t be too easy on your characters or there is no real struggle for them to go through and suddenly your character is a Mary Sue.

When I first started writing, I was way too nice to my characters, and the stories suffered for it. I still struggle with that, but I’m becoming much less benevolent to my characters as I mature as a writer.

If you enjoy urban fantasy and murder mysteries, I would definitely give the Sookie Stackhouse novels a chance. And if you like True Blood, I think that you’ll enjoy the books, as well.

Happy reading, watching, and writing, y’all!

The Sword & Sorceress market has opened again. Another anthology of sword and sorcery stories with strong female protagonists. I really love the idea of this anthology. I like fantasy, I especially like fantasy with strong female protagonists, and I enjoy a good action story (if it is well-written and has more than just action to sweeten the story).

This is one of those markets that it would be a dream to be included in. As such, I probably never will be, LOL! Seriously, this is a really tough market. I have submitted several stories to them in the past couple of years and gotten the form rejection every time. Not even good enough for a personal comment! Some of my writing group mates have submitted as well, and none of us have gotten a nibble. Competition at the professional level is killer.

Last year, while on vacation, my husband had me reading a series of short stories about two characters named Tarma and Kethry. These stories were some of the first works published by Mercedes Lackey, and I believe they first came to light in a S&S anthology or some other of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s publications. While reading them, I was really struck by the difference between publishing now and publishing back when these stories first came out (I think it was in the 1970s, if I remember correctly, but I’m lazy and not looking it up, so don’t hold me to that!).

In these stories, Tarma is a female warrier. All of her tribe is slaughtered by her, so she swears herself to the warrier goddess, takes a vow of chastity, and devotes herself to getting vengeance for her tribe. After that is complete, she devotes herself to helping women in trouble who have no one else to save them.

By Tarma’s side is Kethry, a sorceress of astonishing power who has a magic sword that can lead them to other women who are in trouble. The pair forge a solid and real friendship and spend their lives saving the world together — both on their own and as part of a mercenary fighting garrison. Kethry’s children help Tarma re-start her lost tribe among the horse people, and in their later years they run a school to train both boys and girls in the art of fighting and magic.

If you have some time to kill, I would recommend these stories. I found them very interesting, and over time I really grew to love the characters.

However, it’s that “over time” part that really marks the difference between then and now in the publishing world. Nowadays, there is no time for building an audience, especially in the short fiction market (though, I think that is also more and more true for the novel market, as well). A short fiction author is lucky if readers don’t give up on their stories within the first few paragraphs. As a reader myself, even I’ve been guilty of this. If a flash piece doesn’t grab me at least a little bit at the beginning, I’ve been known to bail on it, even if it was less than 1,000 words. I just don’t have enough time for reading something I’m not that into.

But back then, you had the luxury of time. If you were a good writer, your stuff would get published and your audience was allowed to grow. When I first started reading the Tarma and Kethry stories, I remember thinking, this is an interesting premise, but if this story were submitted to a market today, it would get rejected. There isn’t enough punch at the beginning, not enough of a hook. To really get invested in the characters, I had to read the first two or three short stories in the anthology — back when they were first published, these stories weren’t even in an anthology all together, so you only had one at a time to read.

So, as I ponder if I have any ideas worth working on and submitted to the S&S market this year, I think back to Tarma and Kethry and realize how much things have changed. Its a faster and more competitive world out there for writers, and snagging readers is more difficult, so we have to be at our best all the time, and even then our stories may not get accepted.

However, I don’t want to end this post on a down note. I really want people to take away from this that I’m discouraged about writing or publishing, because I’m not. I just try to approach it with a realistic mind set and no false hopes.

If I never become rich and famous in this game, that’s fine. I mean, I wouldn’t turn down rich and famous, but I don’t expect it. I just want to write, and I know that’s something I’ll be doing forever, no matter how many stories I have published (or don’t have published).