Living the Fictional Dream

Main characters aren’t always the brightest bulbs in the shed, but when a character does veer into the stupid zone, it is so much more irritating to me as a reader when the story is told in the first person point of view.

The problem is that for the reader to know something more is going on than what the main character sees (or allows him/herself to see), it has to be there on the page. We’ve got to see all the things that the main character misses, and if we see it, it’s hard to understand sometimes why the main character doesn’t see it. If I, as a reader, see these things, I may want to thwap the main character when they are obtuse.

In third person, there is a bit of distance between the narration and the main character’s point of view. Even in third person limited, there is still a sense of space between the narration and the main character’s mind.

In the first person, however, the narration is completely filtered through the main character’s eyes and mind. If the main character doesn’t see it, know it, or experience it somehow, the reader can’t know it. So, since the reader has to experience it, there are times that it will drive me crazy when they overlook or don’t understand whatever it is.

Of course, sometimes, people misunderstand things. I can forgive that in a character to a certain extent, but it gets to a point where it’s no longer a misunderstanding, but stupidity.

Take, for example, the House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast. I recently read the latest installment, Untamed, and the main character, Zoey, kept observing things, such as the behavior of one of her friends, that was contrary to what Zoey would have liked it to be. And she kept rationalizing it to herself, denying it, in essence. Once or twice, maybe I could have put up with, but over and over again she did it! Her stupidity started to really grate on my nerves. I was right there in her head with her, and she just refused to actually see what was going on! And, the thing is, Zoey is not stupid by nature, but I get the feeling that she had to miss/deny this crucial fact to herself so that the plot could continue to progress unhindered.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still like the HoN series. It’s addicting — Y/A vampire crack would probably be the most appropriate term. I even like the character of Zoey for the most part — she manages a destiny and a significant subset of powers without (so far) falling into that Mary Sue unbelievability that eventually assails other characters (e.g., Anita Blake and Bella Swan).

But sometimes I just want to shake Zoey for not being able to see what is right in front of her face.
If the story were told in the third person, maybe it would be easier to accept that she didn’t understand the implications of what she saw. Or even to believe that she didn’t see it at all. Not noticing something is one thing. Seeing it and not understanding it is stupidity.

So, perhaps, if you’re going to make your main character stupid or obtuse, I think it would be very wise to stay far away from first person narration. Or, alternatively, how about we not make the characters stupid at all — or at least not simply for sake of foreshadowing or the plot. If a character is going to have a stupid moment, make it something that arises from the character, not as a method for moving the plot along!

I think that the line between a story that’s cliche and a story that breathes new life into an old trope can be very fine indeed. Sometimes, I think that the line is more in the head of the reader than anything else. Of course, the writer has to do his or her part. You’ve got to give that old idea new trappings, new characters and settings to make it interesting again. A new twist on the plot, if you can think of one, is good, too.

But, sometimes, there’s nary a new twist to be found. After all, there are a finite number of plots out there — depending on who you listen to, it’s 10 or 12 or maybe 36. You can boil so many radically different stories down to “man vs. man” or “man vs. machine,” etc. The thing that makes them stand out is how the writer told the story.

I’ve been thinking about this recently because of two stories that I submitted to Every Day Fiction. One was a ghost story, and it was rejected for being too cliche. The other was my recent acceptance, “A Million Faces.” The acceptance email actually said that they felt I’d breathed new life into an old trope, which was really nice to hear. I’m really excited about sharing that story with the world — I had fun writing it, and I felt like I really connected with the main character.

But I wonder what it was that made AMF work, while my ghost story still languishes without a home?

I started thinking, maybe I, as a reader, am too close to the ghost story. The stories that spook me the most are ghost stories. Hack-em-up stories gross me out, but they don’t really scare me. Ghosts, however… whew! I still think the pilot episode of the show Supernatural, which dealt with plenty of ghosts, was the scariest one they ever did — followed by all the other ghost stories. The ones about various earth-bound monsters or demons… still interesting, but not as much with the creepy chill factor.

I was never a big fan of The Sixth Sense, but I think that’s because it was built up to me way too much. I didn’t see it until DVD, so by that point, after all the hype, it would have had to be a much more impressive film for me to be blown away. I did think the twist was cool, though. The movie The Others, however, was totally creepifying to me! And there was the other movie that I saw where a guy had this whole life on an estate with a wealthy, eccentric family, and at the end it turned out that the estate was a crumbling ruin and they’d been ghosts all along. That one totally freaked me out, too — though, sadly, I have totally forgotten the name of the film.

So, maybe because ghost stories really affect me as a reader/viewer, it’s harder for me to write one with some distance? Maybe what seems cliche to other people, doesn’t feel that way to me because I still enjoy that trope?

I don’t know if that’s the case, but it would make sense… I struggle with the same thing in my urban fantasy stories. I love stories about vampires, werewolves, etc., in all their forms. I like the classic stories, but I like the ones that twist the myths, as well. To me, it’s about the characters and what they do with these ideas — it doesn’t bother me if the vampire has a reflection or not or if the werewolf can only change on the full moon or has full control of the shifting abilities. The creature’s abilities and flaws are tools that help the writer tell the story they want to tell with their unique set of characters.

But, I’ve gotten rejections on my urban fantasy stories because the editors of that publication felt the stories didn’t do anything unexpected enough.

On the flip side, I absolutely hated the novel Eragon. I couldn’t even get through it. It felt too cliched, and I didn’t like the writing style. I’ve always loved stories about dragons, but I didn’t feel like this one gave me anything new to hold onto. In addition, the characters were achingly flat. So, not only was there no new twist, but there were no characters to really get behind or get involved with.

But, I’m definitely in the minority on that one, if the way the novels are selling are any indication. I even had some friends who read the book say that, yes, they thought it was derivative of basically every fantasy epic in recent history (everything from Tolkien to Star Wars), but they still enjoyed reading it. And, heck, they made Eragon into a major motion picture, so a lot of people out there have to like it.

In the end, I think luck continues to play a big role. Write a good story — the story that you want to write, not the one you think the market wants you to write — and then send it out. Sure, you may get rejections if the editors feel that you didn’t twist the trope into something new enough. But, there is probably someone out there who will get your story and who will love your voice enough to publish it. It’s the idea of the right story, in front of the right person, at the right time.

The SED contest still continues. I think it is sucking all the other writing thoughts from my mind, as nothing has come to mind to blog about. I enjoyed yesterday’s story, though. A woman fighting a tree that became a tentacled monster. Much fun, and inspired by a real tree that I saw in the park while Stephen and I were riding our bikes earlier this week. I have not seen the real tree break out into tentacles yet, but it looks shifty!

Anyway, I thought I would take this lack of creativity and use it to highlight some other people’s creativity. So, the following are links that I’ve found whilst meandering through the interwebs.

The Teen Fiction Cafe is a blog run by a rotating cast of Y/A authors. They have weekly themes and their posts tend to be quite awesome. There are give-aways sometimes, as well.

Pub Rants is my absolute favorite agent blog out there. Agent Kristen always has interesting things to say about the industry, and I like that she always does her ranting the polite way. My favorite posts are when she talks about queries, the slush pile, and what’s hot in the industry right now.

Lit Agent X is also a great agent blog. I love it when Rachel lists the trends in the queries she receives. However, the only downside is that she doesn’t have a regular update schedule. The archives are worth perusing, though!

If you enjoy urban fantasy, try Fangs, Fur, & Fey. Lots of publishing urban fantasy writers (including Melissa Marr of Wicked Lovely, which is an awesome book you should definitely read) post here. I always discover some interesting tidbit that I didn’t know about before.

And that is it for the blog installment of my links posts. Happy clicking! There should be enough there to read to keep you occupied for quite a while! And if any of y’all have any links you want to share with me (especially good author, agent, or writing blogs, but anything, really), feel free to share!