Flights of Fantasy

On Thick Ice

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Tue, 19 May 2015 11:12:00 +0000

When Titanic came out, everyone I knew went to watch it. I didn’t.

Maybe it was the clip I saw where the only dialogue seemed to be “Jack!” “Rose!” “Rose!” “Jack!” or just the fact that I’d prefer to see the disaster minus the romance. Either way, though, I chalked Titanic up as one of those famous films I’d never see, and that was that.

Fast forward to 2014. I’d been working on a series of fantasy romances set on ships. Each story featured an exciting location, from the fantasy world’s version of the Sargasso Sea to the Bermuda Triangle, so eventually I ended up in arctic waters. With icebergs. And since I like watching movies that reflect whatever environment I’m writing about, I bit the bullet and watched Titanic.

What do you know? I ended up enjoying it.

Not the romance part. I read a book while that was going on, and while Rose’s evil fiance was evilling around. But the visual effects were stunning, from the first rush of water into the engine room to the final moment when the ship split in two and went down. All the beauty and grandeur, crushed and swallowed by the sea. I grieved a lot more for the liner than I did for the lovers.

So I bought a book about the sinking, and that turned out to focus not just on the ship, but on the iceberg as well. If I thought the visuals of Titanic were stunning, so are those of icebergs. They can be arched and hollowed with a strange natural architecture, and peaks that rise up for hundreds of feet. Best of all, the book followed the berg from its birth in the High Arctic to its southward journey. There was a fascinating sense that the iceberg and the ship both traced lines that would, eventually, intersect with fatal results.

That was when I knew such an iceberg had to be in my story—a towering mountain of ice that would cross paths with a sailing ship.

Vinsen Solarcis, the captain of Fallstar, knows better than to go near icebergs of any size. Especially when he has a passenger on board, a violinist called Maggie Juell, whom he’s fallen for. He wants more than anything to keep her safe. But his ship rescues a castaway who claims her ship was struck by an iceberg, and the rest of her crew—injured and starving—are on the iceberg itself. Because Vinsen’s ship is closest to the iceberg, he ventures as close as he dares, to try to help the survivors.

The iceberg doesn’t smash his ship. It does something worse.

All About Romance calls The Coldest Sea "a well-written, engaging fantasy romance with a plot that kept me turning pages until well past the time I’d meant to go to bed". Read an excerpt here!

The Coldest Sea is available now on Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Samhain.

Marked By You

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 15:51:00 +0000

My fantasy romance Marked by You is now available. Isn't the cover a pretty?

It's a spinoff from a fantasy I wrote in 2009 and which I'm revising now, set in an Africa-esque land. I always wanted to visit the Serengeti but could never afford it, so I wrote about it instead. And then gave the characters a highly contagious and incurable disease - the ability to do magic - indicated by a permanent mark on their faces, because I'm mean like that.

But a few of them are Immunes, which means they need to protect uninfected people by any means necessary. So when such an Immune meets a magician, there's enough sparks to set fire to the savanna.

Get it on Loose Id's website, Amazon or All Romance Ebooks. Enjoy!

The Odessa File

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 14:21:00 +0000

I enjoyed Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal so much that I looked forward to reading The ODESSA File. Plus, that was about a reporter hunting down a Nazi, and I’m a World War II buff. How could such a story go wrong?

In six words: the hero and the hit man.

But I’ll start with the good parts. The story begins when Peter Miller, a reporter who writes about pop bands and juicy scandals, discovers that an old Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor, committed suicide. One of the things the old man left behind is a detailed diary of his time in the concentration camp Riga, and Miller reads this.

Horrifying though the man’s experiences were—at the hands of the camp commandant, Eduard Roschmann, the Butcher of Riga—they aren’t why Miller decides to hunt down Roschmann. That’s personal, and it’s a great twist. I liked how it leaves Roschmann and his Nazi colleagues confused as to why they’re being tracked down by a young German with a war hero for a father. Mossad agents they’d expect, but not this.

Miller’s investigations draw the attention of Odessa, a secret organization of Nazis which works to get people like Roschmann to safety, and one way they do this is with forged passports. The forger maintains a file of all the people to whom he’s issued fake documents, and this file is his way of making sure Odessa never feels he’s outlived his usefulness. To safeguard him, Odessa sends a hit man to deal with Miller.

But they aren’t the only people who have noticed Miller. Another secret organization—of concentration camp survivors turned Nazi hunters—gets Miller to safety and tells him how to get into Odessa. After an intensive crash course, Miller can pass himself off as an officer who once murdered people in Flossenburg. He goes to one of the higher-ups in the Odessa and asks for help getting a new identity.

So far, so good. The tension is ever-present, the stakes are high, and Forsyth’s research is detailed. Then it all unraveled.

The higher-up sends Miller to stay with another Nazi, Franz Bayer, who’ll arrange for the forger to supply a fake passport. Claiming he had to go on the run for fear of being discovered, Miller has no money other than the handout the Odessa man gives him for the train fare to Bayer’s house. But because Miller doesn’t want to take public transportation, he drives there in his Jaguar.

I repeat : he drives there in his Jaguar. Which the Odessa know all about, because they’ve done their own investigating.

Granted, he doesn’t park it in Bayer’s driveway, but he still gets spotted by Frau Bayer (who doesn’t seem to wonder at this poor broke man driving a Jaguar, but then again, the few women in the story are not characterized by their powers of deduction). The Odessa higher-up immediately alerts the hit man.

Here’s where Miller now gets saved twice by dumb luck (or authorial fiat, since as the hero, he can’t die). The hit man prepares a bomb that he wires under the hood of the Jaguar, and he also waits to sniper-shoot Miller. Instead, he accidentally kills Bayer, and the bomb destroys the Jaguar—when Roschmann’s bodyguard has taken the car and is the only person inside.

At this point, I expected the Odessa people to shoot the hit man before he could bring down their entire organization.

Miller’s aura of immortality preserves him to the end, and the hit man is put out of his misery. I thought wistfully of how competent the Jackal was, and went to re-read that book instead.

Musa Publishing closing

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 17:57:00 +0000

Shortly after Musa Publishing opened its doors in mid-2011, I thought of submitting a manuscript to them.

Normally, that would never have occurred to me. On the Absolute Write forums, I’ve seen dozens of small presses come out with a fanfare and sink into oblivion before a year. I always wait until the press or agent is well established, but with Musa I considered giving it a try.

Musa was created from the remains of Aspen Mountain, another small press. Since the editors and support staff of Aspen Mountain had worked to keep the business going and to treat authors fairly even when the owner of the press couldn’t be relied on, it was likely that they could go even further on their own. They would have learned what not do do by working with Aspen Mountain. Most of all, they had earned the support and trust of authors, many of whom rescued their books from Aspen Mountain to be published by Musa.

That was the first indication of a problem.

At the start of 2012, Celina Summers (former head editor at Aspen Mountain Press, editorial director at Musa) said they had ”over four hundred books contracted”. A few people expressed concerns, because even though many of those books were survivors of Aspen Mountain, meaning they were already edited, they still needed to be marketed.

Still, on the whole Musa appeared to be in good standing. Those of its staff who posted on the Absolute Write forums to discuss the press were always professional, and writers who had signed up were strong supporters. In fact, their enthusiasm was one of the things which made me seriously consider submitting a fantasy novel, so I looked up the guidelines for Musa’s Urania imprint.

The imprints were actually what made me pause. I could never shake the feeling that, when setting up Musa, someone had decided that because there were nine Muses, there could be nine imprints too, publishing everything from horror to literary fiction to erotica to young adult. In fact, in the end there were over a dozen imprints, adding Musa Classics (divided into Gold and Silver), plus an e-magazine called Penumbra.

The sheer number of imprints could be confusing as well, since on Musa’s homepage there was a link to the Eros imprint for Erotic/Erotica Romance but also a separate link for Erotic Romance. “Musa might be the only publisher in existence to have more imprints than editors,” I said to another writer.

A small press is much more likely to succeed by focusing on one or two genres, and establishing itself before making plans for expansion.

So I hesitated, then decided to hold off on sending a manuscript to Musa for a while. If I was wrong, they’d still be around in the future.

By the start of 2013, cracks were starting to appear. A few writers mentioned a high turnover rate for editors at Musa, as well as errors in galleys—which didn’t leave much time for corrections to be made. Later that year, Ann Leckie wrote about a problem with the e-zine Penumbra and, which I found more disturbing, a hostile reaction from Penumbra’s editor to her bringing this up.

This wasn’t the only mention of abusive emails from Musa.

Finally, there were the matter of the sales. When authors started discussing this on Absolute Write, many reported sales figures in the double digits. One reason for this was probably the sheer number of books released by Musa. There wasn’t a chance for the press to market all these adequately, and yet Musa refused to close to submissions, even temporarily. In fact, plans were being made for a further two e-zines, to which some authors were asked to contribute free stories.

By late 2014, authors were requesting their rights back, and it was only a matter of time. Musa Publishing will officially close at the end of this month. To their credit, they’ve been direct with the authors about this and are reverting rights to books.

It’s always a disappointment when a publisher with so much potential is forced to close its doors. Musa started out with the best of intentions, always paid royalties on time and could have gone far—if they hadn’t been trying to go everywhere. It would have taken superhuman effort and operating funds to run all those imprints, market all those books and publish one or more reputable e-zines.

The staff and the authors worked extremely hard, and I hope the future brings them better news. For myself, I was reminded once more how important it is to be cautious in this game, especially once the honeymoon phase of a new press wears off. And to always be aware of warning signs.

Also recommended reading : Musa Publishing : A Case Study.

Celebrating my newest book

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 13:55:00 +0000

Lots of fun stuff to read, plus three giveaways.

13 ways I learned to write about sex, on Shelley Munro's blog. This post was fun to write, because until I started it, I really didn't realize how sheltered I'd been as a teenager.

The Oldest Profession, on Romanceaholic. Why I decided to start the story in a brothel. With a giveaway!

I'm also guest posting on Coffee Time Romance about sex, lies and videotape. Well, not the videotape, because that hasn't been invented yet in my stories, but about deception in romance.

I have an interview and giveaway on The Reading Cafe.

Plus a giveaway on Let Them Read Books.

And finally, a great review of The Highest Tide from Night Owl Reviews!

The Highest Tide

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 12:56:00 +0000

Release date for The Highest Tide!

In need of some R&R in a foreign country, Captain Lera Vanze goes to a brothel. But the first man she sees - and mistakes for a prostitute - is a health inspector. Intensely attracted to her, Jason Remerley pretends his way into her arms.

It gets hotter and more complicated from there. An escape from a brothel, sex in a cave, a shark with a bad habit, and one very large wave.

The Highest Tide is "...a sexy adventure tale", according to RT Reviews. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books said:

I enjoyed the romance between Lera and Jason. For two people who met under deceptive terms, they are pretty direct, and I like the fact that Lera is much more of an action person than Jason. I liked it that they worked well together, and that Jason never questions or is threatened by Lera’s fighting or sea-faring abilities. Lera is an incredibly engaging heroine...

Plus, I have a fun interview and giveaway with The Reading Cafe! Find out which are the only letters that haven't been worn off my keyboard, and how a cat once brought me a note.

Read the first chapter of The Highest Tide here, and get the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo or Samhain's website. Enjoy!

Ender's Game, the film

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 18:03:00 +0000

When I heard Ender's Game was being made into a film, I was skeptical. The book is very character-driven, with so much happening inside Ender’s head, that I doubted a movie would work. So I waited until I could borrow the DVD from the library.

While the book will always be my favorite science fiction novel, Orson Scott Card went from being a writer whose skill I respected to a paranoid homophobe. But that’s not the reason I felt this movie wasted my time.

Everything that the book did well, the movie fails at. The book isolates Ender; he doesn’t get along with Bean at first, he’s separated from his friend Alai, and he has to defeat Petra’s army. It’s made very clear that as a commander, he cannot be chummy with subordinates. Which is why the scene at the end where he hears them speak to him, and realizes he’s going into battle with them, is so moving.

Here, they’re his pals from the start. The part where a boy sprains an ankle just before battle is so contrived, as is the magical substitution of Petra to fill in the gap in Ender’s circle of friends. Graff would never have done that to either Ender or Salamander Army.

Speaking of Salamander, in the book, Bonzo is a serious threat. In the film, he’s a foot shorter than Ender. What were they thinking? Bonzo is more muscular, but that height difference works against him. It was like watching a terrier confront a Great Dane. And it’s not as though Bonzo is written as a midget in the book. He’s a secondary character who could have been played by someone bigger than Asa Butterfield.

But the film really fell flat in the depiction of the battles. Those are my favorite part of the book. Ender’s Dragon Army starts out with a routine fight, but things quickly escalate from there. At first he has a battle every day. Then Salamander Army is let into the Battle Room before them and there’s nowhere to hide. And so it builds up to the final battle of the exhausted Dragons against two armies, when you know Ender is going to lose—and, as he tells Bean, he can’t afford to lose even a single fight.

The film shows one battle. One.

If time was limited, why not make this two movies? The problem with smooshing all of those battles into one is that there’s no sense of progression and improvement. The book presented clear problems and showed how Ender outthought them. Here, it’s as though Ender makes intuitive leaps of genius in a few days at most.

By having multiple battles, there was also a sense that Ender wasn’t the only brilliant or mature kid in the school: he learned from Carn Carby, he depended on Bean to come up with ideas, and so on. Whereas in the film, there are only two commanders, Ender and Bonzo. Who is not just a midget but easily dealt with—he’s scalded by boiling water which doesn’t seem to bother Ender at all.

Then again, Peter fares just as badly. In the book, it’s clear that although he’s something of a sociopath, he’s also intelligent, ambitious and manipulative. Here, he’s just a homicidal thug. I couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind even considering him for Battle School. I didn’t expect the Locke/Demosthenes subplot, but why even have him in the movie if all he does is try to kill Ender?

I could go on and on—how ridiculous it is for a hive queen to skulk around ten minutes’ walk from the bunker, how Asa Butterfield is about as expressive as Kristen Stewart—but in the end, the greatest travesty is that the emotional power of the book is nowhere in evidence. I felt nothing while I watched this. I didn’t even want to listen to the director’s commentary, because one look at a sterile, jumpsuited future filled with lasers and explosions was enough for me.

So to summarize, there’s CGI and action sequences where things get blowed up real good, like Michael Bay minus crassness and hot chicks. If you need more, look elsewhere.

My thoughts on genderswapping

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 13:00:00 +0000

On the Absolute Write forums, people have occasionally suggested genderswapping if the story needs more female characters, or if the story needs to be shaken up and viewed in a different way. Though in one particular discussion, people expressed opinions I didn’t agree with.

When a character can work as both a man or women, and be equally compelling either way, that character is probably a damn good character ... a character that happens to be human first, and male/female second.

I can think of any numbers of characters who wouldn’t work if they were completely gender-neutral, and who are still damn good characters. Try making Scarlett O’Hara a sixteen-year-old boy pining for a lady who went off to fight at Gettysburg. Or Tom Robinson a black woman accused of raping a white man.

I don't understand how you can't switch the genders, I really can't. I mean, does the male character constantly check out the females? Are they in the the army or something, are they gruff, do they curse, etc? How wouldn't that work for a woman?

How wouldn’t that work for a woman? I don’t know, I get the impression there weren’t that many women working on Lord Nelson’s flagship or standing guard in a Roman army camp.

It’s not easy to have women playing significant roles under certain circumstances. It can certainly be done, because as Kameron Hurley’s brilliant essay points out, women have fought throughout history. Returning to my original home, there was a corps of female Tamil guerillas in the LTTE.

But some armies were, on the face of it at least, all-male. If some of those soldiers were women in disguise, the story should show how they manage to pass as male during the weeks they spend in, say, the cramped quarters of a German U-boat. Genderswapping after the story is written could involve significant changes to the narrative (readers are likely to expect the character’s secret to be revealed in time, and to have consequences).

Here’s another thing that will only work for women: getting pregnant. Outside of the speculative fiction genres, pregnancy as a plot twist just won’t work for men. I recently submitted a manuscript where, in Victorian England, the antagonist seduced and impregnated the hero’s fiancée.

Genderswap this. The heroine’s intended was seduced by another woman who now claims to be pregnant. The first question out of the heroine’s mouth will be : how do we even know there is a child, and it’s yours? Plus, there just wasn’t that much of an emphasis on men remaining virgins at that time.

A real or fictional society that has gender differences or bias usually means that the author has taken into account the genders of the characters when writing the story. It’s not as though these were picked by the toss of a coin, such that they can be easily swapped later.

I have a Christmas story coming out from Samhain later this year, where a man living alone opens his door on a freezing night to find a near-naked woman outside. She has an unconvincing story for how she got there, but he lets her stay overnight.

Genderswap this, and a woman who’s living alone will have to let a strange, near-naked man spend the night in her house. I’d be surprised if the possibility of assault didn’t occur to her, putting a damper on the romance.

Makes me wonder if they people who can't gender switch just haven't met enough people or their cultural gender roles are so inundated that they can't separate it from the person.

Or maybe they’re telling a different kind of story from the one you want, which is not in and of itself a bad thing.

Try genderswapping the characters in a Harlequin Presents story and see if Harlequin still wants it. I’ve never read Harlequin Presents, but a lot of readers love the rich sexy alpha males in this imprint’s books.

Ditto for some mainstream romances. I think a romance between a tough, sociopathic female assassin who saves a nervous, clueless, sexually inexperienced man could find a market… but it would be smaller than the number of readers who enjoyed the reverse. I’ll go so far as to say that a mainstream publisher will want the man to be able to hold his own at least sexually, whereas it’s not such a problem if the woman can’t.

This isn’t a matter of the authors not being experienced enough to write differently, or having very traditional gender roles in mind. It’s a matter of them writing to the market, and if that’s what they want to do, it’s their choice. Though it’s great when authors challenge the expectations of that market, as Courtney Milan does in her historicals, but I also think such envelope-pushing has to be done with care. Ditto for genderswapping.

So to summarize…

Genderswapping is like any other tool in an author’s repertoire. No tool works for every situation at every time. There are some stories which will benefit from changing the characters’ genders, and others which won’t, and it’s up to the individual author to know the difference.

Five kinds of atheistic characters I won't read about

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 16:27:00 +0000

1. Atheist is morally bankrupt

Sometimes the authors aren’t even trying to make a sheep-vs-goats statement here. They just think it would be dramatic to write:

“He arrived at the harbor late, but his cargo of uncut heroin and underaged prostitutes was nowhere in sight. Had something happened? Vladimir Khorupt was an atheist, but he found himself praying.”

I’ve never seen it the other way around, though : “Because she was an atheist and didn’t believe in an afterlife, Jacey Summers did her best to help people in this one.” So if the book isn’t intended to make any kind of moral judgment, either play fair or leave off the mentions of religion/lack thereof.

2. Atheist is bitter or miserable

There’s a Graham Masterton book I put down because one of the characters, Dean, is an unpleasant misanthrope described as an atheist. The others call him Mean Dean, just to drive home what a nasty piece of work he is.

IMO, if such a character went down on his knees and embraced Islam this minute, he’d still be as pleasant as fingernails on a chalkboard. Except then he’d also think women should cover up. It has nothing to do with whether or not he’s religious, in other words. Unbelievers can enjoy life too.

3. Atheist became that way after a tragedy

The stereotype of an atheist is someone who believed in God until he lost a loved one. At this point he fell to his knees, screamed “NOOOOO!” at the uncaring sky, and became Darth Vader.

How popular is this stereotype? Well, after my mother died, an (extremely religious) friend of hers called up to ask me to go to church with her. No thank you, I said, because I’m an atheist. Shocked, she told me I shouldn’t allow my mother’s death to harden my heart. That was 2004, and I’d deconverted in 1999.

It was hardly a dramatic event, either, because I just read a lot before it happened. No screaming involved, at the sky or at anything else.

4. Atheist is the subject of a punish-the-protagonist story

I genuinely hate these, and although I might try the occasional inspirational novel, I stay away from any that might have this plot. Unfortunately it can crop up stealthily elsewhere.

In Dean Koontz’s short story “Twilight of the Dawn”, an early hint of the author’s detour into conservative preaching, the main character is so hardcore he tells his son there’s no Santa Claus. For this, he must be made to pay, so both his wife and son die, with the son praying for him until the end. And the main character keeps suffering until he repents of his evil ways and decides there’s a loving God after all.

I might not mind a well-written conversion story where the atheist researches a religion he’s curious about, and we see why this religion works for him and is a rewarding addition to his life. But I’m not interested in conversion-through-misery, which rings about as true as deconversion-through-tragedy.

5. Atheist is superior to everyone else

This is the rarest of the subspecies, but I thought Darwin Minor, the hero of Dan Simmons’ Darwin's Blade, fitted it. As well as having a physics degree and a background as a sniper in Vietnam, he’s a brilliant chess player and an incredibly well-read investigator, so he can outfight, outshoot and outthink anyone. It’s like the Terminator and Sheldon Cooper had a baby together.

I don’t find this kind of character offensive, unless the story turns into a tract, but at the same time I’d much prefer even-handed treatment. In real life, religious beliefs are no guarantee of morality any more than atheism is an sign of genius. If these are used in fiction as shortcuts, there are much better ways to show personality.

And if these are ways readers can predict what will happen to the characters, all I can say is, I’m avoiding those stories.

Something shiny to share!

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 15:45:00 +0000

These arrived in the mail. Aren't they pretty? Especially with a review quote from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books on the cover.

So I'm giving one away on Goodreads, a paperback copy for a lucky winner in the States or Canada. And there may be enclosed a bookmark made with mine own fair hand as well. Don't wait, click to win!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Deepest Ocean

by Marian Perera

Giveaway ends February 10, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Othello

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 19:23:00 +0000

Othello is a well-made, well-acted and incredibly frustrating film.

I didn’t realize I’d have such a strong reaction to it. I’d read the play, so I knew how the story went, but watching events unfold was much more visceral an experience. And quite frankly, not one I want to repeat.

To start with the good: the acting is great. Lawrence Fishburne has immense presence as Othello, and I like the passion and spirit of Irene Jacob’s Desdemona. Kenneth Branagh stole the show, but then again, that’s what Iago usually does. I especially like the motif of the chess pieces, and how his tipping them into the well foreshadows what happens at the end of the film. Beautiful sets, costumes, music, the works.

No, what made me not want to watch the film again was the story.

It was easy to see the roots of Othello’s jealousy. Set apart by virtue of his race, he holds on to his position among the upper-class Venetians because of his value as a general. But once he goes to Cyprus, the Turkish fleet has already been destroyed. That’s a joyous event, but it also means there’s nothing more for Othello to do there, no way to keep proving his worth. As far as insecurity goes, that’s enough of a breeding ground for Iago.

I kept wondering, though: what does Iago really want? If it’s to be Othello’s lieutenant, Iago gets that after he plies Cassio with drink and instigates a brawl. He could stop there, but instead he goes on to poison Othello’s mind against Desdemona. “I hate the Moor”, he says at one point, but later, he engages in a blood-brother ritual with Othello and tearfully embraces him.

The power of Branagh’s acting is to make these disparate elements seem different facets of the same complex character, rather than inconsistencies. I’m not sure what Iago hoped to end up with eventually—everyone dead except for himself? Maybe. But I didn’t need to know that to be fascinated by his personality, not to mention his ability to keep half a dozen puppets dancing at the same time.

The frustrating part of the film isn’t just to see how Othello swallows everything hook, line and sinker, because a lot of people would succumb to expert manipulation. It’s everything that happens after that. He could question Desdemona openly and try to trust her. Failing that, he could leave her.

Failing even that, he could, if he felt justified in murdering her, do so quickly and painlessly.

Instead he puts her through hell. He insults her, humiliates her, hits her and finally forces her to endure a terrifying ordeal and a long-drawn-out death. It was nothing short of domestic abuse. And no matter how many glycerine tears Othello himself cries in the process, I couldn’t help feeling this wasn’t so much a good, decent man giving in to his fatal flaw as a wolf who was finally getting to take his sheep suit off.

So to sum it up: a very well-done film that, because of the subject matter, I found too depressing to watch again.

First impressions of heroes

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 23:07:00 +0000

Among the many warnings in How Not to Write a Novel is that the first thing the character does shouldn’t be off-putting (e.g. ogling a stranger, going to the bathroom) unless the author wants that impression of the character to be firmly fixed in the reader’s mind.

That was made clear in a couple of romances I critiqued recently. In one, the hero was at an extremely low ebb at the start—depressed, lonely and drunk. In another, the hero was much younger than the heroine, to the point where I thought he was about ten years old. When he noticed her breasts, it was a massive turn-off.

Romance revolves on the hero. He doesn’t have to be a former SEAL billionaire who now runs a BDSM club when he isn’t racing with his biker buddies. But he does have to be someone readers can find attractive or interesting.

Some of the keepers on my romance shelf have unconventional heroes. A mortician. A near-sociopathic assassin. A man who’s developmentally disabled. But all of them were assertive in their different ways, able to hold their own among their peers. Even if they were younger than the heroine, or less intelligent, they didn’t give me the impression of being weak and powerless.

So what’s to be done, if the story begins with the hero helpless or broken in some way?

Change the start

In one of my keepers, Pamela Morsi’s Wild Oats, the first time Jedwin Sparrow sees Cora Briggs, he’s perhaps fourteen or fifteen, while she’s twenty—not just a mature woman, but a divorcee. He’s intensely aroused both by her reputation (or lack thereof) and her beauty.

But if the story had started with a teenager getting an erection over an older woman, it would have reminded me of Mary Kay Letourneau. I might not have read further.

Instead, though, the story begins ten years later, when he’s an adult and a professional man, making enough money to offer Mrs. Briggs an indecent proposal. Although he’s younger and less experienced than she is, they’re on a much more equal footing from the start, because he knows what he wants and is going after it, rather than being a tongue-tied, sweaty schoolboy. That flashback comes later, once the first impression of him is clearly cemented.

Make it clear he’s more than the sum of his problems

This was an issue in the story where the hero was drunk and depressed at the start. There wasn’t much to his personality other than “sad boozer”.

Whereas there are tons of romances which begin with a hero in jail or in an asylum or chained to an oar as a galley slave (I’m guessing here), and which are great reads because the hero is intriguing. He doesn’t have to be innocent of the crime which landed him in prison, and he can be in Bedlam for what people of that time thought were good reasons (e.g. Summer Devon’s and Bonnie Dee’s The Gentleman's Madness).

But if he’s strong and intelligent, and if he fights back in even a small way, that will be part of the readers’ first impression too. And believe me, a lot of people love a Hurt-Comfort read. They just need to know that your Hurt hero is worth Comforting. :)

Romance vs. love story

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Sun, 04 Jan 2015 17:32:00 +0000

This is a summary of a discussion on the Absolute Write forums, where—not for the first time—a love story was confused with a romance.

“Is my love story a romance?”

How does the story end?

“They’re very much in love, and he dies. But from the afterlife, he watches over her and is happy when she finally finds someone else whom she’ll love just as much, in a different way.”

Not a romance. Sorry.

“But I believe in love that lasts beyond death. That’s romantic.”

It is. But you haven’t written something that fits into the romance genre.

“But the characters are happy in the end. She finds someone else and he loves her so much that what he wants most is for her to be cared about.”

In a romance, readers expect the characters to be together at the end. It’s not a romance if they’re apart, even if they’re both happy that way.

“People found Ghost very romantic.”

Of course they did, but movies can’t be classified the same way as books. Besides, people find Wuthering Heights and Gone with the Wind romantic too. That doesn’t make them genre romances. The story needs to focus on the development of a relationship and the characters have to be together in the end.

“Isn’t it predictable if readers know at the start that the characters will be together?”

Yes, but sometimes that’s what readers are looking for. The same way that readers of mysteries expect the mystery to be solved in the end. What keeps people reading romance is the how of the story, the ways the characters resolve the problems that keep them from getting to their happy ending.

“I heard a romance publisher releases occasional books where the characters go their separate ways in the end.”

Some publishers may have certain imprints where a happily-ever-after isn’t required. For instance, Dreamspinner Press makes it clear that stories in the Bittersweet Dreams imprint don't have the traditional ending of a romance. But such books will be designated as part of that imprint, so readers know what they’re getting.

“Would readers really mind so much if one of the characters died? I could foreshadow this and it could be an inevitable part of the story.”

Romance readers aren’t looking for a gut punch where the hero they’ve been cheering for dies in the end.

Romance readers can also be picky because it’s not unusual for writers of other genres to mistake love stories for romance. Sometimes, writers even try to reclassify their books because romance sells better than love stories in other genres. But this isn’t the way to please readers.

If the character dies an inevitable, foreshadowed death, you might have written a wrenching, compelling love story—but you haven’t written a romance.

“There’s an established author who has a romance where the hero and heroine don’t end up together.”

When you’re an established author, you might be able to get away with this too.

Christmas roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:54:00 +0000

Last year I took a friend to watch the second Hobbit film for Christmas. Not only was it late at night, the movie turned out to be long and boring, so my friend fell asleep and started snoring halfway through. I would gladly have joined him if I hadn't been mentally composing a review. Hey, I had to get something out of the experience.

This year, I decided to take my friend somewhere he couldn't possibly fall asleep, so I picked the One Of A Kind exhibition, which is where that photo is taken (that's me next to the tree). The two of us walked for hours, up and down the endless rows of stalls, and then I left my friend at the entrance to the place so I could go buy a few things. I came back to find him sitting with his back to the wall, fast asleep.

I have no idea what to do with him next Christmas.

It wasn't a white Christmas, but we did have a couple of days with snow, so I took this picture. I love how soft and furry everything looks after a snowfall.

Christmas dinner is always a special occasion and I always dress up. But this year there was an even more special little person around - another friend's toddler. Isn't she adorable? I told her that if she didn't behave, I would eat her, so she was an angel.

And a Happy New Year to you all!

I'm on QueryTracker and Smart Bitches!

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 10:35:00 +0000

I wrote a review of Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers, a memoir of publishing and a great look at the business from the other side of the desk. Check it out on the QueryTracker blog here!

A slightly less complimentary review (heh) was the result of my reading Anne Stuart's historical romance Breathless, and I sent that to Smart Bitches Trashy Books when I discovered they had a collection of rants from readers. So here's my rant. Enjoy!

Starting with action

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Sun, 14 Dec 2014 13:37:00 +0000

Starting with action isn’t the same as starting with conflict, though the two occasionally get confused. Conflict at the beginning of a story is nearly always good.

Action… is another matter.

When this doesn’t work

I read several fantasy stories some time back, because the writer needed critiques on them. They all started with the same thing: a knock-down drag-up fight between some villain and the heroine.

Despite the hacking and parrying and blood spilled and limbs lopped off, the stories were oddly dull. I soon realized that was because the characters were ciphers. Sure, one was obviously the protagonist (because the story was told from her POV), which made the other the villain, but I didn’t know why they were fighting or what was at stake.

Because action can’t realistically be slowed down to include details of backstory or characterization, starting with this kind of scene is usually tantamount to saying, “A and B fight. You need to be cheering for B.” Why? I need an in-story reason to care. There’s a reason even the most actiony of action films don’t start with a car chase.

Plus, if I know the protagonist is B, the fight loses even more suspense, because B has to win. Of course, if there’s a climactic battle at the end where B finally goes up against the villain, yes, I also know B is likely to win. But here’s the difference. If I’ve been reading the whole story, and if I’m thoroughly immersed in it, then it’s much easier to suspend disbelief. Maybe the villain has also been built up enough through the story that I’m genuinely afraid the heroine will lose.

None of that is possible at the start. I don’t automatically turn off the skepticism filter because I’m reading. The story has to earn that, and at the start, it hasn’t.

When this does work

David Farland’s The Sum of All Men begins with a fight to the death in an alley. That pulled me in, and I ended up reading the book.

1. The fight was between a named character who wasn’t the hero, and an unnamed assassin. So while I knew whom to cheer for, I didn’t know for certain that the good guy would win.

2. The fight was a great way to show off the worldbuilding. I read that book a long time ago, but I still remember the assassin smelled of curry powder. Through fighting him, the good guy also realized that the assassin must have “endowments”, which are donations of strength and reflexes that come from other people. That was an unusual detail which heightened the suspense.

At that point I wasn’t aware of the bigger picture, of Raj Ahten vs. the Earth King, but it didn’t matter. That tense alleyway struggle in the dark was done well and made me keep reading. And in the end, that’s all that counts—whether the story starts with action or not.

How to make passive characters work

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 13:38:00 +0000

Someone on the Absolute Write forums asked why so many readers dislike passive characters, characters who need some time and effort to find their own strength. That made me think about active vs. passive characters, and what makes them work.

1. Genre

It’s going to be very difficult to sell a science fiction novel where the main storyline features a cyborg who thinks a lot about the meaning of life. He can philosophize about the ramifications of melding man with machine until the spacecows come home. But readers of science fiction will be bored, and readers of literary fiction (who might be more open to in-depth character studies) will never have picked up the book in the first place, because if they see “cyborg”, they’re going to assume it’s an action-oriented story.

2. Other aspects of the story

There’s one fantasy novel which features an extremely passive heroine, and that’s Stephen Donaldson’s The Mirror of Her Dreams. But I enjoyed other aspects of the story, like the mirror magic, and there were plenty of active characters to balance the heroine out. Plus, there was more of a plot than just Terisa sitting around trying to summon up the courage to do something.

Her passivity also descended into an unusual neurosis: she wasn’t even certain she existed, so she had mirrors all over her apartment. In them, she could see her reflection and know she was still there. That was odd enough to keep me reading until the fantasy part of the tale kicked in.

Likewise, both Rebecca and Wide Sargasso Sea feature heroines who are often passive. But the riveting or evocative parts of the books balanced out the protagonists’ helplessness. There was more to the stories than “this is how Heroine thought about making a change for 300 pages and then finally did it”.

3. Level of passivity.

What’s Melanie’s first spoken dialogue in Gone with the Wind? She says to the man she’s going to marry:

“I fear I cannot agree with you about Mr. Thackeray’s works. He is a cynic. I fear he is not the gentleman Mr. Dickens is.”

Melanie is shy and polite, self-effacing and traditional. But in that moment, she also shows she’s intelligent and has no qualms about disagreeing with a man—her future husband—when it comes to something she feels strongly about. Because of that, I never thought of her as weak, even when she was contrasted with Scarlett’s strength.

A protagonist doesn’t have to be bouncing off the walls Matrix-style to struggle against an antagonist. Paul Sheldon in Misery certainly couldn’t; he was too badly injured. But he found other, subtle ways to fight back, so when he stole a hairpin to pick the lock, that was a great moment.

If he had resigned himself to his fate, or waited wistfully for someone to save him, he’d have been boring to me.

A protagonist needs to make choices, and those choices need to affect the plot.

4. Real life

Sometimes, the writer’s reason for making the character passive is because there are very passive people in real life. For instance, a woman who stays with a man who uses her, because she’s not sure whether she should leave and is scared to be on her own. That’s realistic, right?

Sure, but is it interesting? There are people in real life who spend all day playing computer games or shooting heroin, and I wouldn't want to read about them in fiction. The computer games would be boring and the heroin would be depressing.

That said, I’m the kind of reader who prefers active characters on the whole. There are a lot of readers who don’t, so it’s also a matter of finding your target market. SF fans who want to read about a cyborg contemplating his robo-navel—probably not. Literary fiction fans who want to read about a woman gradually realizing why she’s unhappy in her marriage and what she can do about it? That’s more likely.

Why I don't worry about stolen ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Sat, 29 Nov 2014 12:16:00 +0000

This old fear still crops up occasionally on the Absolute Write forums. Sometimes we discover it while critiquing a query, because we ask for specifics. The writer hesitates, unsure whether to reveal the Big Premise or the Big Twist.

Or sometimes newer writers come right out and ask: how to prevent people from stealing their ideas? This is why I don’t worry about it. Here’s the same basic idea that I used for The Deepest Ocean (ship plus great white shark), used to tell five very different stories:

1. Young Adult

The hero is a fifteen-year-old midshipman. His father is an Ahab hunting the shark for his own reasons.

2. Horror/paranormal

He’s one of the best captains in the navy… but every month he changes into an instinct-driven wereshark.

3. Thriller

A shark genetically modified to be intelligent works with a destroyer to locate enemy submarines.

4. Romance

He’s a shark expert monitoring a great white’s release from Sea World. She’s the captain of a ecovessel out to stop a finning operation (anything that butchers apex predators for their fins is unspeakably cruel).

5. Cyberpunk

A battleship has to hunt down the last cyborg shark.

All these stories would appeal to different readerships. All of them would target different markets when the writers sent them out.

So why worry about the idea being stolen? If you and I both sit on eggs, I could hatch a turkey (albeit a bit late for Thanksgiving) and you could hatch a pterodactyl, because we’re different people and therefore we’ll produce different books. Both of which have their own place in the food chain.

Plus, I’ve got hundreds more ~~eggs~~ ideas where that one came from. Just never enough time to sit on them all.

Ways to help people who are grieving

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 14:33:00 +0000

Yesterday I wrote a post on ten things not to say to someone grieving a loss, and I’m thankful to everyone who commented and shared their experiences.

I think one reason people say unintentionally hurtful or dismissive things in response to a death is because they feel they have to fix things. They see you’re in pain, and they want to make it better, so they tell you that your loved one is with the angels now, or that it will all work out for the best somehow.

The problem is, if someone is grieving—whether it’s for a parent, child, spouse, friend, pet, anyone—you can’t take away the pain. Period. It will lessen over time, I know that from personal experience, but there’s no quick fix to apply right now. And that can make people feel pretty helpless in the face of grief.

So here are a few things that could be more understanding and helpful towards a grieving person, and I hope they make a difference.

1. Don’t feel you have to come up with something new or profound

“I’m so sorry for your loss. She was a wonderful person, and we’ll miss her.”

That will never go down in the books as amazingly quotable. It’s not the kind of statement which makes anyone redefine their worldview on death and grieving.

But it is by far the best possible thing anyone could have said to me. Sometimes, acknowledging grief is all the support that can be given under the circumstances.

2. Share a memory

If their loved ones are prepared for it or would welcome it, talk about the person who died. Keep it positive, but depending on the situation, your recollections could go from positive and heart-warming to hilariously off-color. Either way, it shows that the dead person hasn’t been swept under the rug.

3. Books and poetry

It’s best to be careful about this, but I had to include poetry, because after my mom’s death, someone sent me a poem about bereavement. I’ll always remember one line of it

“I promise to hold you in my heart
As a cupped hand protects a flame.”

That is exactly how I felt about my mother, about all my memories of her and my love for her. As long as I’m here, the flame won’t go out.

But as I said, be careful. My mom’s devoutly religious friends knew I didn’t share their beliefs, so they didn’t send me any books written from a Christian perspective, and the poem came from someone whom I’d talked to on a discussion board for non-believers. Either way, the poem or book should benefit the grieving person, not the person who gives it.

A truly wrenching and sensitive book that could be given to a non-religious person is Michael Rosen's Sad Book. After his son died at 16, Rosen wrote this, an honest exploration of his loss and grief, and the things he does to deal with them day by day.

There’s a beautiful moment of hope at the end, but it’s not “I’ll see him again some day and he’ll be fine” hope. It’s more the sense that things will slowly get better, and that all we can do each day is light a single candle against the dark.

4. Other gifts

Speaking of candles, I read of this gift : a scented candle with a note attached, saying, “When you miss her, light this.”

I would have liked that. No, it won’t make any practical difference to light a candle, other than making the room smell of gardenia. But it acknowledges that, yes, you will feel grief, and here’s something you can do about it.

Personally, I’d have more difficulty blowing out the candle, and would soon need a new one.

That was all I could come up with, so please feel free to share your suggestions!

Ten things not to say to someone grieving a death

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 13:01:00 +0000

This day, ten years ago, my mother died of cancer.

I still miss her. I didn’t want to write a blog post about her or the illness—too personal, sorry—but when I thought about what happened after her death, then there was a lot that needed to be said. My mother had extremely religious friends, one of whom had exorcised the demons of cancer out of her a few days before she died, and some of the things they said to me, I’ll never forget.

1. “You’ll get over it.”

Or what I got, which was minus the “you’ll”.

Especially if the death happened recently, the person may be deep in grief. They need to work through that at their own pace. They don’t need to get the impression that there’s something wrong with their pain, so other people are looking forward to that being over and everything going back to normal.

2. “She’s in a better place.”

Firstly, not everyone believes in an afterlife.

Secondly, my mom’s place was with her family. Period.

So each time I heard that, I thought the person saying it didn’t know my mother at all, if they believed she could be happy without her children and her home and her busy, cheerful, productive life.

3. “She’s watching over you.”

Shortly after my mother died, an acquaintance of hers phoned up to tell me this. She also claimed my mother would always be with me and if I ever needed anything, all I had to do was ask my mom. After I got her off the line, I shouted to the empty house that my mother was d-e-a-d, dead! and as a result, she wouldn’t be hanging around like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

If people are helped by the belief that their lost loved one is now their guardian angel, that’s wonderful for them.

But please. Don’t assume that everyone shares this belief, that everyone wants to share it, or that everyone needs to hear it about their own loved ones.

4. “Everything happens for a reason.”

Every time I hear this I think, “Yes. Sometimes the reason is that shit happens in this world to people who don’t deserve it. Wonderful reason, that.”

It’s great if people take comfort in the conviction that there’s meaning and/or a good outcome in grief and loss. But again. Please don’t assume that everyone shares this viewpoint, or that others will appreciate the idea of their loved one’s death being planned so something special can take place.

5. “She wouldn’t want you to feel like this.”

Even if she wouldn’t, the fact remained that I did. Piling guilt on top of everything else isn’t likely to help.

And I just wished the person saying this wouldn't try to speak for my mom.

6. “At least she isn’t suffering any more.”

Yes, the reason she’s not suffering is because she’s dead. Er… yay?

7. “She wasn’t such a great person, really.”

After my mother’s funeral, my father’s cousin started to tell me about a flaw in my mom’s character. I immediately interrupted to say I wasn’t interested in hearing it and never would be interested in hearing it. My mom was not perfect, and I’m well aware of that, but no one gets to criticize her to my face.

Slamming a dead person to someone grieving the loss of that person is an especially low blow. It’s not going to produce the result: “Maybe I should stop feeling sad.” It may, however, lead to: “Maybe I shouldn’t speak to you again, so I don’t feel worse.”

I can only imagine what such people say when someone dies of a drug overdose or through not wearing a seatbelt. Keep the judgments to yourself, please. The dead person’s relatives don’t need to hear them.

8. “It was meant to be.”

I don’t have to explain why this is hurtful and unproductive, do I?

9. “I will do this and that and the other thing for you.”

Which is lovely if you mean it.

But there was a couple in my mom’s church who (at social functions) kept saying what they would do to help me, without ever actually doing anything. After the first couple of letdowns, I wised up.

Maybe they felt good to say this, maybe it was like “let’s get together some time” or “I’ll call you in the morning” or maybe they got brownie points from the people at church who overheard but who didn’t know they never followed up.

10. “What a saint she was. She never doubted. She never said a word of complaint.”

She never said a word to you. Maybe because she knew you wouldn’t want to listen.

The importance of the inciting incident

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 11:39:00 +0000

Why not start a story with… oh, let’s say a day in the life of a poor family? That will give the writer some time to develop the characters before the first turn in the plot, and it won’t be devoid of conflict. The fact that this family is struggling to feed themselves should be gripping.

When a manuscript with this start was offered for critique, the question of the inciting incident came up. It made me think about whether such an incident was necessary, and if so, why.

First, imagine three scenarios:

1. Poor family struggles to earn enough to buy food.
2. Poor family which struggles to earn enough to buy food finds out they've won the lottery.
3. Dad gives up and walks out on poor family.

The first story can be made compelling. I love Anita Desai’s The Village By the Sea because it describes life in a rural Indian village beautifully, evoking sounds and smells and colors. But this start essentially tells a day-in-the-life-of story. The family was struggling yesterday, they're struggling today and they'll be struggling tomorrow.

Until something significant changes, the setting and characters and style have to hook the reader and carry the story. Whereas with the other two scenarios, there are inciting incidents. Things change, either for the better or for the worse.

I was hooked like a fish at the start of The Thorn Birds. That has long, long passages of exposition and description, but it starts with an inciting incident: the only daughter of a poor family gets something expensive for her fourth birthday. It doesn't start with "here's another day for the Clearys".

The writer whose manuscript we were critiquing was concerned that if the story leaped into the major conflict, there would be no reason to care about the characters (and no chance to develop them). But the inciting incident doesn’t need to lead directly into the overarching plot. It can be a small conflict instead, and it can bring out the characters as well as their background.

To illustrate what I mean, here’s my critique of the start of The Thorn Birds, with my comments in blue:

On December 8th, 1915, Meggie Cleary had her fourth birthday. Sets the tone: there’s a sense of 'this is how it all began'.

After the breakfast dishes were put away her mother silently thrust a brown paper parcel into her arms and ordered her outside. “Thrust” and “ordered” sound cold, at best—and from her mother, on her birthday? Her mother doesn’t want to watch her opening her gift? Wow. Also, the ~~present~~ parcel is wrapped in brown paper, not anything pretty.

So Meggie squatted down behind the gorse bush next to the front gate and tugged impatiently. She’s four years old, but she’s already so used to her mother’s cold commands that she doesn’t find them unusual. I’m getting a hint of the family dynamics here.

Her fingers were clumsy, the wrapping heavy; it smelled faintly of the Wahine general store, which told her that whatever lay inside the parcel had miraculously been bought, not homemade or donated. Sensory appeal here, and we see why the gift was wrapped in brown paper—the family is poor.

All that information in one paragraph at the start. Plus, after reading that I had to keep going, to see what Meggie got for her birthday—and what her family is like, and why she was given something new. The rest of the chapter unfolds with lots of description of a typical day for the Cleary family, but because I was hooked (and because it was a well-written slice of life in the past), I enjoyed reading that. But what I remember most is the inciting incident.

Cover art for The Coldest Sea

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 12:42:00 +0000

Check it out on A Writer's Mind, courtesy of Sky Purington. I'm spoiled when it comes to covers, because Kanaxa outdoes herself every time, but I think this one is the loveliest so far!

There's also a writeup about what I wanted on the cover and how that ties into the story, which I'm busy editing now. So this is a wonderful way to start the week. :) Hope you're also having a great Monday!

Five ways authors reacted very badly to reviews

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 12:00:00 +0000

1. Spat on a reviewer

After nursing a grudge for two years, author Richard Ford approached a reviewer at a party.

…at a March 2 party in New York for Poets & Writers magazine, Whitehead says, Ford approached him and said, “I’ve waited two years for this! You spat on my book.” “Then he spat on me,” says Whitehead.

2. Sent a book and bullets to the reviewer

Richard Ford, again. I must make sure I never read anything of his, because he seems frighteningly unbalanced. Apparently Alice Hoffman, she of Twittergate fame, gave him a poor review. So both he and his wife fired a gun into one of Hoffman’s books and then sent that to her.

His comment on the general reaction?

“But people make such a big deal out of it - shooting a book - it's not like I shot her."

3. Took legal action—against everyone

He claims Mr Jones wrote damning reviews of his book on Amazon September and October 2010, which he had published under the pseudonym "Scrooby." Mr Jones also revealed his true identity.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation published an article by the reviewer, so the author sued the reviewer, Dawkins, the foundation and Amazon. Lawsuits for everyone!

4. Mailed dog shit to the reviewer

This fecal matter had been wrapped in a piece of paper on which had been printed out language comparing me to the infamous Nurse Ratched of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I recognized the comparison. It had appeared on an author’s blog accompanied by my full name, an entertaining little video snippet from the film, a considerable amount of rather hostile language and a threat to name the villain in her next novel after me.

This was all because I had read the author’s debut novel and disliked it intensely.

5. Offered a bounty on the reviewer

Last week, Jaime Clark, a first-time novelist who was reviewed negatively in P.W., decided to take matters into his own hands: In an e-mail sent to a list of literary editors, Clark offered to pay $1,000 to anyone who would tell him the name of the reviewer. “You need not reveal your identity to collect this bounty,” he assured his potential Judas, “but you must be able to substantiate your information.”

This made me want to pull a Quint. “Ten thousand, for me, by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.”

Writers arguing with readers

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 11:43:00 +0000

There's been a lot of author-behaving-badly news recently - from Kathleen Hale's stalking a reviewer to Richard Brittain hitting a reviewer over the head with a bottle. Compared to that, the worst that's ever happened to me is an author calling me at home to ask me to take his name off my blog.

But there are more subtle ways a writer can antagonize readers, and arguing with them over something they didn't enjoy is one. This is how it happened to me.

I once saw a thread on a discussion board about tropes readers were tired of. That reminded me of a certain twist in a fantasy I’d just finished. Unfortunately it wasn’t much of a twist—more like a feeble wriggle—so I posted on that thread.

I didn’t mention the book or the author, only the particular twist, something like, “I’m tired of the Big Reveal where the villain is the hero’s father. This isn’t original and when I read it in a recent fantasy novel, it just came off as a dull cliché for me.”

The author of that book saw what I’d posted. I hadn’t said anything identifying the book, but the fact that I’d complained about a twist she’d used seemed to upset her. She sent me a private message asking how this was a cliché. When I named other novels which had driven that cliché into the ground, she posted in the thread to defend her use of it.

She said she hadn't read the novels I’d referenced, and her editor hadn't said anything about her twist either. "So how does that make it a cliche?" she asked. "I can't read everything. If you're wondering why a writer would use such a trope, they, and their editor, have not read the books you have." (Italics hers)

I ended up apologizing in an "I'm sorry if I said something offensive" way, just to calm her down. But I also decided I would never again read anything she had published. The twist alone wouldn’t have put me off, because I’d enjoyed other aspects of her book, but her defensive attitude is something I can't forget.

So writers haven’t read the books I have? That’s fine. But I have read the books I have, so if for the nth time I read a certain plot twist, maybe it does look like a cliche to me. What am I supposed to do under those circumstances—tell myself, “Well, to the author of the book, this must be really fascinating, therefore I shouldn’t say anything”?

Plus, the thread was about cliches, so people were posting on it about cliches. Lots of them. This particular plot twist was just one in the crowd, so it wasn’t like I had specifically started a thread to criticize this author’s book. God alone knows what might have happened in that case.

Complaining about a plot twist =/= singling out a book, even if a book uses that twist.

It also doesn’t mean that the reader hates your book in general. Not at all. I don’t like the rape scene in The Fountainhead. That’s still my second favorite book. I can’t stand the protagonist of Confessions of a Shopaholic—but the book still ended up being a keeper, because there are other things I enjoyed about it.

A reader complaining about a plot twist might still try another of your books.

A reader whom you have argued with to defend your work? That’s a different matter. Even if you’ve won the argument—and the author I mentioned might well believe she’d won, since she got an apology of sorts—in the end, you haven’t gained a fan. You’re more likely to have made someone avoid your books on principle.

Even if someone said they hated fantasies set on ships, and that Robin Hobb’s Liveships novels had the last word in this and that he/she would never read such a book again, that's not a personal commentary on my work. I'd stand to lose more by getting defensive about this than I would from letting it go and allowing that person their opinion, rather than trying to argue them out of it.

Bloodchild

noreply@blogger.com (Marian Perera) — Sun, 19 Oct 2014 15:02:00 +0000

I’ve always been fascinated by alien races which parasitize humans.

This never gets old, because it can be written in so many ways—the aliens could be like the souls of Stephenie Meyer’s The Host, and genuinely believe they’re in the right. They could be like the creatures in the Outer Limits episode “The Surrogate”, which change pregnant women from the inside out. The sky’s the limit.

What intrigued me about Octavia Butler’s short story "Bloodchild" was the painting it inspired for a cover:

Children, being specifically targeted by the aliens. That was new. So once I found a copy of the collection Bloodchild and Other Stories, I settled in for (what I thought would be) a chilling read.

The premise is simple. Humans live on another planet in what’s called the Preserve. They coexist uneasily with the natives of that planet, the Tlic, who have multiple limbs, stings and a lower body temperature. They’re intelligent, but they’re wonderfully different from humans.

T’Gatoi whipped her three meters of body off the couch, toward the door and out at full speed. She had bones—ribs, a long spine, a skull, four sets of limb bones per segment. But when she moved that way, twisting, hurling herself into controlled falls, landing running, she seemed not only boneless, but aquatic—something swimming through the air as though it were water. I loved watching her move.

Tlic males mate and die, but the females live to adulthood and lay eggs. Here’s where the humans come in, since the eggs have to be laid in hosts, and the size and strength of the resulting Tlic depends on the kind of host. Having the eggs introduced isn’t difficult, since the Tlic females release a fluid that relaxes the host, but what’s painful, terrifying and potentially deadly is the hatching. The grubs eat anything except the flesh of the Tlic who laid them, so if they’re not removed from the human in time…

This could have been an excellent horror story by itself. What makes it deeper and more intriguing is T’Gatoi’s relationship with Gan—the human narrator—and his family. His older sister, Xuan Hoa, wants to be a host. His mother is torn between her friendship with T’Gatoi and her need to protect her children. And T’Gatoi tries to balance her biology, the demands of other Tlic, and her fondness for Gan’s family.

This is one of those stories that can be read again and again. I loved the dual meaning of “host”, the complex ever-changing interplay between humans and Tlic as groups, and the different attitudes to being parasitized. I liked how Gan grows up in the course of the story. When he refuses T’Gatoi’s eggs and uses a rifle to show how strongly he feels about it, she makes it clear this has to be his choice.

“How could I put my children into the care of one who hates them?”

The utter alienness of the Tlic is beautifully balanced out by this, and the ending is quiet but emotional. I only wish Butler had written more stories set in this world.