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Jul. 6th, 2007 01:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaThings Learned While Going Through a Pile of Interesting-looking Sci-fi/Fantasy Books in B&N Tonight (or Why I Love Snap Judgments):
- If you're going to be a hard-boiled Noir anti-hero cop with a (very) hidden heart of gold, by three-legged Christ, please be sarcastic. Or self-deprecating. Or something. There's nothing more hurtful to The Mystique than an anti-hero who takes his bullshit angst Oh So Seriously.
No, you don't have to be a Boy Scout to be sympathetic (far from it), but being a sleazy douchebag isn't so helpful either. And no, no one cares that the poor widdle hard-boiled sleazeball has a shaky hand that's embarrassing and doesn't fit 'the image' of a corrupt cop slash thug. Oh, why do I even try. -.-
- If you're going to be the oh-so-fearful and badass wizard to Strike Fear Into The Hearts of Men (and Chickens)-- anti-hero Version 007.2.0-- it would help the reader if said badass stopped wanking to his own (huge! yet "vulnerable") ego throughout the story. I mean. Eventually it does start to smell and that it not sexy.
- If you're going to write Yet Another Fantasy Epic about a streetwise orphan with hidden magic powers (yes, AGAIN), it really helps if they have an easily identifiable personality, quickly distinguished from Another One of Those(tm), so that the reader may actually remember which book they're supposed to be reading. Otherwise said reader may "drift off", or perhaps simply "forget" to keep reading about Anonymous Spunky Orphan-girl #98020983 and her inevitable journey to Respectability and Bitter-sweet Coming of Age, etc etc and so on and so forth.
- If you're going to riff on the currently (unfortunately too) popular genre of Christian mythology rip-offs, please remember that actually setting your work within something recognizable as that mythos is not optional; a few references combined with ridiculous new 'twists' do not automatically a 'fresh new approach' make. If in fact you want to write about sexy demons doing sexy-demon-PI type things, please do your readers the courtesy of not getting their hopes up with smatterings of actual Christian mythology, where, you know, demons are fallen angels (from HELL) and that's kind of the point; the point is not that they're like, these supernatural beings, right, and they're otherwordly and good at kicking ass and getting chicks.
Keeping to some logical constraints in the basics of your source material isn't the same thing as keeping up with some black-and-white view of mythology you're no doubt rebelling from. I know, I know, I'm old-fashioned, what can I say.
- Okay that genderfuck book was actually cool.
But. There's just something about single 'issue' or 'provocative' fantasy books that bores me after I figure out what it is that's supposed to be shaking my worldview or whatever. Let that be a lesson to you all: I want to be stirred (not shaken), like a proper martini. Or if I'm there's shakin' goin' on, at least have some real fun with it, and not have it be a bunch of persecution and social commentary (on "ancient cultures"), more persecution, some sex, some non-fun violence, some more persecution, and then some more of the first-person narration.
Ah, forget it. "Actually cool", whut? I can criticize anything, especially when I get in touch with my inner 14-year old boy! :P
In other news, I saw Die Hard 4, and it was fun. It was also the first Die Hard movie I've seen so far :>
- If you're going to be a hard-boiled Noir anti-hero cop with a (very) hidden heart of gold, by three-legged Christ, please be sarcastic. Or self-deprecating. Or something. There's nothing more hurtful to The Mystique than an anti-hero who takes his bullshit angst Oh So Seriously.
No, you don't have to be a Boy Scout to be sympathetic (far from it), but being a sleazy douchebag isn't so helpful either. And no, no one cares that the poor widdle hard-boiled sleazeball has a shaky hand that's embarrassing and doesn't fit 'the image' of a corrupt cop slash thug. Oh, why do I even try. -.-
- If you're going to be the oh-so-fearful and badass wizard to Strike Fear Into The Hearts of Men (and Chickens)-- anti-hero Version 007.2.0-- it would help the reader if said badass stopped wanking to his own (huge! yet "vulnerable") ego throughout the story. I mean. Eventually it does start to smell and that it not sexy.
- If you're going to write Yet Another Fantasy Epic about a streetwise orphan with hidden magic powers (yes, AGAIN), it really helps if they have an easily identifiable personality, quickly distinguished from Another One of Those(tm), so that the reader may actually remember which book they're supposed to be reading. Otherwise said reader may "drift off", or perhaps simply "forget" to keep reading about Anonymous Spunky Orphan-girl #98020983 and her inevitable journey to Respectability and Bitter-sweet Coming of Age, etc etc and so on and so forth.
- If you're going to riff on the currently (unfortunately too) popular genre of Christian mythology rip-offs, please remember that actually setting your work within something recognizable as that mythos is not optional; a few references combined with ridiculous new 'twists' do not automatically a 'fresh new approach' make. If in fact you want to write about sexy demons doing sexy-demon-PI type things, please do your readers the courtesy of not getting their hopes up with smatterings of actual Christian mythology, where, you know, demons are fallen angels (from HELL) and that's kind of the point; the point is not that they're like, these supernatural beings, right, and they're otherwordly and good at kicking ass and getting chicks.
Keeping to some logical constraints in the basics of your source material isn't the same thing as keeping up with some black-and-white view of mythology you're no doubt rebelling from. I know, I know, I'm old-fashioned, what can I say.
- Okay that genderfuck book was actually cool.
But. There's just something about single 'issue' or 'provocative' fantasy books that bores me after I figure out what it is that's supposed to be shaking my worldview or whatever. Let that be a lesson to you all: I want to be stirred (not shaken), like a proper martini. Or if I'm there's shakin' goin' on, at least have some real fun with it, and not have it be a bunch of persecution and social commentary (on "ancient cultures"), more persecution, some sex, some non-fun violence, some more persecution, and then some more of the first-person narration.
Ah, forget it. "Actually cool", whut? I can criticize anything, especially when I get in touch with my inner 14-year old boy! :P
In other news, I saw Die Hard 4, and it was fun. It was also the first Die Hard movie I've seen so far :>
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Date: 2007-07-06 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 03:28 am (UTC)Now I'm in the stage where I'm like, "Augh, it's all stupid, I want to get rid of everything!" though. But I watched CoS and it made me happy. How could I have forgotten how much Draco there was! It was like all fandom talked about during summer 2002!
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Date: 2007-07-08 04:57 am (UTC)Um. I sort of have the 'stupid' problem no matter what, so if it helps, I think it's like, a given that you'll think everything is stupid, especially if it's not. But editing is best left to the professionals. Like sayyyy, me. *eyebrow waggle* Just write it all down as much as you can and take a break until you can come back & look at it with some distance. If you wanted advice, which... I mean, possibly you didn't. But still.
...I am tired. :( But I have potpourri, because obviously that's what I needed to do. Go get potpourri!! :>
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Date: 2007-07-08 02:04 pm (UTC)OMG also Lockhart ♥ I forgot how much I secretly love CoS, as bad as it is. And the way Tom Felton talks, haha, like he can't really open his mouth wide enough. Love it.
Eek this is going a lot slower (the writing) than I thought, wah. I wrote 99,000 words in a month, I should be able to do this! :))
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Date: 2007-07-08 05:59 pm (UTC)Plus. Harry got buff. :3