Tag Archive | mixed messages

Bad Boys … No, the OTHER Bad Boys

Oct5

It’s Fun Friday, so let’s have some fun, shall we?  And what’s more fun than men?

Some girls like bad boys.  You know, those sexy rebels who break all the rules and approach life with a devil-may-care attitude, possibly on a motorcycle, usually wearing leather.  For whatever reason, misbehavior really turns them on.

Me?  I like bad boys.  Sure I do.  But not that kind of bad boy.  The bad boys I like are more like evil geniuses.  Yes, I have a thing for the villain, for the misunderstood antagonist intent on world domination.  Or at least local domination.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about….

Lost.  One of my favorite TV shows ever.  Really great, gripping drama there, right?  And who is the classic bad boy in this equation?  Sawyer, of course.  Sawyer is the guy that all the girls fall for, particularly the good girls.  I have a wonderful, old-fashioned friend who just loves Sawyer.  So is Sawyer the bad boy I love and adore?  Nope.  Not even close.

As far as I’m concerned, Ben Linus is where it’s at.  Yes, Ben!  Creepy Ben, the sadistic mastermind behind so much of the drama on The Island.  But is he really all that sadistic?  Is he actually as evil as everyone makes him out to be?  Absolutely not!  And I will argue this one with you for days.

See, the thing about Ben that I love so much and the thing that draws me to him is that he is flawed.  At the same time, he is single-minded in his mission and dedicated to his definition of authority or a higher power, The Island.  Every crazy, messed-up thing he does, he does for The Island.  I love a man who has a clear mission and sticks to it for all he’s worth!  Nothing gets in his way, nothing stops him from doing what needs to be done.  Determination, drive, and dedication.  Imagine if that innate intensity was directed into a romance.  Aren’t we ladies saying all the time that we want a man who will fight for us and protect us and stand up for us in even the most high-stakes situations?

Okay, another example.  One that more people might be on board with.  Another of my current favorite obsession TV shows is Smash.  And who am I ridiculously in love with on this show?  The seedy, obsessive director, Derek Wills.  He’s controlling, manipulative, and heartless. … Or is he?

I’ve directed for the theater before.  I know what it takes to wrangle a production into shape.  I’ve only ever really spearheaded community theater productions.  Derek Wills is the prime force in bringing a Broadway musical to fruition.  Millions of dollars are hinging on his work along with the lives and careers of countless hopefuls.  You’d better believe that he’s going to be as cold and calculating as he has to be to see that happen and that he’ll use every tool in his arsenal to get the job done.  Is he evil?  Nope, he’s just in charge.  You can’t be a normal person and do that job.

Right.  So I can hear you balking and disagreeing with me.  I bet you think that I’m nuts to have the hots for such despicable characters.  Ah, but am I?  Ben Linus and Derek Wills may have been designed by their creators to produce a certain amount of repulsion, but guess what?  There are other characters out there who I bet you just love that aren’t all that different.

Take the character of John Thornton from the fantastic British mini-series North and South, for example.  He’s been touted as the new Mr. Darcy.  Women worldwide swoon over his brooding stares and tormented soul.  They might be forgetting that he is an iron-fisted factory owner who beats his employees, hires replacement workers when his go on strike, and who ultimately nearly loses everyone’s jobs for them through is inability to keep the factory going in hard times.  And he’s not particularly nice to the heroine as he attempts to run from his feelings.  But everyone loves him, including me, even though in any other story he would have been a villain.

Now, I will admit one thing in this exploration of what makes me love the really bad boys.  In all three of these examples it’s the skill of the actor playing the part that intrigues me the most.  I would probably think Ben Linus was creepy too if I met him alone in a dark alley, but Michael Emerson plays him with such panache that he gives me shivers in the good way.  Derek Wills is, frankly, an ass.  But Jack Davenport plays him with nuance and style, so I’m sold.  And Richard Armitage is the master of the dark, brooding hero, no matter how nasty he’s being.  It’s all in the packaging.  I’m attracted to talent.

At the same time, I like a hero who sticks out from the rest.  I write in a genre where all too often you see the same alpha male hunk playing the role of the hero every time.  It worked for me in high school, but now it’s just boring.  In reality people are flawed.  It’s how they deal with those flaws and what they accomplish with them that turns me on.  My character Michael West in Our Little Secrets is a good example of this.  He’s not your typical alpha male by definition and he’s got a dark past.  Even in the course of the novel he doesn’t make the best of choices.  But it’s his ultimate dedication to the heroine, his wife-of-convenience, that makes my heart go pitter-pat.

Ultimately I think villainy or heroism depends to a great extent on context.  It also depends on the judgments we pass on characters before they’ve been given a chance to defend themselves.  We do it all the time in our everyday lives.  We rush to conclusions and make assumptions about people’s motivations based on the things we want and the goals we want to achieve.  People think Ben was evil because he was in opposition to the folks from the plane.  But as I think the writers and producers pointed out through the course of the show, the plane folks were the intruders.  And in the end Hurley asked Ben if he wanted to come with them.  If that’s not a glowing endorsement then I don’t know what is!

Or maybe, by championing the angry and the misunderstood I’m really just trying to find acceptance and love for myself.  Crazy people need love too.

So what about you?  What bad boy or unlikely hero floats your boat?  Are you willing to admit it?

Fan Fiction: Where to Draw the Line?

Sep21

Fan fiction.  It’s been on my mind a lot lately.  It’s been on a lot of people’s minds.  I just got the October issue of Writer’s Digest and there’s an entire article in there about fan fiction, what it is, who writes it, and if it’s worth anything.  I have a lot of opinions on that last one there.  Apparently my good friend and fellow writer Samantha Warren does too since she posted about originality in writing just yesterday as I was writing this post.  As Sam states, there are no original ideas.

Enter fan fiction.

Of course “fanfic” has been in the news and in people’s thoughts so much this summer because of Fifty Shades of Grey.  Fifty Shades is self-confessed Twlight fanfic, recycled and cleaned up into something that has nothing to do with vampires.  I’ve heard a lot of criticism about E.L. James writing this way.  A lot of writers have balked at the idea that someone is making millions off of something that blatantly has its origins in someone else’s work.

Let me be honest right from the start.  I don’t really have room to talk when it comes to criticizing E.L. James.  An Amazon reviewer scathingly accused my debut novel, The Loyal Heart, of being Robin Hood fan fic.  I would be lying if I denied it wholesale.  The Robin Hood legend was a strong inspiration for my novel.  I take issue with that reviewer saying I ripped off a specific BBC tv version of the legend in its entirety, because I didn’t.  But I did glean inspiration from a lot of other things, movies, stories, actors, and history.  Because like Samantha Warren says, there are no original ideas.

So when I read the Writer’s Digest article about fanfic I had to smile a lot.  Why?  Because the author of that article, in a respectable writing publication, I might add, supports the entire concept of fan fiction.  And so do I.  I also thought it was incredibly interesting that she pointed out that the very first fan fiction piece ever was Virgil’s Aeneid, which took a minor character from Homer’s work and made him into the hero of his own story.  Awesome!  Those of us who have been known to dabble in fan fiction are in the presence of greatness.

I actually posted about this sometime last year.  I think I mentioned then that the concept of fan fiction has been around for a while.  In the early 20th century there were thriving fan fiction communities, some of which contained writers who were famous in their own right, like L.M. Montgomery, who wrote Sherlock Holmes fanfic and Oz fanfic.  The Writer’s Digest article also points out that a lot of Shakespeare’s work could be considered fan fiction as he more or less rewrote the work of writers who pre-dated him.

In fact, it wasn’t until the 19th century that originality in art of any kind was championed at all.  Up until then the greatest writers were those who could rewrite old stories the most eloquently while staying true to the original work.  Think I’m the only one to rework the Robin Hood legend?  Have you looked at the bulk of late medieval and early renaissance literature?  It’s all Robin Hood and King Arthur recycled in every way imaginable.  Because that was what people wanted to read.  Originality was seen as hubris.

Okay, but now we’re in the 21st century and originality is where it’s at.  Or is it?  How many copies have the Fifty Shades books sold at this point?  How many hits to fanfic sites like fanfiction.net get on a daily basis?  People read fan fiction because the like to see the same characters over and over.  They don’t like originality as much as we want to think they do.  That’s why every successful movie franchise ever has a slew of sequels.  I’m still surprised we haven’t seen Titanic 2.  But they did re-release it, didn’t they.

Here’s the catch.  I don’t have a problem with fan fiction.  I agree with the Writer’s Digest article that describes it as a fantastic way to practice working with pre-defined characters and worlds to learn consistency and plotting in a way that stays true to the original material.  Fan fiction is training wheels, it’s like practicing scales on the piano.  But should it be published?  Actually, I don’t think it should.  Shared, yes.  Published, not so much.

Okay, is that hypocritical of me to say considering accusations about The Loyal Heart?  I really don’t think so.  Because my intent was not to copy but to riff on an ancient legend.  Well, that and to tell the story with the true history of the time period, which most people don’t know and wouldn’t believe if you told them (King Richard was a murderous jerk who hated England and didn’t speak English and Prince John was legally responsible for administrating half of the country and did a good job of it too).  And in spite of criticism I adamantly believe that my characters are my own.

What about E.L. James?  Does she believe that her characters are her own?  Was she trying to create something new using familiar themes or was she attempting to exploit prefabricated characters to placate the public’s thirst for more of the familiar and to make a profit?  I honestly don’t know.  And I’m not interested in making that judgment.  I’m also not interested in reading her books because frankly, BDSM skeeves me out a bit (says the Romance writer).

I will stand behind fan fiction though.  In my days of writing I have written fan fiction of Indiana Jones, Wuthering Heights, Star Trek, Labyrinth, Days of Our Lives, Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, The Wheel of Time, and most recently Harry Potter.  I’ve got two different Harry Potter fanfics, actually, one that follows George Weasley after the fact and one that follows Draco Malfoy (as he leaves the wizarding world in shame and tries to live life as a Muggle).  Would I ever think of publishing any of it?  Not on your life!  Would I let you read it if you asked?  Maybe if you asked nicely.  None of it is finished anyhow.  Do I have fun with it?  You bet I do!  Has it helped the rest of my writing?  Yes it has.

So wherever you fall in the fanfic debate, just remember that it’s been going on almost as long as there has been writing.  In fact, I would venture to say that the first people to ever write down a story were not writing their own creation but their version of someone else’s story.  Yes, fan fiction is our heritage.  Embrace it.  But profit from it?  Exploit it?  Never.

That being said, where do we draw the line?  What falls on the side of “there are no original ideas” and what is copyright infringement?  What do you think?

Is Traditional Publishing Still the Gatekeeper of Quality Books?

May29

Okay, I’m going to ask you to do something next to impossible for a moment here.  I’m going to ask you to think about publishing … got it?  Thinking about publishing? … and then I’m going to ask you to remove Indie publishing from your thoughts for a moment.  Alright?  Stick it right over there to the side.  You can pick it up later.  Just for a minute we’re not talking about Indie publishing at all.

Ah!

So.  Traditional publishing.  Also called Legacy publishing these days.  Not that long ago Traditional publishing was the only game in town.  For those who don’t know how the publishing world works, once upon a time a writer would write something, then they would pitch it to an agent.  After enough pitches and query letters, blood, sweat, and tears, an agent would sign the writer.  Then the agent would take the book, maybe sprucing it up a little, maybe not depending on the agent, and attempt to sell it to a publisher.  This process took a while.  If a publisher liked the book then they would buy it.  Then, after editing, cover design, and marketing prep work, the book would be printed and appear at your local bookstore.

So why does the process take so long?  Why are there so many levels and so many steps involved?

Because the aim of Traditional publishing has always been to produce the best possible books of the highest quality and greatest literary merit.

*insert screeching record sound here*

Wait a minute.  Is that true?  Does Traditional publishing produce the best work?

One of the very first explanations about the agent/publisher process that I can remember being given was all about the concept of agents and publishers being “The Gatekeepers” of the book world.  The process, it was explained to me, was put into place so that someone could monitor the quality of work being marketed to consumers.  The “Big Six” publishing companies were seen as the pinnacle of this gatekeeping process.  The implication was that if it was published by a Big Six publisher, it was Quality.

I think the first test of this theory that I came across, at least that I can remember, was a romance novel called By A Lady.  No offense to the author, but … wow.  Granted, the book has an intriguing concept, time-travel romance with Jane Austen as a secondary character, but it was so poorly executed and twisted the limits of credibility so painfully that, alas, it became something of a joke amongst a group of friends of mine.

And yet while my friends laughed and scoffed, I cried a little bit.  Some Traditional publisher had bought that book and published it.  Ouch.

Since then I’ve been much more aware of all things related to publishing.  Especially as I’ve published myself.  I’ve been involved in countless formal and informal discussions with writer friends about poor editing and disappointing offerings by incredibly well-known authors.  Several people have made the statement that while the earlier Cat Who… books are wonderful, the later ones aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.  And I’m sure you can think of half a dozen other Traditionally published books that fell far short of the mark.

And yet they were published.  Even though they were terrible.

But there it is, that claim that the agents and publishers of Traditional/Legacy publishing are the Gatekeepers of Quality.

Yeah, I don’t buy it anymore.

The fact of the matter is, it has never been about quality in Traditional publishing.  It’s been about selling.  The system of Traditional publishing is set up to find books that will sell.  Granted, quality is a major factor in what makes a book sell.  But for every The Help there is an answering Fifty Shades of Gray.  For every Harry Potter there is a Twilight.  They all have their fans and their detractors.  And they were all published by Traditional publishers because someone thought they would sell.  And they did.

But does that still give the Traditional publishing industry the right to claim to be The Gatekeepers?

When I hear the term “gatekeeper” I think of a security guard manning his post at a giant iron gate that leads to a fabulous mansion.  Everyone wants to get into the mansion.  The mansion is cool.  Outside the gates are a million hungry souls waving manuscripts.  But only a few get in.  Why do they get in?  Well, some walk up to the gate and tell the security guard a compelling story.  But others, perhaps more than people want to admit, are let through because they know somebody.  I know of two authors who were published because they knew somebody.  And reviews of their books are not good.  I couldn’t make it past three chapters of one, and I wanted to like that book so badly.

So, back to the original question.  Is Traditional publishing still the gatekeeper of quality books?

My answer?  No.  They were never the gatekeepers of quality books to begin with.  They were and are the judges of marketable content.  And quite frequently they’ve been wrong.  They’ve also been right.  It’s a subjective business.  Any publisher is going to win some and lose some.

But as for me, as a reader and a writer, I’m kind of grateful that there’s a new game in town and that the Traditional publishing monopoly has been broken.

I’m dying to know what other people think here.  Who is The Gatekeeper these days?

Quantity vs. Quality

Apr10

Folks, I am experiencing an existential crisis.  I want to make writing my full-time job.  I want to be able to support myself with my pen (or keyboard) alone.  But….

Right now I do okay with the two books I have self-published.  (Ooo!  Look over there to your right!  There they are!)  I have another one that is more or less ready to publish but that I’m going to use to test some trad pub waters, and I have at least started the third book in my Medieval trilogy and have a goal to publish before September.  But this is not enough to support a life as a homeless vagrant, let alone my comfy middle-class life in suburban Philadelphia.

Recently I read this interesting article from Derek J. Canyon’s blog “Adventures in ePublishing” with statistics from self-published authors who sell over 50,000 copies a year.  And while it didn’t include a lot of the information I wanted to know (what promotional tools were used, what reviews said about these books, whether they were professionally edited, and how much they spent on editing and cover design) one of the big, noticeable stats was that many of these authors had published over 11 book.  Some within a year or two.

Why does that statistic make me so angry?  I’ll tell you why.  Because I have this niggling feeling that somewhere along the line someone told self-publishing authors that they key to success is QUANTITY.

This is what Quanitity looks like

Now, I have no problem with writing lots of books.  I’m a pretty fast writer myself.  But I have this other thing called a full-time bill-paying job that for various reasons this year has been sucking up a way larger portion of my brain and energy than a job ever has before.  And while I have about a zillion story ideas and a file full of ideas that have been outlined and expanded on, everything needs work.

Herein lies the crux of my argument.

I believe it was Ernest Hemingway who said “The first draft of anything is shit.”  Preach old man!

It’s so true.  I am very, very proud of my two novels, The Loyal Heart and The Faithful Heart, but I’ll let you in on a little secret.  The draft that of TLH that is published is draft 8.  It’s draft 7 for TFH.  And the novel I’m currently slaving over to try out traditionally, Our Little Secrets, is on draft 5 right now … and I still have kinks to work out.

Sure, I could slap something together, spell-check it, save many hundreds of dollars by having a friend or two read it and then throwing it up on Smashwords.  … On second thought, no I couldn’t.  My head would explode.  I need to knead my novels like bread dough.  I need a professional opinion.  And like bread dough, I have to let things sit and rise to get the best results.

Frankly (and I’m sure someone will take offense to this, so sorry in advance) when I see your average self-published author smacking together book after book after book and proudly proclaiming that they have fifty-leven titles for sale on Amazon and that they’ve never had to drop a penny on professional editing (because they have great beta-readers), I just want to laugh and say “Oh really?  I’d like to see you get just one request for a full manuscript from an agent or publisher.”

This is what Quality looks like. Ooo, pretty! And hundreds of years in the making!

Because I believe it’s quality that counts.  Yes, we could all write penny dreadfuls until the cows come home.  That article proves that there are some successful self-published authors selling 50,000+ books a year.  But how many self-published authors sell 50 books a year?  I suspect those numbers are higher.  Much higher.

Okay, so let’s get realistic for a second.  Good realistic, mind you.  Your average traditionally published author in my genre of Romance publishes one, maybe two books a year.  It takes about a year from the time the publisher says go to the time when you see the book in stores, maybe even longer.  Why?  Editing, cover design, copy-editing, care, attention.  Quality.  The publisher is staking their reputation and a lot of money on that book.

Yes, a lot of traditionally published authors working on this model have more than eleven books published.  One of my personal favorite authors, Elizabeth Hoyt, has 13 books and a novella published.  But she didn’t publish them all in the last two years.

My point is: Quantity is good.  Quality is better.  Quantity can happen over time.  Publishing is a long game.  The beauty of eBooks is that they don’t go out of print.  They’re going to be there for a while.  The best course of action in working towards quantity is to take your time now and boost your quality.

I strongly dislike the message being sent to self-publishing dreamers that quantity is the key to sales.  Sure, it’s true, but I think that the way the message is being sent right now is ultimately damaging to the reputation of self-publishers everywhere.  The message is being received as “Get as much as you can out there as fast as you can.  Substitute beta-readers for professional editors if you have to.  Never mind minor grammatical mistakes.  Publish, publish, publish!”

Also Quantity ... and a reminder that I should tidy up.

No, people!  Stop the insanity!  Slow down and make sure that what you’re publishing is worthy of the imaginary ink you’re publishing it with!  And definitely get the idea out of your head that you’re going to be one of the VERY FEW authors selling more than 50,000 copies of books a year!  It’s nice when it happens, but to expect it?  That way lies madness.

So what do you all think?  Is there a message to publish quantity rather than quality out there or am I just imagining things?  Do you think self-published authors need to adjust their thinking about this game?

Stupid Things Modern People Do

Mar2

How many times have you heard someone scoff at the ignorant things that people in the past used to do?  A lot, right?  Now many times have you found yourself feeling smug because you can take a shower while those nasty Medieval peasants never bathed (which is a lie, by the way)?  A lot of people think that we in the Modern Age are the smartest and savviest people ever.  But I have a feeling that if someone from a bygone era could take a peek into our world they would shake their heads at some of the truly insane things that we all do.

Here are my top choices for the mind-numbingly stupid things that modern people do:

1.  We buy water.  The bottled water industry makes billions of dollars a year.  While one could argue that it’s important to have pure drinking water and that a lot of people throughout history haven’t had access to this basic necessity, does that really justify paying a dollar or more for a bottle of water?  Taps abound everywhere.  Modern tap water is much cleaner than anything people of the past had available to them.  And that’s even before we run it through a filter.  But here we are, repeatedly paying big money for “special” water in a bottle.  And guess what?  Most of the time that water comes from a tap somewhere else.

How ridiculous is it that we turn up our noses at free water and dig deep in our purses to buy someone else’s water?

2.  We sit in one place all day.  Not necessarily by choice, but we do.  I do at least.  Throughout most of human history people have spent their day moving.  Whether that was working in the fields or marching as an army or taking care of household tasks, people moved.  The wealthiest of people may have spent long stretches of time sitting at a dinner table or in a parlor having tea, but they still went for walks and moved around from engagement to engagement.

Here in the modern world so very many of us spent at least 8 hours a day in Cubeville.  Our office chairs get butt-grooves.  If we do get up it’s usually only to walk as far as the printer or the bathroom or the water-cooler (which someone has paid for).  Those who do find some time to move throughout the day pay money to go to special places with machinery that helps us use our muscles.  An entire multi-billion dollar fitness industry has risen up to compensate for the fact that we are evolving into banana slugs.

3.  We voluntarily ingest chemicals.  Seriously, have you ever read the label on some of your favorite foods?  I have a package of Girl Scout cookies sitting right next to me.  Some of the ingredients include thiamine mononitrate, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, and annatto color.  I don’t even want to know what’s in the Big Mac I had last week.  I read an article a while back that talked about how the McRib sandwich includes some of the same ingredients as those used in yoga mats.

Not only that, naturally produced and minimally processed foods, the kind people have eaten for millennia, are next to impossible to find and really expensive when you do find them.  Most of us are completely unaware of what parts of the cow we’re eating.  And don’t get me started on the contents of hot dogs, yummy as they are.  We’ve come a long way from that delicious Medieval peasant pottage that was a staple of historic diet.

We’re paying the price for it too.  Obesity is a problem like it never has been.  What we’ve accomplished in modern, curative medicine for acute conditions we’ve totally lost in everyday health and wellbeing.

4.  We don’t talk to people.  At least not directly.  I’m as guilty as the next modern person of chatting for hours online and sending emails to my friends instead of picking up the phone.  Or visiting.  But back in the day not only was visiting a major social activity, communities would gather in the center of town or in people’s houses for real, live interaction with their neighbors.  The tradition of oral storytelling has been replaced by more sitting, in front of the TV this time, and making music together, dancing, and conversation have become increasingly rare art forms.

Not surprisingly then, cases of anxiety, depression, and mental illness have been on a measured rise throughout the 20th and into the 21st century.  Numerous studies have shown that the less time you spend interacting in person with other people the greater your chances for depression.  And who’s to say that we won’t lose our ability to interact with each other at all?

5.  We buy stuff with money we don’t have.  Guess how the Great Depression of the 1930s started?  It started because throughout the wild days of the 1920s people were buying stocks and things on margin.  That means that they were “buying” them with the idea that when the stocks turned a profit that profit would be used to buy the original stock.  And then the bottom fell out.  History repeated itself in 2007, although no one wants to admit it.

But guess what?  The same thing happens every day.  I’m as guilty of it as the next person.  Although I don’t have as much credit card debt as the average American, if for some reason my credit card company decided I had to pay them back immediately, I wouldn’t be able to do it.  Multiply that by millions and suddenly you realize that our entire economic system is built on nothing.

Peasants and lower class folks of bygone eras might have been considered poor by modern standards, they didn’t have as much stuff as we do, but they also didn’t live under a mountain of credit card debt.  I would hypothesize that if all of the debts we’ve rung up to sustain our modern lifestyles was suddenly called in, we’d be in much worse shape than the peasants of a thousand years ago.

I think I’ve proven my point.  We might think that we’re modern, enlightened people, but at the same time we’ve trapped ourselves in a lot of really silly or unhealthy behavior.  There is no historical precedent for some of the nim-nod things we do.

Of course, it makes me wonder what kind of face-palm inducing activities people will be involved with in a hundred years or so.  Whatever those things may be, you can bet they’ll be looking back on the people of today and calling us ignoramuses.