Me and my (Imaginary) Friends

It struck me as strange the other day that some of the most successful novels and television series concentrate very strongly on relationships and friendships, yet the typical writer is very introverted - more of a lone wolf type character. So what's happening here?

Are writers able to absorb all these things from others despite their lack of personal interaction and bring it forth in a convincing way (in a variety of mediums), or am I just outing myself as a social misfit, and most other writers have huge circles of friends?

I was re-reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone the other day - the first JK Rowling HP book. You know that old Harry - greatest wizard in the world - does not actually do a single magical spell in the whole book? It's true. I checked. He does accidental magic at the beginning. He hops onto a broomstick and finds that he is an automatic natural at it. And there are vague references to him learning spells as part of his schoolwork, but you do not actually see him wave his wand and do a spell.

What you do see in the HP books is tons of stuff on relationships. A lot of time is spent on the building of relationships and the testing and proving of them. I think someone said once the HP books were like 'Famous Five with magic'. It's about the gang, not the magic - that is almost setting.

So, anyway. The portrayal of relationships and friendship is crucial to the success of fiction, and is a strong element in bestseller YA.

How can we, as lone wolf writers, learn to do this so well? Or are we just continuing our relationships with our imaginary friends from childhood into adulthood?

What is Characterization?

This is a question that has often baffled me. And it's not a trivial question. If you and your potential editor don’t agree on what good characterization is, then the relationship ends before it begins with the manuscript in the discard pile.

I have my own ideas about characterization. I like to see emotional depth, what matters to the character, some idea of what their personality is like and how they might go about getting what they want or overcoming their problem, all blended with the right amount of backstory. All this is best revealed gradually through the actions of the character and the events of the plot.

But for me this stuff is ‘internal’.

For others good characterization is ‘external’. They like to see particular actions or mannerisms in a character that can be readily recognized – and are often repeated ad nauseum through the story. From Harry Potter think of Hermione Granger’s ‘bushy hair’ or Hagrid’s large bulk. It seems like every single time these characters appear there is a reference to the 'key characteristic'. If I read another dark fantasy character who can't be separated from their cigarette, I think I'll choke. If subtle enough, I guess it works as a subconscious cue.

One of the reasons I stopped reading the Wheel of Time series was I got so sick of this. How many times can Nynaeve al’Meara pull her damn braid? Especially when nothing else was happening except a self-perpetuating word-mill of dialogue? I’d rather know more about what makes her tick.

I think a little bit of the external things can be an excellent part of the mix, but when this is supplied as the major component of characterization I start to get annoyed.

There is a lot in this though – it really appears to be a divide in the way writers approach the work (and how editors interpret it). Maybe its even deeper than that, maybe it’s a personality divide.

I was watching a local television program – the Tuesday Book Club – where various local literary luminaries wax lyrical about three or four books, each giving their considered opinion. Even these quite established and successful writers could not agree on this one. One of them was seriously bagging one of the books, criticizing what, in his opinion, was a very superficial characterization for the above reasons, while another could not give it higher praise in the same arena.

What’s going on? Please enlighten me!

Harry Potter meets Star Trek, or The Fanfic Of Doom

The comments on Harry Potter as steampunk and a trawl through the crosslinks off Draco in Leather Pants got me to thinking about the fanfiction phenomenon. If you go looking, there's fanfic about just about everything, and it usually invokes Rule 34 somewhere. If you take a trawl through any fanfiction archive, you'll quickly discover there's a huge range of the stuff, ranging from the utterly abysmal right through to brilliant - and they're pre-sorted for you.

Some sites have ratings systems, including tags to indicate what the story is about (do not ever open anything tagged with 'slash', 'NSFW', or 'shipper' unless you're certain no-one is going to look over your shoulder and embarrass the heck out of you), a movie-like G/PG/M/R ranking, and sometimes some version of the 0 through 5 star system as well. What happens then is that the stories live or die on their ratings, rankings, and the number of comments they get. Stories with a lot of comments tend to get more interest over a longer period of time but will quickly "bubble up" to the top of any listing simply because in the fanfiction sites based on forum software, the default is to display by most recent comment. Crosslinkage helps too - comments telling readers "if you liked this, you'll love X" complete with a helpful link to that story.

Oddly, the most commented stories are either the best or the worst - the mediocre offerings are lost in the noise. The worst are often hilariously bad rather than merely dismal, testament perhaps to humanity's love of a disaster happening to someone else. Equally entertaining, the best pieces are often better than the originals, not least because one thing many fanficcers do is try to clean up or work around the continuity issues of the original. It's positively amazing that people have managed to produce coherent, sensible reasons for much of Star Trek's (all of them) characterization, plots, gimmicks, and other oddities.

Some of my favorites include the Naked Quidditch Match (which, despite the title, is actually safe for work unless there's a problem with laughing yourself sick at work), the Sith Academy series which pits Darth Maul against the horrors of everyday bureaucracy and the insufferably perky Obi-Wan Kenobi, and of course Cassie Claire's classic Lord of the Rings Secret Diaries. I also cherish a not-so-secret fondness for Austen fanfic (the respectable fanfic...)

Why mention fanfic at all?

First, it's an example of a self-sorting open market - every story competes on its merits or lack thereof. The readers are the ones who decide which stories rise to prominence and which fall. Oh, and there's a niche for everything you could possibly imagine and rather a lot of things you'd prefer not to.

Second, fanfiction is an ancient art form that's largely ignored and condemned today because of insane copyright rules. Quick questions - how many retellings of Cinderella are there? How many Star Trek novelizations? Dr Who novelizations? Yep, fanfic. Paid fanfic in this case.

Third, fanfiction is a valuable sandbox for budding, blooming, and even overblown writers to hone their craft toolbox. It's an area where you can experiment with new techniques and have their effectiveness judged by the most impartial audience - people who want to read about characters and worlds they love. They don't care who you are or how many books you've written or how many copies you've sold. They care that you write stories they like.

Fourth, it keeps you as an author in contact with your readers. Real contact, because they're on those boards demanding more if you start a story and fail to finish it, getting irritated if you do something they don't think is right for that character, and generally being people. There aren't many places in the publishing industry that do that - if you go wrong, you'll know.

There are fanfiction sites that take subscriptions, others that are funded by donations, and still others by advertising, as well as the ones that run on someone's love and devotion. All of them have something to offer writers and readers.

So what can the publishing industry learn from fanfiction?

Is Harry Potter Steam Punk?

I did a slightly tongue in cheek post on the ROR blog asking if Harry Potter was Steam Punk.

It generated a lot of discussion so I thought I'd throw it out for you guys.

They ride to school on a steam train.

They attend boarding school full of tradition.

They learn latin and wear antiquated uniforms.

They use weird and wonderful machines, which are not powered by steam but by magic.

And don't get me started on how Harry Potter is really Enid Blyton's Famous Five with magic!