The Long-Awaited Return of Books I Quit Reading

[mrissa]

1. Fantasy did not actually need to be structured more like basketball. No, really not.

2. If you'd published your fanfic online like everybody else, I would not have had to read an entire chapter to determine that your Mary Sue was stupid and obvious, because I would never have gotten there.

3. It is entirely possible that people who are unpleasant to their romantic/sexual partners are interesting in other ways, but when you don't show me any of their traits but being unpleasant to their romantic/sexual partners, it makes it hard for me to summon up any damn to give.

4. Do you know why we sometimes write dialog instead of paraphrasing it every single time? Go away and find out before you write another book.

5. I know that it is not unrealistic to write a completely self-absorbed character, particularly one without much life experience. But that doesn't make them any more fun to read about, particularly when you, the author, don't seem to realize that this is not how everybody is. When your protag moans that they have no friends and I think, "Give me $5 and I will tell you why," this is not the road to a long and happy reading experience.

6. You know what's worse than writing alternating viewpoints where I only care about one of the viewpoints? Writing alternating viewpoints where I don't care about any of the viewpoints.

7. Biography is an art form. It is an art form that does not require the writing of twee, precocious dialog to put words in your famous subject's 10-year-old mouth.

8. Have you met any actual New York street toughs like the ones in your book? No? This "write what you know" thing: it is not perfect advice. Its limitations are rather severe. But "write what does not make you look like a complete idiot" is a good place to start.

9. It is your prerogative to hate people like me and think we are all awful. It is my prerogative not to read about it. Neat how that works, huh?

10. It turns out I don't really care what Famous Historical Personage #1 wrote to Famous Historical Personage #2 about the food at a party they both attended and I didn't. I thought perhaps my dislike of collections of letters was something I had outgrown. Nope.

11. This is a personal idiosyncratic thing as well: I am a really, really tough sell for books about tiny people. I don't mean human beings of medically abnormal stature. I mean people 3-12 inches tall. As fantasy conceits go, I can't think why this one is such a loser for me, but it really is.

12. If you are going to write an historical novel for teens, the fact that it is historical fantasy does not excuse you from doing your research. (Do I even need to say that the fact that it is for teens does not? I had better not need to say that.) And if you got the street names right and the basic gender roles and limitations of the period very wrong, you did not do your research. It's not just the bits you think are important about the period. It's the bits they thought were important about the period.

Comments

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

8. Have you met any actual New York street toughs like the ones in your book? No? This "write what you know" thing: it is not perfect advice. Its limitations are rather severe. But "write what does not make you look like a complete idiot" is a good place to start.

This really drives me crazy. Also, the notion that there are alleys all over Manhattan in which these street toughs loiter in (there ain't).

[guppiecat]

You're hanging out in the wrong alternate world Manhattan. You need to hang out in the poorly-written ones.

Though, interestingly, this touches on one of my pet peeves. Why does everything happen in New York or L.A.? Aren't there any stories in Boise? Like, any at ALL?

(Personally, I'd love to see a superhero series of heroes and villains that aren't powerful enough to make it in the big city, so we get to read about the second stringers.)

[rosefox]

Holy crap, no wonder I can never get mugged when I want to!

[guppiecat]

As always, I enjoyed this post, but I do question number 11.

Out of curiosity, does this apply to books like The Borrowers and Charles de Lint's more recent "Little" stories? (Those are the two that come to mind when I think of the subgenre.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes. I know that Little Grrrl Lost was on a par with other recent de Lint, in theory, but in practice I had a hard time giving it a fair shake.

[rosefox]

Have you met any actual New York street toughs like the ones in your book? No?

Oh pretty please tell me which one this is.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

9: EH? People like you how? Scandosotan prejudice?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In this case, science geeks, but it applies to other traits as well: I am just not interested in reading a book about how people like me are all horrible and smell funny and deserve to die alone and friendless. Just not.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

If #12 is not already about that series featuring the Inklings as young men, then I can suggest a way to reuse it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, it was not in fact a pointed comment at a member of my friendslist.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

There's a YA series about...that's just wrongful wrongness, that is. I bet #2 also applies, huh?

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I am a really, really tough sell for books about tiny people.

Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna be fooled again!

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Ah, someone beat me to the reference, though not the quote. But then, I cheated. I already knew you and your mother periodically shouted "Ye can tak' oor lives but ye can never tak'! oor! trousers!" It's one of those little anecdotes that sticks with me.

[joeboo-k.livejournal.com]

At least a couple of them feel like Twilight...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. No, I steered clear of Twilight before cracking its cover, even.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Being ill these last two weeks, I got a lot of re-reads in, plus one read I'd been putting off and putting off and putting off. It was a big fat fantasy and #2, #3, #4, and #6 are holding true for it. Le sigh.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I hope there's no reason you have to finish it. That's a lot of points to hold true for one book, even if it is a big fat one with much room in its pages for badness.

[sdn.livejournal.com]

damn, i don't want these to be blind items. :)

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Tiny people: I don't know why that's funny, but it is. I have stuff like that, too. Can't think of any off the top of my head, though.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

My mother doesn't read SFF, really; she doesn't do talking animals or aliens. I'm not sure what her stance on fairies is, but I think that's another automatic rejection. My tough sells seem to be Arthuriana and anything bringing Biblical mythology in. At least right now. There's a lot that's just become too common lately, but those two have held fast for a while.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Re the tiny people - have you read Mistress Masham's Repose?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No.

This is part of being an amiable reader: I am perfectly willing to get something from the library on the premise that I hate most things like it, and let's see if I hate it as well.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

11. This is a personal idiosyncratic thing as well: I am a really, really tough sell for books about tiny people. I don't mean human beings of medically abnormal stature. I mean people 3-12 inches tall. As fantasy conceits go, I can't think why this one is such a loser for me, but it really is.

Because they're ridiculous?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh yah, I have a long and storied history of not liking anything ridiculous.

Icon choice entirely accidental, of course.

[panjianlien.livejournal.com]

I love these posts with a positively ginormous love.

I don't mind the tiny-people gimmick (I think The Borrowers got me when I was little), but I am feeling all vindicated anyway because that is precisely how I feel about vampires. Just don't get it, and a writer has to work extra-hard to make me read anything that has remotely to do with them.

Basketball?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, I'm kind of that way about vampires, too. And in either case, it's not that I refuse to read books with those tropes in them, I just find that even the ones with theoretically good things about them often don't reach me very well. But then a few do.

Basketball: with the tournament structures and the betting and the bla bla up and down the freakin' court squeak squeak squeak ICK.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

11. This is a personal idiosyncratic thing as well: I am a really, really tough sell for books about tiny people. I don't mean human beings of medically abnormal stature. I mean people 3-12 inches tall. As fantasy conceits go, I can't think why this one is such a loser for me, but it really is.

Me too me too!! I don't know if it's suspect biology (what, you think you can put human or near-human smarts into a brain the size of a rat? Really? Go on, then, tell me how that works...) or what, but I really do not like it. Not even in Pratchett, and I love Pratchett. Robert Reddick did it in "The Red Wolf Conspiracy" - with intellectual rats, too - and I hated it...

[blythe025.livejournal.com]

Nice list. I esspecially like: "write what does not make you look like a complete idiot". I think that's a rule we could all live by.

[carbonel]

#1 -- You mean taking place in four even-sized parts, with all the interesting bits happening in the fourth part?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I watched many basketball games in high school when I had to play in pep band, and the interesting bits never arrived at all.