Uncreated Conscience

Books win their audiences for a reason. Most popular books wear their artlessness on their sleeve: Stephenie Meyer, the author of the “Twilight” series, is an awkward writer with little feeling for construction, but the intensity of emotion with which she imbues her characters is enviable. You never doubt her commitment to the material, which is half the battle won. So to say that Paolini is an unskilled narrator and a derivative mythmaker is more or less beside the point. What is it, then, that makes the books enter kids’ consciousness?

First, kids experience them as mythologies more than as stories—the narrative sweep is, curiously, the least significant part of their appeal. [...] The sheer invocation of a mythology casts a deeper spell than putting the mythology on its feet and making it dance. If you talk to an Eragon reader, you will see why the introductory seven-page synopsis of the mythology is necessary. The synopsis is the story.

A really interesting article about what makes fantasy so appealing for young adults. Recommended! I especially like the analysis of Twilight and Eragon as heightened versions of what kids experience everyday.

• PSYCHIC ROOMMATE: Today’s Google welcome is seriously trypophobic. Fair warning.
• JJ: Not us! We have a turkey!
• PSYCHIC ROOMMATE: Really?! Oh wow, Google France has a really long elaborate Stanislas Lem game.
• JJ: Heh, if I type Google.fr I can get to the game. It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be. Yet?
• PSYCHIC ROOMMATE: Wait for it…
• JJ: (few seconds later) A;SDL FIQEDS FLFH G;WRKDFSwsfd edgbdvgdsf!~!!!!!!

For those curious, it was the multi-eyed monster thing that came lurching out from the right side of the frame. ;dfa qedsfSWDEFSse f I had to immediately close out the window.

Even back in 1993, Branagh’s casting of Denzel Washington as Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing caused nowhere near as much controversy his decision to put Keanu Reeves in it.

Hilariously, I remember watching this adaptation when I was in 7th grade and not even blinking at the fact that Don Pedro was black, but being very confused as to why Don Pedro’s bastard half-brother was a terrible actor. (Sorry Keanu, but you hit your stride in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.)

An interesting piece from The Guardian about whitewashing–or as they call it “race-lifting”–films. I’m not sure about the term “race-lift” (despite the punnage), as it sort of implies that anything not-white needs to be “lifted” to white. The comments are terrible, but generally articles to do with race are rife with horrible comments that make me want to stab myself in the face.

So, I know it’s already 11 days into November, but is anyone else doing NaNoWriMo? I am cheating, of course, as I’m actually NaNo-ing a project I was already about 35K into by the time November rolled around. (I’m doubly cheating because this is actually the backstory to a villain character in another novel I started writing to avoid working on it.)

Min Sumire was eighteen years old and a woman grown the day an ill wind from the West blew in and rattled the foundations of her new life. Until then she had believed herself impervious to the typhoons and tsunamis of emotional upheaval, but it only took a single blow to her heart to upend everything she held to be true.

These were the truths she held to be unquestionable: that she was smarter than everyone about her, that her beauty was a weapon to be wielded, and that her heart was as cold as ice. She would do anything to serve her own needs ahead of another’s, and she made peace with the knowledge that she was ruthless and beautiful.

But it was all a lie, and it only took was one kiss for her foundations to come crashing down about her ears.

You’ve seen me post drawings/paintings about it. God, I have so many methods of procrastination. Don’t want to write your novel? Write another one! Don’t want to write that? Draw pictures from it instead! Yeesh. I’m also really good at getting in my own way. I started writing this book to get away from relentless research and just write characters making out, but I’m about 42K into it now and THERE IS STILL NO MAKING OUT. Instead I’m writing political scene after political scene after political scene in an attempt to get to the kissing. Also I apparently can’t stop researching; it’s a terrible compulsion! An addiction! I just wanted to write makeouts, dammit!

So. Hello, blog. We haven’t spoken in a while. How are you? How are things? How’s life in your corner of the internet? I’m so sorry for treating you like that friend I speak to once every six months only when I have something exciting I want to share, but it’s a little hard to maintain close friendships when you’re so far away, you know? Besides, I’m been keeping busy in my internet life with Tumblr, and yeah, things are going really well between us.

Anyway, I wanted to come and talk to you about a problem I’ve been having. All around the internets you’ll find discussions about Mary Sues and while I certainly agree with many of the points various authors bring up, I have a problem of a different sort. You see, the term “Mary Sue” is something given to a female character by an audience, and I feel a lot of readers’ (especially female readers) problems with female characters has much more to do with societal baggage and internalized misogyny than poor writing or poor characterization.

My problem, you see, isn’t with Mary Sues. My problem is with the Plague of Perfect Boys in fiction.

Because nobody's perfect. Unless he's David Tennant. (Obligatory image of Sexy Person included in post to drive up traffic. I am transparently shallow that way.)

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