Mourning

I’m in mourning this weekend.  I have said good-bye to Vampire Diaries, I am giving up my DVR and satellite and I have completed my odyssey into The Paradise.  I have read Pot-Bouille and Au Bonheur des Dames, and have absolutely no intention of reading the remaining 18 novels in Les Rougon-Macquart series.  I have watched completely season one and two of The Paradise and feel closure at the end of the last episode of season two.  I do not think a season three is necessary and cannot imagine what a season three could contain.  I’m still in love with Emun Elliott and my husband is still unconcerned.  And well, if I ever met Emun Elliott, I’d probably be so quiet that he wouldn’t notice me.  Unless I did one of my ever-fashionable walking-into-a-wall for no apparent reason moves . . .  I’ve finished a series of short stories based on Emun Elliott’s face . . . which will probably serve no other purpose than to amuse my husband and myself.

Yes, a weekend of endings.  And as you can tell, I’m a multi-tasker.

The point of that ample prologue—and note, I’m generally against prologues—is that while reading Pot-Bouille and Au Bonheur des Dames, I noticed something that I knew before but had forgotten.  Writers tend to be studied in the classics, having read excellent works by Charles Dickens and George Eliot.  When I sit down to read a classic, I keep a notepad next to me and jot down the name of every character mentioned, traits and their importance to the story as I’m sifting through this classic.  That way, if I lose track of who is who, I can refresh my memory.  If I have to do that with one of my authors, you will get a lecture in written form.

Back in the good ole days, when the quality of writing was better (or at least, it seems that way because only the best has survived), readers had a different education.  Latin was common.  The Bible was expected to be read by juveniles.  A good number of novels out there were serialized.  Like television today, people waited with baited breath for the next installment to appear.  Authors took much more care with creating characters and, because there weren’t lots of other media offering storytelling options, readers would lap up even the worst or most cumbersome of character descriptions. 

That ain’t the way it is today.  Television gives a visual; the audience doesn’t have to remember characteristics or try to keep them straight.  Even with the worst acting, they can see the physical actor before them.  Those who still read are either authors themselves (who have studied the classics) or are lovers of books.  They may have read some of the classics, but not made their lives studying them.  The classics probably aren’t their favorites.  They are probably readers of romance, sci-fi or some other genre that is cranked out in endless regurgitations of what has already been written a million times.

I understand why so many authors have not gotten a memo on this.  We, the authors, have played with the characters in our heads, possibly for years.  They have made us cry and laugh, amused us with our own brilliance.  Do not delude yourself into thinking it will be the same for the reader.  The reader wants entertainment or utter &^%$ brilliance that is so awesome that it cannot be denied by a single person gasping in the radiance of it.  And don’t delude yourself into thinking your work is utter &^%$ brilliance as just described.  It’s not.  (This is my biggest obstacle with authors.  It makes them think the rules somehow don’t apply to them.  I often ask an author why they have deluded themselves.  The answers are incredibly amusing.  WRONG.  But amusing.)  There’s only a handful of authors who fall into the category of utter &^%$ brilliance and I’ve only met them through conventions and book signing lines.  I do not delude myself into thinking anyone whose work is utter &^%$ brilliance would be reading my blog.

That’s not to say what you’re writing isn’t good.  Just remember where you are on the totem pole.  And really, do you want your reader to be sitting with a notepad, trying to keep track of which character is which?  Don’t make your reader work.  Do your job the write way.  And because I can, I’m putting a ;) here.