On who should/shouldn't be writing

[telophase]

I've been thinking about this on and off for days since I posted a few comments about the Mercedes Lackey book I was reading from my iPhone, and then didn't bother to reply to them since I hadn't bothered to turn the computer on and replying on LJ/DW with an iPhone is an exercise in frustration. And I'm not sure I've really got anything coherent to say, and most of it revolves around two different things. :) Which are different enough that I'd rather put them in two different posts, so as not to get one sidetracked by another. And I may even tick off a couple of people with this.

So here goes #1: It really bothered me when a couple of responses to "Mercedes Lackey shouldn't attempt dialect" were to the effect of "Mercedes Lackey shouldn't attempt dialect writing. Fixed that for you!"

I know it was meant as a joke. Unfortunately, I don't find it particularly funny to suggest silencing someone just because you think they write badly, even in jest, and it's certainly not something I believe, for two reasons:

(1) She has an absolute right to write whatever she wants the way she wants it. I don't have to like it - I've called her "Hackey" before - and that's as far as it goes. If that's amended to "She shouldn't be published" - that's another beast entirely, because nobody's got a right to have someone else risk their money on attempting to find a market for their works.

(2) There are an approximate metric fuckton of people out there reading and buying Lackey's works, several of whom read this LJ/DW. Hell, at least one reading this journal who writes in her works -- authorized, no less, not just fanfic. I suspect that the vast majority of her readers see her writing weaknesses and forgive her, because she's supplying something else they enjoy. I've certainly run into people who credit her books with literally saving their lives.*

However, the phrase "Lackey should not be writing" comes across like an elitist dismissal of these people who buy, read, and enjoy those books. I don't think anyone who's said that to me recently meant it that way (although I've known people who definitely meant it that way) ... but that's the hidden baggage packed up in there.



* Mostly in regards to finding the Vanyel trilogy as an outcast gay teen and finding a way out of suicidal depression with the message that you are not alone and you are okay just the way you are. More than one person, yes.**

** Word to the wise: do not complain that an author's writing could be improved to someone who conflates being the Right Book at the Right Time with being a well-written book. I can still feel the scars from that one.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Agreed. And: the Vanyel books are pretty good; lots of the other stuff I've read by her is not. (I stopped over a decade ago, mind you.) There's nothing wrong with the idea that a writer has uneven output, or that different titles by the same writer appeal differently to different readers....

[telophase]

Yup. I make fun of bad writing from all sorts of authors, but I also know that often other readers either don't see the flaws or they're willing to overlook them. Hell, I can't stand Jacqueline Carey's or Anne Bishop's books, but people I know whose opinions I trust* love them to death. Sometimes in that train-wrecky way, but still! XD

* Except, perhaps, in the case of these books.

[dragovianknight]

I'm so used to the underlying buzz of, "Anyone who is not an angsty thirteen year old who isn't reading Lackey for the lulz is an idiot," that I don't even notice any more.

[telophase]

:) I still feel the need to justify why I like reading some books that even I acknowledge as badly written.

[yhlee]

Fair point.

Her particular writing flaws meant that I wasn't going to stick with her for long, but I did get a lot of enjoyment out of her books while it lasted.

[telophase]

I still own copies of her first two trilogies because reading them is so nostalgic -- they throw me right back to those teen years!

[yhlee]

I used to have them, and then I realized that if I felt a rereading need I could almost certainly get them out of the library. :-) It's kind of nice to be able to get popular books out of a library instead of having to own my own copies.

And as far as bad writing goes, I like a lot of books that are not well-written. People seem to be surprised by this, but I'm not sure why--I often read books for particular buttons that they push (siege engines! giant stompy robots!), not for deathless prose. If deathless prose comes along for the ride, then, excellent; and if not, well, I'm pretty content without it.

[inkstone]

Heh, I still have her Tarma & Kethry books because those were formative books & formative heroines for me. I know so many people these days are all "But look at how RAPEY they were!!" but those were very important books to me in terms of how the women were presented and treated and treated each others. I've since given away my Lackey books because I don't get the same enjoyment out of them that I once did but I can't bear to part with these. It's too hard.

[telophase]

I liked those, too! I managed to be a teenager at exactly the time that the feminist backlash hit fantasy, and Sword & Sorceress started up, along with Salmondson's Amazons! and other female-protagonist books. I have nice big squishy feelings for that sort of thing. :)

[inkstone]

Hahaha, I might possibly still have my Sword & Sorceress anthologies too. including the one that introduced us to Tarma & Kethry!

[telophase]

And I love them for paving the way to a book like Best Served Cold, which, while rather grim and violent, had a professional fighting woman out for revenge ... for professional betrayal, not personal or sexual. Woo!

[inkstone]

I really liked Best Served Cold. Not only was it a revenge story -- because I love revenge stories -- it was not because of rape!

[coffeeandink]

I *definitely* still have the S&S anthology that introduced us to Tarma & Kethry.

[apis_mellifera]

I think a lot of the uneven quality of her work has to do with the sheer number of books she puts out each year. Based on the bibliography on her website, she had eight books come out last year and is scheduled for five this year (I am counting collaborations and anthologies but not the authorized Valdemar anthology she edited). That's really a relentless writing pace and she's been maintaining it for most of her career--the only year she had one book come out was 2000.

[telophase]

One thing you can't fault is her work ethic!

I think she's just not edited - her books are guaranteed sellers, and they have to hit a schedule, so the editors don't feel the need to edit them as closely as they would a newer, unknown writer. At least I tell myself that's why they're letting through stuff like having all gryphons talk with visually ssssssibliant ssssentencessssss like thissssssss, which drives me nuts.

[apis_mellifera]

I am pretty consistently amazed by her work ethic. And frustrated, too, because every time I turn around, there's ANOTHER ONE to review. I think after three in a row last year I threw my hands up in despair and passed one off to someone else.

You might want to check out her 500 Kingdoms stuff from Luna--those seem to be more vigorously edited than her stuff from DAW. I also think they're her best work at the moment. These two things may be related.

[telophase]

I'll give them a go, thanks!

[dragovianknight]

I'm pretty sure that not only are they not edited, no one sits and reads them all the way through. At least that would explain how she can infodump something, and then repeat almost the exact same information a few pages later.

[telophase]

They got the protagonist's name wrong in the official description of the second book of her most recent trilogy!

[dragovianknight]

SERIOUSLY??? This I must see!

[telophase]

Go down to "Product Description" on the Amazon page. The character's name is Mags, not Magpie.

[apis_mellifera]

I seem to recall something in the beginning of the first book--when he's working in the mine--that says he gets called Mags because the foreman or some other person says he's like a magpie because he's so good at finding shinies. It's not a huge jump from Magpie to Mags, but if I were writing the blurb, I would have used the name he's actually called by.

[inkstone]

No, I'm pretty sure that's the case. Once someone becomes a guaranteed seller, editors are less likely to mess with the writing for fear of ruining whatever it is the readers want with it. Considering the volume Lackey writes, I don't think it's that she's a delicate snowflake who throws a tantrum at revision letters. The sheer quantity says that she has a very strong work ethic.

[telophase]

I've never heard of any of her books being delayed significantly because the manuscript was late, either (not to say it hasn't happened, just haven't heard of it). Which means that she's a publisher's dream: big seller, prolific author, hits deadlines. You can see they wouldn't want to mess with that combo.

[inkstone]

Especially with the latest trilogy because these are the first Valdemar books in a few years, aren't they? Never mind the fact that they're Valdemar books that aren't just expansions of stories we'd heard before in previous books: Skif, Lavan, Alberich, etc. These are brand new characters and everything. So I'm sure DAW was thrilled, you know?

[telophase]

I read the Skif book and was annoyed that she stayed firmly in his head for 3/4 of the book, then switched out for one scene while he was unconscious. And it's not like she couldn't have done something like "This is what I pieced together after I woke up" because she couldn't make us worried that the protagonist would die, since we'd already met him older!

[franzeska]

Hah. I had to run off and see what I'd commented with, if anything. I keep running into people who had that reaction to the Vanyel trilogy too. I loved those books and her work in general when I was 13, but I had the exact opposite reaction in terms of gay themes. Her books always made me feel like she had a creepy fascination with beautiful, suffering gay men, but lesbians weren't worth writing about except as token cameo characters whose yucky sexuality we don't have to look too closely at. Ditto most female characters in general, though with more exceptions. It destroyed my ability to take her books as actually pro-gay or pro-woman. (And this was at the height of my love for her too.) Then again, the same could be said of many of the authors I liked at that age. (Poppy Z. Brite's early work was so, so much worse.)

[telophase]

I wasn't that discerning. :) What bothered me the most was that every few pages or so the other characters would fall over themselves saying that his being gay was OK, and almost no time showing that. It ended up reminding me mostly of, I think it was an old Saturday Night Live sketch? which had the characters saying "Not that there's anything wrong with that!" every few lines.

[franzeska]

Ha ha ha. Yes. It reminds me very strongly (and, I imagine, for good reason) of that kind of 70s/80s slash writing where you can tell the author finds the idea sexy but isn't quite sure what they think of having real life gay couples living next door. If she'd just lacked queer female protagonists, I don't think that would have bothered me. It was more the sum total of her (vast) output and the way she was writing about her various characters' sexualities. (Cf. every time Tarma and Kethry pretend to be gay or there's a LOLhilariousLOL bit about how of course they're not. I liked the characters and the books, but those bits seemed kind of... defensive to me.)

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you for this. I mean, Lackey has some really lousy writing habits, sure (the info dumps in the owl books!), but I'm always going to be grateful for the Vanyel trilogy, because it was the first time I ever thought things might be OK. I'm always a little embarrassed to admit how much they mean to me, but dammit, they do. I got a great yuletide set of stories with a happy ending for Vanyel and Tylendel/Stephen, btw (highschool au!). I should probably be more critical of Lackey's skills, but honestly, I'm just too fond of her to care too much about the prose waffle.

Have you tried some of the fairy-tale retelling stories? I really liked the one called Wizard of London and it's on Audible with a good reader.

[strigine.livejournal.com]

I quite liked the, uh...shoot, I forget the title. Loose "Beauty and the Beast" retell in San Francisco?

Also, uh...links to those highschool AUs, please? Because that's something I didn't realize I wanted until just now. XD

[estara.livejournal.com]

The Fire Rose, I think.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'm writing a big followup post on what I like most about her books, which is actually a big flaw in the fantasy genre. XD

I may have to try those! She does have a straightforward prose and story style that I really need to read occasionally, when I need comfort reading and I've blown through all the Pratchetts.

[longshot14.livejournal.com]

*hangs head* Yeah, that's a fair cop. Consider me duly chastised.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:D

[tingirl.livejournal.com]

I don't see how saying someone shouldn't write X is materially less aggressive than saying they shouldn't write, but it's your LJ and I apologize for any too-goofy attitudes of mine.

"* Mostly in regards to finding the Vanyel trilogy as an outcast gay teen and finding a way out of suicidal depression with the message that you are not alone and you are okay just the way you are. More than one person, yes.**"

I find this just infuriating. That people should *have* to be getting affirmation from a novel? One lousy series? Argh. Rage!

As a non-fan (Not an antifan, I don't care that much...) I am very very aware that she's a beloved author. I just don't get why. I sincerely wish I did, since she's in nearly every fantasy anthology I pick up, and I wish I could enjoy the stories instead of cringing. But her "voice" doesn't resonate with me, and there's a lot of things she seems to love that make me see red.

(Oh, and you've gone and put up a post about her books in general! I'll go over there then.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Because it's "This should be written another way," not "You shouldn't write."

I find this just infuriating. That people should *have* to be getting affirmation from a novel? One lousy series? Argh. Rage!

Yup, exactly. But I'm happy that they did, at least, find the book and that it helped them.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Not gay - but I'll admit that part of the reason that I'm pro-gay rights today is because of the Vanyel books, which were the first time I remember ever seeing a) a gay main character and b) a gay character presented as a sympathetic person with genuine feelings toward their partner(s). It gave me a perspective different from my mother's,which is that homosexuality is sinful and not "real love", or my father's, which tended to conflate homosexuality with child abuse... even though he had an uncle who he cared for who he was pretty sure looking back was gay.

I tend to like her a lot for her openness towards religious differences as well - again, it gave me a viewpoint of "hey, just because this isn't what Mom & her church say is THE TRUTH, doesn't mean that it's invalid or that we have to dislike them for Not Believing The Same Things We Do."

I like her fairy-tale retellings as well, her Magic Kingdoms series is fun.