Voice--getting your characters to speak

Looking at the title of this post, you may think this is about style or dialogue, but instead this is about a problem I'm having in my own writing. I am about to have a scene where a main character is about to confront a supporting character about an insult given by the supporting character that resulted in an incident that was potentially fatal for more than one person. That's just a vague description, I know, but the plot behind the confrontation is not what my problem is. I have a problem with the supporting character's (let's call him L) voice.

With L being a character that doesn't show up all the time, I've lost exactly how his voice sounds. I can describe it, but the way that the words come out of his mouth, the way his lips work them has escaped me. The main character (let's call her R) has been in quite a few scenes since the last time we heard from L (being a main character, of course) and while I could superficially describe R's voice, I have a decent grip on how words come out of her own accent and slang without too much trouble.

This is a problem that I know a lot of writers struggle with. I've named more than one famous author that didn't even attempt to differentiate his characters' speech patterns. So here are a few ideas to deal with the problem of a character without a voice, or a lost voice for a character.

• Tell a mundane story in their voice. Write out a paragraph of something that happened to you, or even something that happened to the character in a neutral voice. Then rewrite it in the voice of your character. Use phrases, words, and slang that your character would. Include accent markings with apostrophes.
• Listen to TV. Normally, TV would be the bane of any productive writing regimen, but TV gives you a place to listen to a variety of speech patterns all in your living room. The key here is to listen. Turn on the stereo put leave the picture off. Turn the TV on and type the words you hear. Eventually, you may get an idea of how you wish a character to speak.
• Base a character's speech patterns on someone you know. It's always tricky to base a character on someone you know, but in this case it may be harder for them to recognize themselves in the final product and thus reduce their anger. Or it may do this exact opposite. Either way, this is the easiest way to develop a character's voice, since you could always call the friend and ask them to tell you about their day to get the subtleties of they way they speak.
• Reread old dialogue featuring the character. This is best for when you've lost the way a character speaks. To compound this technique, read it aloud, in their voice. You may want to do this alone to avoid ridicule. :)

Tough Reads--getting through books you hate

Let's say you're a regular Joe. Joe the Plumber, if you don't mind old political jokes. And you've got this book you received as a gift, or picked up for a long plane ride, or whatever. You sit down to read this tome you have recently acquired...

And discover that you hate it.

Maybe it's the predictable story. Maybe it rips off a well-known myth verbatim. Maybe the characters are ninnies, or the writing is flat, or you just find yourself looking to see what page you're on and how much time has passed. Everyone has come across a book or two that they can't stand in their lifetime.

The difference between casual readers and writers, however, is what is done once this realization has come to pass. A casual reader will simply put down the book and not pick it up again. They may sell it at a garage sale, donate it to a library, take it to a used bookstore, or even recycle it. Either way, they feel no real need to finish the book anyway.

A writer is different. A writer is a little more sensitive to what stories bother them the most and why. They are the ones most likely to be ranting about how they like or dislike a book they are consuming. But the real difference between a casual reader and the writer is that the writer will finish reading the book anyway, no matter how long it takes for them to read it. Or, at least, they should.

A casual reader is the main audience of any author's work, and fights to keep their interest. The writer who reads the book is not likely to put it down because, if it is nonfiction, they plow through to get to the juicy info, even if the author has dried it out to its base components. If it is fiction, the writer will still read it, if only to pick out the reasons why they do not like the story.

It is common advice for a writer to read wildly and from many different genres. This is to make themselves aware of the cliches, mix genres, use ideas from many different places, and to inspire themselves. The main reason, though, is this: a writer has to know what they like and don't like to read. If you don't like to read it, chances are that you will hate to write it, and that will come out to the reader. Even if there are thousands of readers who enjoy, say, religious romance in their fiction, if you hate it and try to tap it anyway, for those thousands, they will know how you feel about it, and dislike your work.

Besides, it is good practice to analyze the books you read to get to the very core of what you like and don't like. That, more than a wide vocabulary or good grammar, will get you farther in your writing career.

Reading books you hate, however, is not easy. I've done it, and am stuck doing it right now. Here are some ways to get yourself through a tough book to read.

• Take breaks. (Hey! I'm doing this one right now!) If you sit and try to plow through a book you despise in a day or two, you'll just find yourself to be miserable. Life's too short for that. Instead, take a break every hour, twenty pages, or chapter, whichever works for you.
• Reward yourself. During your break, take a moment to please yourself. Maybe watch a little TV, surf the Internet, get a snack, or call a friend. Renew your spirit before you head back to that book that's driving you mad.
• Isolate yourself with it. That casual reader on the plane with the bad book will likely put it down every once in a while to stare out the window, but without any other entertainment, the book will probably get read anyway. Take the book with you when you pick up your take-out, when you have to go to the DMV, or any other time you feel like you'll have to wait a long enough time to get bored enough to read even if the writing is bad.
• Read it on the toilet. You'll visit the toilet at least a few times a day. Take these times to read a chapter or two. I'm not kidding. Just make sure not to touch the book in the time between wiping and washing your hands.
• Take notes. During your little break, take notes on what you hate and why you hate it. These notes will prove valuable when you sit down to write your own material. You'll know exactly what not to do. At the very least, you'll remember why you hate it when you complain to your loved ones about that author.

Still think it would just be easier to put the book down and forget about it? Sure. Okay. Fine. But first, write down why you hate it, please. This will be the most important information you can take from however little of the book you ingested. Then, read the rest of it, just to see if there are any other reasons why you hate it. Read sections that make you sick out loud to your loved ones. Then, remember: this guy got published, and you know you can write twenty times better than him.

Cafes--distraction or diligence?

This past Sunday was the day my local writing group (notably made up almost entirely of NaNoWriMo participants) was supposed to meet up. The planning was a little sketchy, the time based entirely on an online poll, and the place really only determined by one person's needs. So, I should not have been surprised to arrive at my nearby Barnes and Noble cafe only to discover no familiar faces amongst the study groups, newspaper-purveyors, and late-lunchers. No matter, I thought. I ordered my iced tea and found myself a tiny table in the same general area we usually met up in in the bastardized Starbucks. I decided to not waste the time by just sitting and watching the door for anyone I might know and instead elected to dig out my laptop and get started writing.

It took me about an hour and a half to finish my iced tea and about a thousand words of work on my current writing project, but with my headphones on, the time passed as if I wasn't even in the same flow. I felt accomplished, isolated in my privacy like I never would be at home.

In today's shitty economy, this may not be considered the most conservative way to get the peace and quiet (quiet, here, meaning lack of interruption, not silence) one needs to really buckle down and lose themselves in their work. Why go to a coffee shop, where to take up a table you have to order something, when you could easily just sit at your desk at home? For those that live alone, this may seem absurd, since they can get all the peace they need at home. But for those that live with their family, their spouse, or even just a couple of roommates, peace and quiet may instead seem like a luxury other writers can have but they are not blessed with.

Or maybe the opposite is true. Maybe you live with your family but are able to produce well because they know when not to bother you. Maybe you live alone, but the distractions of laundry, dishes, and other tidying keep you from just sitting down at the desk. Maybe your problem is a mix of the two, and you felt a touch of envy when I described sitting at a table in a cafe working for an hour and a half straight without so much as a nagging need to clean the toilet or a nagging mother or wife telling you to do the same.

In both Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg champions the cafe as her favorite place to write. She even relates an anecdote about her time spent near Walden Pond, like Thoreau before her, pacing before her previous seat under a tree, claiming that writing here was not going to work, that she needed a cafe. As often as she meets with writing friends for what we WriMos would call "word wars" or just to discuss stories at her cafes, as often as she goes there to sit and write in her notebooks, Goldberg had established her cafes as her writing space.

Without going into the aspects of writing spaces (That would be a whole different post altogether!), there is nothing wrong with getting out of the house once in a while to write elsewhere. Write in a library. Write in a park. Or do as Goldberg, I, and so many writers before us all have in every town imaginable, and write in a cafe.

Is it just a pointless distraction? It can be, for some. If you're at a bookstore, and are an avid reader like I suspect you are, the temptation to go out into the shelves and pick out a few new title to add to your reading pile at home may be too much. If you're there with a group, it may be easier to suppress this temptation, since you are all there to write, not to browse.

Or maybe you're there with a group, and the temptation to talk amongst each other seems to be eating not just you, but several other members as well. You can avoid this by going to the chosen public spot alone a few times and writing there. This can help you establish the place as a writing haven for you, and you'll be thinking literarily before you even sit at a table. For now, you can challenge yourself and the group to write for fifteen minutes and then, when the time is up, spend fine minutes talking about what just happened in each story and how excited you are. Then write for fifteen minutes again. You'll make bonds with your fellow writers and feel like you're really accomplishing something in that time.

If you plan to write in a coffee shop or Internet cafe:

• Buy something. Whether it be food or drink, contribute some money to the establishment that you are going to camp in, especially if it will be for several hours.

• Tip and tip generously. You are going to be taking up space that other people may have used, and you may not buy much else since you'll be more occupied with your plots than that slice of chocolate cheesecake you bought. It may be their job to just serve you your coffee or sandwich, but you are also paying for the use of their tables. Don't know how much to tip? Leave your coin change. You don't want it anyway.
• Clean up after yourself. It may be the baristas' jobs to mix you a decent espresso, but it doesn't make them happy to have to pick up your trash. Put all litter in the proper receptacles. Also, if you are in a group and change the configuration of their tables and chairs, be sure to put them back.
• Be friendly to the staff. This pays out twofold. First, you get better service, in the long run, if the baristas or wait staff enjoy their time. Second, you will develop a better relationship with them and, in turn, the place. This pays out if you plan on staking a table claim on a regular basis here. They will be more receptive to your arrival and maybe even allow you to stay longer than usual, especially if you are (see above) a good tipper. You may even hear a few stories of their own about family or guests that will make for interesting plotlines or characters in your projects.
• Seat yourself pointed at the door, or the counter. This is particularly helpful if you have writer's block. You can begin by writing descriptions of the people you see and how you imagine they live. On another note, if you are waiting for your group to arrive, you'l be much more recognizable than the back of your head.
• Don't pay for Wi-Fi. The point is to get work done. Even if you're at an Internet cafe, forgo the ability to check your e-mail, webcomics, blogs, and news sites. Even if you tell yourself that you're doing research, you are just allowing yourself the same distractions as at home. Really need that online thesaurus or dictionary? Color the word you want to replace or fact you want to confirm in a noticeable hue, and look it up when you get home. Even better? Ask your writing group for another word for such-and-such, or who they think shot first in the Revolutionary War. You may be pleasantly surprised with their answers.

If your coffee shop or Internet cafe has something that is tempting you, like a bookstore or sugary snacks, feel free to buy yourself something before you leave. But after you've accomplished your goal. Don't distract yourself during writing time.

Resolve--don't set yourself up for failure this year

A new year is upon us and with it comes the commercials for weight-loss products, the rolling of our loved ones' eyes, and the feeling of starting fresh. If you're a writer, it will be tempting to squeeze "Write Every Day" between "Get Organized" and "Quit Smoking". And this is all right. Every writer looks to a new year with the intention of writing more, especially if they feel they haven't been writing enough.

But it's important not to get carried away.

The main reason New Year's resolutions fail is because people resolve to do too much too quickly, and then abandon the attempt entirely after about a week or so. How many times have you resolved to get into shape and eat healthily, but give up the first time you go to the store and have those snack cakes crying lustily out to you from the shelf? How often have you decided to get organized, head to the closet, and realize that you have way too much junk to handle alone, and then just sit and watch TV instead? It is important that, if you want to make a difference in your writing life for the new year, to not try to write a poem a day or a novel every month, especially if you haven't been writing much recently anyway.

So what should you do instead?

• Make sensible resolutions. It may seem sensible on New Year's Eve to resolve to write a thousand words a day, but when New Year's Day rolls around and you aren't feeling it, you may come to resent coming to the desk. That isn't the point of writer's resolutions. Instead, you could resolve to do something small and writerly, like write in your journal every day, write at least one sentence a day, try to finish a small project by the end of the month.
  
• Don't be so hard on yourself. So you spend New Year's Day avoiding the desk by taking down holiday decorations, or by playing with all that new stuff you got last week, or even hide from it in bed claiming to have a headache. When the day is over and no writing has been done, you throw the blanket off your head and think, "Well, I've missed the first day of the year. The first day and my resolution is gone! I must not be cut out for this." Then you decide to give up on writing every day completely. I have only one thing to say to these people: NO! Just because you slip up does not mean that you have failed. It only means that you missed an opportunity; an opportunity that will be there tomorrow just as much as today. One skipped day does not mean the rest of the year is ruined. You just try again the next day.
• A year is a long time; think instead in months, or even weeks. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the length of time when it comes to writing. Write every day? For a whole year? What if you have something come up? Instead of thinking is such broad terms, think smaller. This week, write every day. Next week, maybe you'll do something else. Take your resolution one step at a time.
• Start today. You'll notice that today is not January First. But what is January First if not just a day? You could start again on that failed resolution that you've already abandoned today. New Year's Day is not a magical day, and neither is the first of any month, or any Sunday, or Monday. Every day is just a day, and a day with an opportunity. Want to write every day this year? Write today. Something. Anything. Put pen to paper. Open a word processor. Write about how writing is hard. Write about how not starting on the first day of the year is stupid. Write about how your family is irritating and your middle wide and your sleeping patterns wonky. Write about whatever is on your mind, but write.

Outlining--should you or shouldn't you?

To outline or not to outline. That is the source of a lot of tension amongst authors planning their novels or short stories. For every writer that swears by their outline, there is another saying that the surprise of what might happen keeps him or her writing.

Just like early birds and night owls, they will proclaim the usefulness of their particular method in their writing: the outline keeps the pace and allows for the author to plan scenes in advance, a lack of outline allows for the author to try out new ideas without worrying about breaking their system. And just like a preference for early morning or late night, the choice to outline or not is a personal one.

Which one am I?
There is no hard and fast science to determining what will get you writing more. It is generally determined by how you prefer your own life: rigidly scheduled, or more spontaneous? But even this determination is unclear. I myself tend to work on firm plans and become flustered when my plans have to make drastic changes on short notice, but yet when I write, I prefer very little outlining. You may be prepared to cancel all weekend plans for an impromptu road-trip, but when you come to the desk, you may want to not deviate from what you originally intended.

The best way to determine if you're an outliner or not is to try it out. Try writing a chapter without an outline. Try writing another with one. Which one produces the most output in the fastest amount of time?

Even more confusing is that your opinion on the use of outlines or not could change between projects. You may want to outline a short story, but leave open the realm of possibility for a novel.

Why you should use an outline
Outlines can be incredibly detailed or very vague, based on your own preference. From one end of the spectrum, you can make a list of important scenes you want to make sure make it into your story. On the other, you would create an outline for the whole story as well as outlines for each chapter, and then mini-outlines for each scene.

You can make the vague outline in order to make sure you do not miss anything important, and still leave out holes for outside-the-outline inspiration to fill. This is a little more middle-of-the-road in the debate, and is a good point to start outlining from. If you are new to outlining, or are trying it out from a perspective that usually spurns outlines, this is also an ideal beginning.

More detailed outlines can be useful to authors that want to make sure that nothing is lost in the writing. For instance, without an outline, a character may be ignored, even if they are a main character, for long periods of time. With an outline, especially a flexible one, an author can move scenes around to create a perfect flow of attention, so that the story does not weigh heavily on one party or another.

The most detailed outlines are useful mostly to get the idea across while you feel creative enough to see a story, chapter, or scene, so that later on you can still write and get the message across even if you do not feel as up to writing as before. Say you have the flu. You could either write off a day of writing, or simply write out the outlined scene into your document and still call it a day early. The writing may not be the most florid, but it is better than not written at all.

Why you should forget about outlining
For some writers, outline are as constricting as too-small wool sweaters. Their stories are able to proceed in the originally intended direction, but if any interesting, less-traveled path is spotted on the trail, the writer is disappointed that the hiking plans do not allow for such deviation. For some writer's the detailed outline is too much, but the more general outline is flexible enough. For other, even this outline is too safe.

As I said before, if you are a traditional outliner wanting to try out writing without such plans, it would be best to try only outlining a few general ideas, but allowing for blank space to fill up the majority of the outline. This blank space will be filled upon writing, but not with material the author may have originally intended. This deviation is okay! Like people and plants, plots grow and curl in unexpected ways. This can often make for a richer tale.

If even this minimal outlining is too much, you may not need an outline. If you plan to have a wife become the president of the PTA, but she cries to go on a sudden roadtrip to Canada, don't feel as if you have to force her into your originally intended role. Let her go. Follow that thread. If it doesn't work out, you can always delete or cross out.

Why you should consider both
I used to write with detailed outlines. It let me get all of my thinking done ahead of time. But the writing that fleshed out the scenes was anorexic. It was really just my original ideas in full length sentences. Something was not right. So I tried not using outlines. I didn't know what to write. My palms were sweaty.

Finally, I determined what I needed: a planned beginning, a planned end, a few sparse ideas for the middle, and no written outline. My plans were kept in my head where I could cultivate them; if I wrote them down, they would be permanent. I knew they weren't, but it felt that way.

Try outlining your story. Try deviating from your outline. Try not having an outline at all. Find one that works for you and for your project. If that method stops working, try another. Don't feel trapped using a method that doesn't work for you. The only one trapping you is you.

Relationships--mastering the art of the friendship

Let's say you have a story in mind: you've outlined the whole plot, have characters with backstories and premade relationships. Susie is Billy's girlfriend, but also the sister of the band leader Martin, who is Adriana's little-something-on-the-side. Many of these characters probably have intricate webs of acquaintances, best-friendships, loves, enemies, and even more minute deviations in knowing and liking.

After all this planning, you start to write a scene where two long-time friends interact, perhaps at a meal or some such. Let's look at an example.

"Good morning, Susie."

"Morning, Billy. That the newspaper?"

"Yep. Want a section?"

"Comics, please."

... By now I'm sure you see the problem. Let's make Susie and Billy acquaintances, perhaps people who work for the same company but have never really interacted closely before. The same exchange could take place, easily. Because of this, the dialogue doesn't seem to ring true. They're supposed to be friends, right? Boyfriend and girlfriend? So why is their interaction so... bland?

This is the real question for any writer. Why is it that, seemingly simple exchanges that could very well take place in real life fall flat in fiction? Let's say that you're up in an airplane, snacking on the pretzels you receive for free. They taste plain, even with the salt that is so visible on them. Your Coke tastes more like the plastic cup it is served in than the delicious high fructose corn syrup you were expecting. What happened? The truth of the matter is, depending on air pressure, the same thing that makes your ears pop and ache, your tastebuds require extra stimulation. This is apparent in the expensive meals onboard: they seem to have a flavor. The reasoning for that is because it is overseasoned to make up for this taste-sensitivity loss.

This relates in fiction more than most people know. The emotions and expressions of the characters must be a little more exaggerated to effectively communicate. Take, for example, the exchange above. The dialogue could be that of boyfriend-and-girlfriend in real life, or of co-workers, or acquainted customers of a coffee shop. The trouble is, for all of its realism, it lacks the history and emotion related to the relationship.

Most writers end up writing exchanges like the one above, and, upon realizing that the history and the feelings are absent, superimpose these in the narration. An example:

"Good morning, Susie." Billy was always so chipper in the morning, Susie thought with a grumble. Susie needed more coffee and sugared cereal to even come close to his demeanor. Which, of course, bothered her. Which, of course, he knew.

"Morning, Billy. That the newspaper?" Of course it was; what did she expect it to be, shredded magazine clippings? Her brain was not running on all cylinders. She couldn't even get out as many syllables.

"Yep. Want a section?" As if she was prepared to read about economic growth percentages and make sense of them.

"Comics, please." Billy smiled an knowing smile and handed her the top-most bundle; the only bundle to have been completely removed from the newspaper before her arrival to the kitchen. Susie narrowed her eyes. Was she as predictable as he, with his smug cheer? God, it irritated her.

... This is a perfectly all right writing sample for a beginner. This is a piece of writing that is written in pieces, and clearly so. The dialogue obviously was written first, mostly to be page-filler, squinted at by the author as not-quite-right, and then having narration come up from behind to add something extra to the dialogue that it didn't have before.

What the dialogue, narration, and scene should do is define the relationship. Even if you've written the characters over other scenes where they simply interact, you must still define the relationship. Relationships change on a daily basis. Not so drastically from enemy to lover, but one day two people may be more cautious with each other because of mood. The next, they may have a bit more simplicity to their exchanges. This is particularly true for characters who are supposed to be long-time friends. Two characters who have known each other for a long time have feelings that have been cultivated for longer than the writer probably can understand, having just met them himself. There is an easiness to their exchanges, messages in their silences, and a cruelty to their drama that is not as well play between acquaintances.

Let's try that exchange once more, with narration and description.

Susie blinked as she shuffled into the kitchen. Practically gleaming in the new sun, it pained her to even look around for any unlikely obstacles between her and the table. Even if her eyes weren't squinted, they would have been upon seeing Billy in his crisply ironed shirt and perfect tie, glancing over the stock page of their local newspaper. Susie growled under her breath: a quiet sound to her, but one that drew her boyfriend's attention away from the endless lists of numbers and arrows. With a shake of his head and a smile, he handed her a Garfield mug, filled with steaming bitterness offset by milk and sugar.

Susie took it from him and sipped greedily as she slipped into the opposite dining chair. After gasping for breath, she eyed the perfectly folded newspaper sections on the table. She frowned. Had he really gotten a paper from the grocery store, or was the paper-boy really so awful as to steal sections?

Billy crinkled the paper in his hands to lift up her precious comics section. He shook it a tad to get her attention. Her blue eyes widened and a smile tugged at her mouth. Susie held out her hands, as if begging for food or spare change, her brows straining to touch her hairline. With a sigh and another shake of his head, Billy folded the section and scooted it across the table to her. "You know," he stated, breaking their silence, "there are other sections of the paper you might be interested in. Classifieds, for example."

"Piss off. I don't need this now."

"Oh? When do you plan on--"

"Billy, please." Susie set the mug down, and covered her face with her hands.

When she said nothing more, Billy stood, scratching his chair in towards the table. Muttering under his breath, his heeled shoes clomped out of the kitchen, out of the apartment, perhaps even out of her life. Susie sighed and let her hands drop, crossing her arms. No. She wouldn't be so lucky.

...Here, the narration dominates, but only because the tension of the silence is laid over the scene, rather than depending on mundane dialogue to move a scene along. At the same time, you get that, while Susie and Billy are not exactly on good terms, they know how to push each other's buttons. Considering that I wrote that just now, it's not a perfect example of relationship interaction, but that's what the greats are for.

How do you develop a sense of relationship in characters? Glad you asked!

• Look to your own relationships. The best research is your own life. You have your circles of friends and acquaintances. Even people you see often but don't consider friends are good fodder for this. Anyone with whom you have inside jokes with, know how to irritate, stories about, or more than the most minimal interaction with is perfect. Analyze how you interact with them, how they interact with others in this environment.
• Freewrite with your characters. This could mean you interviewing them about themselves, or their relationships, or more detailed exercises. If the way you imagine your characters interacting is more on a level of acquaintance than the friendship you expected, it may be you. Imagine being with a friend and with a stranger at the same time. You're not going to act quite as you would if it was just the friend. Convince the character that you are a friend as well. Also, if you just superimpose a friendship between two characters, the relationship may need work on its own. Write the two characters interacting with something mundane, like grocery shopping or cleaning. Make them talk. Write out their inside jokes and little stories to tell about each other.
• Study camaraderie in fiction. With many stories focusing mostly on developing the ubiquitous romantic relationship, this could prove more difficult than it should. Some examples in fantasy of these relationships can be found in the works of Tamora Pierce, Anne Bishop, and Elizabeth Haydon, to name a few. Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series takes nine books to develop the friendships of four young mages who start off as abrasive acquaintances but grow to become like family. Anne Bishop's Black Jewels "Trilogy" includes friendships that seem unsteady with the level of threats exchanged between close friends, but examine how Andulvar and Saetan, Lucivar and Jaenelle, and Daemon and Surreal interact. It isn't about love there; it's about the history of it all. Finally, Elizabeth Haydon creates a perfect relationship between Rhapsody, Achmed, and Grunthor in her Symphony of the Ages. "Siblings" by mutual adoption, the exchanges between them start rocky, but grow to be more like best friends with a closeness that makes them each easy targets for any of the other's insults.

In the end, what you're trying to accomplish is a realistic friendship like the ones you yourself have. Like Anne Bishop put, "Demanding and yielding, stubborn and considerate, arguing with one of them and defending that person in the next breath." Sound familiar?

Jordan--pissing on the man's grave

In September of last year, the speculative fiction world was shocked with the loss of one of its greats: Robert Jordan. Fans wept, authors made tributes, and the rest of the world said, "Who?" I'm sure most of you remember the backlash of emotion and anger. Mostly, this shock was due to the fact that his magnum opus, the Wheel of Time series, was still incomplete. Now, unless someone finds the technology to reanimate the dead a la Herbert West, that means that someone else will have to finish the series.

This post is not about that.

See, upon Jordan's death, I looked at my booklist and decided that I may as well read some of the poor bastard's work. I received the first book, The Eye of the World for Christmas, but did not get to reading it until just this past week. I started it on Tuesday, and finished it on Friday. "Great!" you think. "That must mean it was good!"

Au contraire.

I'm a big fan of George R.R. Martin. His thousand-plus page novels take me only a couple of days to read. This book came close in length, but my quick reading of it was not due to my enjoyment. Just the opposite. I couldn't stand it, and so I tried to get it over with quickly.

This novel starts off like a verbatim copy of Lord of the Rings, including the wise helpers that disappear for at least a portion of the novel, the hapless farm-dwellers upon whom the fate of the world depends, and distinctly evil creatures and persons involved to try to stop the illustrious band of do-gooders.

Gag.

I understand that a lot of authors want to rip Tolkien off. If you can say that your book series is still wildly popular fifty years later, you must be doing something right. And how better to do that "something" than to steal it. How did this shit fly in the early nineties? I understand ripping off another novel and being hailed as original in maybe the seventies or eighties, but the nineties, people. Robert Jordan thought that maybe no one would see through his "originality" as recent as that.

Upon finished this book, I discovered that it was actually a stepping stone of a pathway of ripping-each-other-offedness. Tolkien came up with some shit in desperate need of editing. Jordan took Tolkien's shit, tried to make a log exactly like it, and then populate it with stock characters and called it original. Now it gets interesting. I'm sure that Jordan's last page revelations were a big deal when the book came out. But I've read Terry Goodkind before this dead guy, so not only did I see it coming, it really only made me more upset. Granted, Goodkind came after Jordan, with Wizard's First Rule being released in 1994. So this really only meant that Goodkind ripped Jordan off.

And all three of these badly written series are psychotically popular.

I suppose some discussion about archetypes and classical stories talking to something primal inside of us would really just whisk this whole problem away and make me seem like a spoiled brat, but let's look at it from an objective eye.

Fantasy is genre work. That means that the people who write it are also those that read it. And those that read it are going to read other works in the same genre. At what point is being unoriginal considered a good thing when your target audience has read the exact same novel that you are ripping off?

I know I'm in the minority. How can someone call someone a bad writer when they are barely cold in the coffin? I try to separate the artist from the work, but I'm not always successful. I hate Metallica because their music sucks and they are assholes. Anne McCaffrey is off her rocker, but she can still spin a readable tale. Goodkind is a bad writer, and an asshole at that. I never looked into Jordan's handling of fans, or attitude toward life. But I can tell you right now that I think his writing sucks.

Go ahead and try to make me change my opinion. I spent four days this week glancing at the clock at the end of every page. In what universe is this considered the aim for the writer and the reader?