Tag Archive | Plot

Suspension of (dis)Belief

Aug23

I wrote a whole romance story in my little Mead spiral notebook when I was in 4th grade. I don’t remember the particulars, but I do remember the female main character having a broken arm and leg, hopping on a motorcycle and riding it down the face of a mountain. Not very believable. It tracks, tho, for my age at the time.

You all know I don’t name and shame when I find something I so passionately disagree with in a book that I’m willing to write about it here. I spoke, at length, to my BFF last night (who is NOT a reader) about the problem I had with the book & problem we are going to discuss. I basically gave a TED talk.

When I went back to see the reviews I kept coming across the acronym TSTL in reference to the female main character (FMC). I’m a little old, and oblivious, and my first thought was “What’s a T St Louis?” No, Dear Reader, it does not have anything to do with the city. It apparently means TOO STUPID TO LIVE

Roughly 4 months pregnant, she hops fences, gets drugged 3 or 4 times within a couple of chapters, mounts a rescue with a teen girl, oh … The same teen girl who tried to help her escape the hero. And The “hero” choked her out and left bruising and chafing around her neck. This wasn’t sexual. It was abuse. And all the heroine would say was “It’s complicated.”

This FMC is the one in a horror story who would say “Hey, what’s that noise in the basement? Oh, look, it’s a werewolf should I pet it?”

I can’t tell you how it ends because I gave up on the series somewhere in the middle of book 2. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief. Now, I’m not trying to yuck someone else’s yum. If you like books that veer more towards bruises that’s ok. Your reading taste does not have to be the same as mine. 

But what I really can’t abide is how stupid the FMC was.  And how cavalier she was with the lives of not only her unborn babies but the teen girl and her brother. She was “so good with them”, and yet she kept making choices that any dumbass would know were going to have high consequences. For her and them.

And she kept making the same mistakes.

It’s ok to write a character who is TSTL. But as authors we need to write some kind of growth (unless it’s a horror book). Or at least new ways to be stupid.  The FMC was not exhibiting any signs of growing the F up, and the hero was devolving. As a reader I was skipping whole parts and as a writer I knew…. When that starts happening, it’s time to skip the book altogether.

What’s your reading TED Talk about, Dear Reader?

The Plot thickens

Apr10

Shake em, stir em, rattle them babies around. It’s kind of nice seeing the stregnth anf vulnerabilities of your characters start to pop through. I had no idea that the tentatively titled “Garden” would have so much of a romantic subplot.

Yes. Subplot.

Because there’s a lot going on underneath that. A lot of healing that has to be done, by the heroine, before she’s going to be ready to trust someone again. And yes, she must heal herself. No one can drag you through it, but they can definately help you through it.

Yes, this one is going to have some my life in it. A lot of it. The thing is, I really really want to write this the way it deserves to be written. I love Sarah Addison Allen, and I’ve devoured all of her books. I like the magic weaving through “real” life, the characters are slightly off beat…

But they don’t have the asinine humor that I somtime’s deploy.

Yah. I said it.

When my son was a wee little babe I called him, among other things, Melon Head. I even wrote a poem about him at ten months, calling him “Beloved Melon Head”. It’s right there on the top of the page— click on it and take a look. I can wait a moment.

Waiting

Waiting

Yah. See? I can be a bit asanine. But even though there are things in there that aren’t quite right, you can tell through every line of the poem that I adore that baby.

And that’s the kind of book I want to write.

A little bit asanine, but with the beauty of possiblity woven through out.

I’m game. are you?

Note:

If you’re up to it, I’m appearing on the Mocha Memoirs Press Blog for 4/10. Another 10×10, but this time I did top ten movies. Which is harder than it looks, by the way! By the end I had to think really hard about the movies. But they are a great cross section to know the kind of person I’m like 🙂  Go find me at the MMP Blog at http://mochamemoirspress.blogspot.com/ My post should go live at midnight tonight, or you know, tomorrow as that’s the date I’m set for over there (4/10). Even if you don’t see me, poke around— there are several great authors over there blogging on a regular basis.  Oh, and Rie’s blog post back on the fifth has a snippet of ME! yes, me! They Love me! They really do! (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

Ta, my lovelies! I’m planning on blogging again tomorrow, as I will be gone all next week starting on Sunday. We’re going to Disney Land!