(no subject)
Dude, LJ, thank you for reducing my money to now $15 with your automated payments. I knew I should have turned that off.
In other news, I had a meeting with my bosses today. Apparently, I still don't suck so yay.
When I was young, I used to read classics constantly, usually male-written ones because they were my father's favorites and he was the one reccing me. I remember the great characters of Charles Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities," Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped," and Jack London's "Call of the Wild" (granted it was a dog idc) and "The Sea Wolf." I read lots of other male writers back then, but their stories more than their characters stuck out to me. This tradition of story over characters carried over to my love of Michael Crichton, especially with "Jurassic Park." Then... I stopped reading. For a long time.
Since picking up, I have gone through Stephen King's "The Dark Tower," Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson & The Olympians", Scott Barlow's "Sharp Teeth" and the first book of Brent Week's "The Night Angel Trilogy." I am working on Justin Cronin's "The Passage." Of this recent set of writers, only King and Weeks have managed to make me sincerely care about theirs. King had Eddie Dean and Weeks has Prince Logan. It's hard to explain just what the difference is but for me it's a lack of empathy. I judge characters on whether I care if terrible things happen to them and I sure cared when bad things happened to Eddie. Logan, I also cared about but on a lesser scale. To be fair, Logan has only had one book so far while Eddie had six. Riordan almost had me with Nico in "Percy Jackson" but failed to deliver completely on development and rushed many things. Still, Nico was his best success story IMO.
Anyway, the point of this rambling is that, on a whole, the recent male writers I've read have disappointed me in terms of really strong, empathetic characters. A friend once told me men struggled to write good characters, and I disagreed vehemently with her at the time. I still think it's a harsh generalization and when I used it yesterday, I was mostly complaining and being tongue-in-cheek. But I will say that, of what I've read, the stronger characters have all been in women-written books. Now will this trend hold true as I continue Weeks' series or pick up Patrick Rothfuss' "Name of the Wind"? I shall hope for the best. Does this mean men honestly can't write good characters? Of course not. It just means that men tend to focus more on the story, while women gravitate more toward the more emotional character level, which is what I think makes it easier for me to develop strong attachments to their characters in ways that aren't always so easy for characters in men-written stories. So maybe it's just a preference thing judged entirely from what I've read thus far. But hey, I love to be proven wrong. I also believe that it's impossible for me to find good YA fiction with a strong female lead that won't piss me off with its random romance. I'd love to be proven wrong on that too.
I'm thinking about writing a rundown of my favorite country artists just because I'm sad at all the country hate and want to show people there's some good stuff out there, even if it isn't what you may think when you think country. I promise it's not Taylor Swift. Also, good god, if that girl writes one more love song...
In other news, I had a meeting with my bosses today. Apparently, I still don't suck so yay.
When I was young, I used to read classics constantly, usually male-written ones because they were my father's favorites and he was the one reccing me. I remember the great characters of Charles Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities," Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped," and Jack London's "Call of the Wild" (granted it was a dog idc) and "The Sea Wolf." I read lots of other male writers back then, but their stories more than their characters stuck out to me. This tradition of story over characters carried over to my love of Michael Crichton, especially with "Jurassic Park." Then... I stopped reading. For a long time.
Since picking up, I have gone through Stephen King's "The Dark Tower," Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson & The Olympians", Scott Barlow's "Sharp Teeth" and the first book of Brent Week's "The Night Angel Trilogy." I am working on Justin Cronin's "The Passage." Of this recent set of writers, only King and Weeks have managed to make me sincerely care about theirs. King had Eddie Dean and Weeks has Prince Logan. It's hard to explain just what the difference is but for me it's a lack of empathy. I judge characters on whether I care if terrible things happen to them and I sure cared when bad things happened to Eddie. Logan, I also cared about but on a lesser scale. To be fair, Logan has only had one book so far while Eddie had six. Riordan almost had me with Nico in "Percy Jackson" but failed to deliver completely on development and rushed many things. Still, Nico was his best success story IMO.
Anyway, the point of this rambling is that, on a whole, the recent male writers I've read have disappointed me in terms of really strong, empathetic characters. A friend once told me men struggled to write good characters, and I disagreed vehemently with her at the time. I still think it's a harsh generalization and when I used it yesterday, I was mostly complaining and being tongue-in-cheek. But I will say that, of what I've read, the stronger characters have all been in women-written books. Now will this trend hold true as I continue Weeks' series or pick up Patrick Rothfuss' "Name of the Wind"? I shall hope for the best. Does this mean men honestly can't write good characters? Of course not. It just means that men tend to focus more on the story, while women gravitate more toward the more emotional character level, which is what I think makes it easier for me to develop strong attachments to their characters in ways that aren't always so easy for characters in men-written stories. So maybe it's just a preference thing judged entirely from what I've read thus far. But hey, I love to be proven wrong. I also believe that it's impossible for me to find good YA fiction with a strong female lead that won't piss me off with its random romance. I'd love to be proven wrong on that too.
I'm thinking about writing a rundown of my favorite country artists just because I'm sad at all the country hate and want to show people there's some good stuff out there, even if it isn't what you may think when you think country. I promise it's not Taylor Swift. Also, good god, if that girl writes one more love song...