rant number 702

I've said this before, but now I can't find the post, so I'm going to say it again. There are loads -- LOADS -- of tropes in the crime genre that drive me nuts, but one in particular is really toasting my muffins, lately.

It's the one-line paragraph.

Writers everywhere seem to be breaking up their paragraphs into single lines, in the desperate hope of injecting some sort of gravitas, I guess.

STOP IT.

IT'S ANNOYING.

It does nothing for your writing except undermine any real gravitas your story may develop later on. It also makes the manuscript practically unreadable. Whoever told you otherwise is an idiot.

is this bad?

I keep getting caught up in reading my own book while editing, which is slowing things down considerably. It's fun to read, for me, at least. Does that say anything about the quality of my writing? Or do all writers like their own stuff?

new story

Took a short vacation from editing The Book to write a short story today. Let me know what you think.

Fenway

how to write a non-sexist crime novel

In October, Jessica Mann, an award-winning crime novelist and Literary Review critic, decided that "I've had enough torture-porn...and won't review that any more."

Of course, it went out on the airwaves as 'Book Reviewer Quits Over 'Increasing Sexist Violence',' because I'm sure that raked in way more site hits than her more moderate actual stance would have.

After the Telegraph article came out (before Mann's clarification), I participated in a couple of on-line discussions about the issues it raised, most of which petered out into a kind of 'so what?' resolution. The overwhelming opinion seemed to be 'it's crime fiction, what does she expect?'

Oddly enough, I haven't been much bothered by sexist violence in current crime fiction, but this may be simply because I put a book down at the first sign of misogyny. What I have noticed is that I'm putting more and more books down. While I'm glad that I'm doing so before I get to the 'torture porn' sections, I find it troublesome that even good writers are still leaning on tired old sexist tropes, to wit:

• Female characters past puberty -- even those with names -- are still constantly referred to, even by female writers, as 'the girl.'
  


• Heroic male characters are routinely fat, badly dressed, dirty and/or ill-tempered; women of that description are almost always comical objects of derision, or, worse, victims-in-waiting.


• Said male characters often have romantic/sexual relationships with standardized 'beautiful' women, but fat, badly dressed, dirty and/or ill-tempered women are either single or paired with fatter, more badly dressed, dirtier and/or more ill-tempered partners.
  


• Too many female characters are rape victims, survivors of childhood sexual abuse, former (or current) sex workers, have slept with the male lead in the past or are sleeping with him now, or have otherwise sexually-referenced history or roles in the story.


• Female characters described as five-nine and 110 pounds are able to drop six-foot-two, 225-pound assailants with a single shot to the jaw. Pick one: supermodel or ass-kicking dame. She can't be both.
  


• Female characters frequently scream when cornered or frightened. If this is a natural human response, why don't male characters do it?
  


• Male characters always pursue female characters in sexual/romantic relationships, unless the relationship is comical or the female character malevolent.
  


• Adult female characters seem completely unaware of something that every adult real-life female knows: a single kick to the jewels can disable most male attackers. Male characters, surprisingly, appear similarly unenlightened.


• The continued use of the (obligatory, apparently) Dress Up Scene, where a formerly 'plain' female character puts on a sexy outfit and the hunky male character realizes he's in 'love' with her.


• Female characters who 'use sex to get what they want.' Why don't male characters ever do this? That's a book I'd read.


• All women are obsessed with having babies. All of them.
  


• Non-ironic use of the phrase, "Most women..."
  


• (Add your own here -- I know you can)

13 Nov 09

I think maybe perhaps possibly I've got that bloody scene fixed. I may have been trying to get too much information into it -- trimmed some out to reveal later and the whole thing works better. Now, however, I fear hitting a wall where I need the info I trimmed out sooner than later.

It's kind of like balancing plates on your head, this novel-construction business. One wrong move and the whole thing goes crashing down.

11 Nov 2009

As usual, I'm paying for last week's hubris with this week's trip through hell. There's a scene in the middle of The Book where a lot of backstory gets traded between the two major characters, and it's kicking my ass.

06 Nov 2009

One of those rare good days, where I read over the section I'm editing and start to think I'm a goddamned genius. It's probably a good thing I don't have more of these; I'd be insufferable.

lessons from other writers

Every time I read a book, I learn something about my own writing. I read a short novel by Sherman Alexie a couple of days ago, called Flight. When I finished, I had the same feeling I had after reading Indian Killer some years ago: why the hell is this guy so good? His writing isn't poetic, the story line is kind of awkward, but when I get to the end, I feel like some fundamental truth has been revealed to me.

I think part of it is his willingness to be a psychological exhibitionist. The way he writes about his characters' thoughts, you just know that they're thoughts he's had himself. The thing is, he doesn't just write about the noble, interesting thoughts, he puts down the ugly and shameful ones, too, and somehow it all works. I wish I knew how he does it.

The thing I learned from Sherman Alexie is that I am too shady with the less pleasant parts of my own psyche. I flinch from putting my own ugly traits into my characters; I want them all to be better than I am. But I suspect that doesn't make for very interesting reading. In fact, I can think of books like that that I hate.

What do you think? Do you believe a writer has to be in touch with his/her shadow to write well? Is psychological exhibitionism a part of good writing?