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Oct. 22nd, 2007
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Interview with Lois McMaster Bujold
Oct. 22nd, 2007 11:57 amCheck it out here. The interview includes some interesting information on LMB's survey of romance and why/how she came to write a book/series in which the romance was central rather than secondary. (Courtesy of LMB's myspace feed).
Check out the News page of Dendarii.com, which links to a smaller blurb on the romance/sff tension and the different perspectives of habitual genre readers.
Check out the News page of Dendarii.com, which links to a smaller blurb on the romance/sff tension and the different perspectives of habitual genre readers.
SBD: author intrusion
Oct. 22nd, 2007 12:08 pmTis Monday, so it must be time to bitch!
My topic today: authorial intrusion into the fictional world of the characters. And I have two examples to share. The first was intentional, the second probably not so much.
First, JR Ward and her BDB "interviews". Check out this "interview" (courtesy of KatMayo and Romance Buy the Book). My first thought was that if Ward had to tell readers that V and Jane got an HEA, then she didn't do a good enough job the first time around. Second thought, jeeze, more of the "stillies", "beat feet", etc., vocabulary. Eh. But after I was finished, the POV started to bother me. The author was basically inserting herself into the storyline of the characters. Which is just strange to me. Not (just) because of the whole reality/fiction separation, but because it seems intrusive to me. It changes the focus from the characters to the author, which seems distracting and wrong. Isn't the focus supposed to be on the chracters?
Second, Blair Underwood and Tennyson Hardwick. Blair is gorgeous. He would make an excellent Wrath, IMO. (That idea sprang not from me, though.I think Roslyn Hardy or Monica Jackson or Angela Sharon Cullars cast the BDB as black, and he just works.) As I read Casanegra, I had to work to keep from imagining Underwood as Ten Hardwick, especially when he talked about The Face and the sex appeal. When I got to the afterword and learned that the idea for the book came from an aborted project, Ten became Blair in my head. Intentional? No, but the image is there now. Assuming that there are more Tennyson Hardwick novels coming, Underwood is cast as the main character in my head now. Right? Wrong? I don't know. But it is unusual for me, because I don't generally imagine real people or actors in the roles of book characters as I read.
Do other authors do this? Intentionally? Unintentionally? I'm curious to know what other readers think.
My topic today: authorial intrusion into the fictional world of the characters. And I have two examples to share. The first was intentional, the second probably not so much.
First, JR Ward and her BDB "interviews". Check out this "interview" (courtesy of KatMayo and Romance Buy the Book). My first thought was that if Ward had to tell readers that V and Jane got an HEA, then she didn't do a good enough job the first time around. Second thought, jeeze, more of the "stillies", "beat feet", etc., vocabulary. Eh. But after I was finished, the POV started to bother me. The author was basically inserting herself into the storyline of the characters. Which is just strange to me. Not (just) because of the whole reality/fiction separation, but because it seems intrusive to me. It changes the focus from the characters to the author, which seems distracting and wrong. Isn't the focus supposed to be on the chracters?
Second, Blair Underwood and Tennyson Hardwick. Blair is gorgeous. He would make an excellent Wrath, IMO. (That idea sprang not from me, though.
Do other authors do this? Intentionally? Unintentionally? I'm curious to know what other readers think.