I'm a great fucking audience. If I've learned anything from editing this blog for six years, it's that I'm easy to please: I'm well-read, eager to be told great stories and I can appreciate a novel for what it is. Apparently, I have a reputation for not handing out friendly reviews and I don't have any idea where this is coming from, because I must read at least one good book every week.
That said, I'm NOT ALWAYS pleased and I've developed over the last couple years as many pet peeves about lazy and mediocre fiction as an old bachelor develops about women. Today is your lucky day because I've decided to share them with you. So sit down, drink your coffee or whatever and soak in the wisdom of a guy who reads way too fucking much. I will never tell you what to put in your novel but I can tell you what makes me want to take a shower after reading.
1) "Rescuing non-characters" plots
A woman or a child who is never featured in the novel disappears and your protagonist decides to investigate the case out of the righteousness of his heart.
This ranges from mildly annoying to burn-the-fucking-book infuriating. It's an adequate, yet stereotypical plot that gets the job done more often than not. It gets off the rails when the novel tries to borrow credibility and pathos by using women and children as weaklings that need to be saved though. More often than not, they're reduced to symbols of lost love and innocence for your protagonist.
I'm referring to novels that feature male protagonists here obviously, but I haven't read that many novels where a female protag wants to save an unknown child. Why? Because this plot, no matter what it masquerades as, perpetuates the idea that the world needs men to do all the heavy lifting that that women can't figure shit out for themselves. I would rather read a female version of MacGuyer squirming her way out of bad situations out of sheer resourcefulness than sit through another story about a moping asshole looking "to do the right thing."
The right thing by who, you horny fool?
2) Righteous Masturbatory Fantasies
She's tall, athletic and sexy and so not the protagonist of the story. She's wearing fuck-me pumps and pencil skirts, yet she knows Kung Fu, Kickboxing, Aïkido and knife fighting BECAUSE SHE'S EMPOWERING!
No, she's not. Because she doesn't exist, she's the girl you pleasure yourself to, you repulsive swine. Look, here's the thing about female characters. They don't have to define themselves using male criteria. It's not because a girl doesn't throw wheel kicks in fuck-me pumps that she's not badass. If I'm ever in trouble, I want Winter's Bone courageous and selfless Ree Dolly to bail me out rather than a girl who cannot figure out how to get in proper fight attire.
The only time I've seen the badass chick pulled off correctly was in Sam Hawken's The Night Charter and lots of that has to do with Camaro Espinoza being the protagonist of her own story and that she has desires other than to bang every male she comes across. I'm all about badass chicks, but please let's get rid of what professor Caroline Heldman aptly named "the fighting fuck toy" and her cousin "the obvious vixen."
3) Quality Surrogates
Bullets are flying. Blood is gushing. Bodies are falling, but will somebody tell me what in the blue fuck is going on?
Lots of "gritty" horror novels are guilty of this one. If there's something I've learned reading the darkest and most violent books you can find on the market is that your story can be about whatever you want as long as you have strong characters and a smart plot. No amount of blood and guts and bullets and racial stereotypes will ever make me care about a hollow dirtbag because if his actions have no purpose or context I can relate to, it's just noise and god knows it's easy to lose a reader over a couple pages. Just try me.
My definition of a great story goes as follows: the greatest (or worst) thing to ever happen to the most interesting person you know. That's it. It's all you need. It's tempting to artificially pump your novel with fast-paced action scenes, gritty violence and flying dildos because it works in cinema, but it doesn't fly in a form that is all about establishing relationships. It does works in Gabino Iglesias' Zero Saints because its epic opening chapter is about Fernando's crippling feeling of terror and not about the violence he's witnessing. Don't be lazy. Don't look for surrogates for your lack of creativity.
What your motorcycle riding, shotgun wielding protagonist and his friends really look like at the bar.
4) Posturing
The protagonist is always clad in black, wears trench coats and wanders down dirty back alleys at night, looking for a fight. Any fight. He's also alcoholic. And he likes sex a lot. And he wants to be saved.
It's important for a lot of writers for their protagonist to be badass. I understand that, but after spending twelve years in a boxing I've learned one important thing: there's badass and there's WANTING to be badass. Being badass is a zen state where you can never concern yourself with being badass. My favorite badass of recent years Boyd Crowder's main concern is the freedom not to abide the law, which he sees as his birthright. Jon McGoran's Doyle Carrick is badass in a Steve McQueen way because he's extremely stubborn and sometimes acts before he thinks.
It's also valid for setting. Sometimes the line between gritty and gothic is very thin and it doesn't take much for a gloomy and oppressive atmosphere to turn silly. The true knights of badassdom aren't concerned with their own badassery, they are tireless workaholics (Richard Stark's Parker), idealists with guns (Boyd Crowder) or power-hungry psychopaths who would become millionaires on Wall Street (Marlo Stanfield). Stop posturing and don't try to trap your own creativity inside a dark clown costume. Because your story will only look like a clown.
5) Heroville
He's awesome. Deep, tormented, but resourceful too. She lives to have sex with him. His best friends live to give him alibis and deus ex machina issues out of hopeless situation. The world is at his feet and it just kind of lies there.
Perhaps the greatest challenge to writing a great novels lies in making every character interesting and worthy of being in the narrative. I get it, it's hard. It's much easier to fall in love with one character and letting him domineer over your novel. This is a much trickier thing than "torture your darlings". Throwing your protagonist into a burning pit and narrating his way out is one thing, but having him sharing the spotlight with other interesting people is a more contemporary battle and it's a more difficult one to win.
Ever come across a villain who was the embodiment of evil or just a hopeless prey to his lowest instincts? A strong and proud (and hot) single mother who can't do shit by herself? Then you've been to Heroville a couple times before, I'm sure. I'm not actually begrudging anybody who stumble upon that issue to some degree, but it's annoying a fuck from a reader's perspective. It makes the novel boring whenever the protagonist is not deeply reflecting upon his own existence and huffing the smell of his own farts because no character in the support cast can stand up to this ecstasy.
This kind of column is a new thing I'm trying, so please share if you enjoyed it. There will most definitely be a sequel somewhere down the road.
B.