Elizabeth Bear's LJ (RSS Feed)
03-08-2008, 02:37 AM
Okay, guys. I have an assignment for you.
Please, if you've read it and liked it, tell me what you thought was cool or touching or fun or interesting about Dust, and why.
Because since I have no gut on Chill, no sense of the shape the book should have, I'm trying to figure out why the first book was successful for the people it was successful for. And if I can't feel my way through it, maybe I can intellectualize my way through it.
Comment thread may contain spoilers, right?
***
I think another problem I'm having is that I was trying to limit the book to three points of view, as I did Dust, and that's not really working out. Because rather than two colocated ingenues working toward a goal without really having an idea of the larger picture, I have a widely scattered uneasy alliance of cynical old bastards working towards a goal without really having an idea of the larger picture. I have come up with a pretty cool structural inversion that I want to see if I can pull off. That will be fun if it works.
So I think I need at least 5 POVs, and possibly 6--two primary ones and three or four secondaries.
Right. Silly bear. Borrowing a different narrative convention means borrowing a different set of structural tools. The Interminable Quest Fantasy Novel structure is not the same as the Get The Bad Guy structure. And you knew that, didn't you? But you were in a hurry and wanted to write another book just like the last one, only different.
And of course, that is a trick you never mastered.
La.
(Original Post) (http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1333065.html)
Please, if you've read it and liked it, tell me what you thought was cool or touching or fun or interesting about Dust, and why.
Because since I have no gut on Chill, no sense of the shape the book should have, I'm trying to figure out why the first book was successful for the people it was successful for. And if I can't feel my way through it, maybe I can intellectualize my way through it.
Comment thread may contain spoilers, right?
***
I think another problem I'm having is that I was trying to limit the book to three points of view, as I did Dust, and that's not really working out. Because rather than two colocated ingenues working toward a goal without really having an idea of the larger picture, I have a widely scattered uneasy alliance of cynical old bastards working towards a goal without really having an idea of the larger picture. I have come up with a pretty cool structural inversion that I want to see if I can pull off. That will be fun if it works.
So I think I need at least 5 POVs, and possibly 6--two primary ones and three or four secondaries.
Right. Silly bear. Borrowing a different narrative convention means borrowing a different set of structural tools. The Interminable Quest Fantasy Novel structure is not the same as the Get The Bad Guy structure. And you knew that, didn't you? But you were in a hurry and wanted to write another book just like the last one, only different.
And of course, that is a trick you never mastered.
La.
(Original Post) (http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1333065.html)