Okay, fear not, I'm going to continue writing short stories (Hannah's challenged me to quite the duel and I'm looking forward to accepting the challenge) as soon as I get a chance, but at the moment, as has happened on before, I need to take a sec to rant about a book I'm currently reading and struggling with, and my blog seems like a reasonably good place for it.
Today's problem?
Authors have got to tell me why their characters do things.
I am getting so tired of being confused by characters' actions when a single paragraph could make everything crystal clear.
To properly express my frustration today, I think I need to explain what's just happened in the book, but I'll change the names and things so as to avoid giving spoilers.
Gladiola and Evinrude are best friends who live on the planet Ugh. They were both born and raised on Ugh, and are members of a society called "People Who Are Really Super Duper Nice (To Other Native Ughs)". Gladiola runs the local chapter of PWARSDN(TONU). Ugh is also inhabited by the Aches, immigrants from the planet Ouch. Gladiola looks down on the Aches and thinks they should be kept separate from the Ughs, but Evinrude has always had her doubts about both anti-Ache discrimination and PWARSDN(TONU).
As the book progresses, Evinrude and Gladiola's friendship begins to disintegrate as Evinrude befriends some Aches. A minor plot point is Gladiola's continued effort to get a small article utterly condemning the Aches as dirty undesirables based on made-up statistics published in the PWARSDN(TONU) newsletter... of which Evinrude is the editor. Evinrude continues to passive-aggressively refrain from putting the article in, without ever directly telling Gladiola that she's doing it or why she's doing it.
One day, Evinrude finds a book outlining all the anti-Ache legislation currently in effect (Ugh nurses cannot be required to treat Ache patients, Ugh schools and Ache schools shall not share textbooks, an Ache may under no circumstances marry an Ugh, etc.). Because the subject interests her, she takes the book and puts it in her purse. Later, she accidentally leaves her purse at Gladiola's house and Gladiola, being a sneaky, unpleasant sort of character, looks through it, finding the book, stealing it, and then shunning Evinrude. Later, when Evinrude confronts Gladiola about the shunning, Gladiola demands that Evirude tell her the truth about the "paraphernalia" in her purse, saying that she "just doesn't know anymore", and that the government put those laws in place, and that she can't believe Evinrude thinks she knows better than the government.
The last thing I read was another confrontation between Gladiola and Evinrude. Gladiola demands to know why her article hasn't been published in the newsletter yet. Evinrude, who's been going through a rough patch, finally loses her temper and says she'll never publish it. Gladiola threatens to throw Evinrude out of PWARSDN(TONU). Evinrude gets more upset. Eventually, the anti-Ache legislation book comes up again, and Evinrude says that Gladiola can't dictate what she reads. Gladiola retaliates by saying that she can see why Evinrude's boyfriend left her (leading to the aforementioned rough patch). Despite the fact that the breakup had nothing to do with Evinrude's feelings about Aches and everything to do with the male in question being a worthless loser, this comment makes Evinrude more upset than ever and she demands that Gladiola give her the book back. Gladiola says she will if Evinrude puts the article in the newsletter.
So Evinrude does.
Here are my questions:
1. Why did finding the anti-Ache legislation book make Gladiola think that Evinrude was an Ache sympathizer who thought she knew better than the government? Wouldn't studying anti-Ache legislation seem to suggest a dislike of Aches and a desire to know exactly what steps had been made toward keeping them in their proper place? And in what way can a straightforward listing of the laws, a simple factual booklet outlining laws that Gladiola supports, be pro-Ache paraphernalia?
How to fix it: I'm still not actually sure. This seriously makes no sense to me. But I assume it made sense to the author, so she should've been able to explain the path Gladiola's mind took to her weird conclusion.
2. Why was Evinrude upset by Gladiola threatening to kick her out of PWARSDN(TONU)? Evinrude is the narrator, and in the few scenes in which Evinrude is attending PWARSDN(TONU) meetings, she seems bored, out-of-place, and dispassionate. If she has some big reason for wanting to be in the group or some profound emotional connection to it, I should've known before this scene to make the threat meaningful.
How to fix it: "I've never much liked the PWARSDN(TONU). The meetings are too long and I feel like we never really get anything done. But the thing is... this group's a part of who I am. It has been ever since Gladiola started running it. This is practically where Gladiola and I grew up. Not being a member anymore... it'd just feel all wrong." (So that's a really rough draft, but you get the idea.)
3. Why was Evinrude upset by Gladiola's comment about her boyfriend? As I said, Evinrude knows good and well that Aches had absolutely nothing to do with the separation. In fact, nothing Evinrude did was; not her temper, not her passions, not her ideas, nothing. It was all the guy.
Admittedly, this one makes slightly more sense. The book has talked incredibly briefly about how heartbroken Evinrude is, so Gladiola rubbing salt in the wound riling Evinrude up is understandable. But... still. Evinrude is brilliant and reasonable, and I feel like she has more reason to be angry at the guy and therefore unaffected by Gladiola's comment than to be so distraught she's tottering on the edge of collectedness.
How to fix it: "I know, I know, that that dang book had nothing to do with Fyodor calling it quits. I know. But Gladiola's comment hits too close to home, right in the center of the wound that's nowhere near being healed. Suddenly I can see his face, as clearly as if he's still standing right in front of me, the anger, the hurt, the slouched shoulders, the lowered brows. 'I think we should call it off for now, Rudy.' And even though I know it's impossible, I can't stop myself from thinking, What if she's right? What if he looked at me and saw all the things I've been trying to hide, and he decided I just wasn't suitable? What if he read all my secrets on my face as easily as I read his?"
4. Why is Evinrude so flippin' desperate to get this book back, desperate enough to compromise her morals and give cruel, thoughtless, manipulative Gladiola exactly what she wants? Evinrude doesn't need the book to learn the laws. She can look them up. She can find another copy of the book. For Pete's sake, she can ask her Ache friends what the laws are. She already knows more about the way Aches live than that book could ever tell her just from being friends with some. Never once in all the time Gladiola's had the book has Evinrude thought that she wished she had it back. Even when Evinrude was taking the book and putting it in her purse, she made no explanation in her narration for wanting it. So, in short, Evinrude doesn't need the book and I have no reason to believe Evinrude wants the book, and yet I'm supposed to believe she's willing to publish an article she is horrified and repulsed by just to get the dumb thing back. Is it to show Gladiola she's not the boss of Evinrude? Because if that's the case, Evinrude has completely failed in her objective by doing exactly what Gladiola's wanted her to do since the beginning!
How to fix it: Scattered narration of Evinrude thinking about the book. Give her a good reason for wanting it and then have her think about that reason. Don't just suddenly have her want this book more than anything!
But what really bothers me most about this is that nobody else seems to have noticed. Of course, I'm sure it all made sense in the author's head, and I certainly am no stranger to the feeling of writing in a rush of inspiration and then going back and remembering things that won't make sense to anyone but me. But that's just the thing; surely she went back! Surely she reread and redrafted over and over, and in all that time she never thought, "My, that's a bit of a non sequitur!" Then her family members and friends read it, and in that process no one ever asked her, "Wait, why is so-and-so doing this?" Editors both personal and professional, publishers, reviewers, critics. Dozens of people read it and everyone "got" it.
This brings me to my subject line question: Am I not smart enough to read books? Because this is not the first time I've encountered this problem. It even exists in other places in the book I'm reading. Over and over, narrators, the people whose heads I am supposed to be inside, the people I should know inside and out, do things that utterly baffle me and fail to tell me why. The admonishment to "show, don't tell" is being taken to great extremes, because apparently meditating on your actions and explaining them to the audience is just too boring. Or maybe they're boring to everyone but me, because no one else needs them.
I'm writing a book right now, narrated in first-person present-tense, just like the book that's the subject of this post. The difference is that my narrator thinks more than she talks, from long paragraphs in which she analyzes situations and her own feelings to sarcastic asides while she's having conversations. Yes, there are some scenes where she does things and doesn't explain why... the scenes in which not even she knows why she's doing what she's doing.
Look, I found an easy fix for question 4: "Gourd, why am I so desperate to get this worthless book back from Gladiola? It's like I'm on a freight train and the brakes are out; doing this, insisting on this, is going to destroy me, but I can't stop myself."
So... am I stupid? Is my book boring? Because that's how I feel whenever I stumble across something like this. I feel like every other reader, all the people who loved and recommended whatever book I'm reading, made those logical leaps easily, understanding perfectly why characters did what they did and felt how they felt, while I sit around helplessly confused and incredibly frustrated. I feel like if I ever let them read my book, if anyone anywhere ever reads my book, they'll sit there rolling their eyes and skimming the long, introspective paragraphs, saying, "Gosh, Pearl, you are so wordy. We know why she feels this way, we know why she acts this way. You don't have to tell us. It's ruining the story."
*Sigh* Okay, I think my rant's finally over. I think I'll be able to go back to this book and read a little more before bed. But... please... if anyone else has ever had this happen, has ever been annoyed like this, could you please let me know? I'd really appreciate feeling less alone.
Bye for now.
~Pearl Clayton
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Short Story #2: How Melvyn Martin Came to Develop an Unfortunate Rash on His Forearms
So, guess what? I'M STILL ALIVE!
No, really, I am. I haven't posted in a month and a half, and trust me, I feel quite sheepish about the whole thing. I do have a lame explanation, though.
See, remember how I was doing that thing where I asked people to give me suggestions for short stories with every intention of taking their brilliant ideas and making them into full-on narratives? Well...... I received two wonderful suggestions from some very good friends of mine. Suggestions so wonderful, in fact, that, frankly, they scared me a bit. I looked at them and I said to myself, "Pearl, how are you ever going to do justice to those suggestions?"
But it's been too long now, and I've finally decided that, regardless of my ability, I need to buckle down and get these stories written. So here goes.
This story is written from the prompt, "write about two people carrying a sofa running through the middle of a big city chasing a van", courtesy of my very dear friend Aloisa.
Keep the ideas coming! I'll write them all eventually, I promise! :)
Ahem.
How Melvyn Martin Came to Develop an Unfortunate Rash on His Forearms
It was at exactly twelve minutes past noon on the third day of a swelteringly hot July that the whole debacle began. Melvyn Martin, a short, bookish sort of a fellow with wispy hair and cumbersome eyeglasses, would remember that fact for the rest of his days, as he'd just been amusedly noting the delightfully symmetrical time when he heard Jason come out of the house.
12:12, Melvyn thought as the door slammed. There's just something about that number that's so... nice.
It would be the last time Melvyn ever thought something so naïve.
Jason walked up and stood next to Melvyn, shading his eyes with his hand and squinting down at the driveway. Jason Lunt was Melvyn's roommate. This arrangement had originally been set up because Melvyn lacked the funds to get through college and rent a house. At the time, sharing a house with the six-something, boorish, outdoorsy Jason had seemed to Melvyn rather like penance for some unspeakable sin, but as time passed, they'd grown quite used to each other's company. They were so accustomed to each other, in fact, that when they had an intense discussion of their finances in which Melvyn did most of the talking and realized that, now that Melvyn was out of college and had gotten himself a job of reasonable respectability, they were collectively bringing in a great deal more money than they had at first, instead of joyfully deciding to move out and finally get his own place, Melvyn suggested that he and Jason get a bigger house.
Today was moving day. Melvyn, Jason, and Jason's two older brothers had finally finished loading the last of the furniture into Jason's oldest brother's van, and the two elder Lunts were getting ready to set off for Melvyn and Jason's snazzy new downtown apartment. Melvyn and Jason would follow later. It was 12:12 and all was right with the world.
Except that the way Jason was squinting down at the driveway was making Melvyn nervous. Melvyn was constantly telling Jason that he needed glasses, but six years of closely observing the damper that Melvyn's truly daunting spectacles seemed to put on his social interactions (particularly those involving the participation of the opposite gender) had permanently turned Jason off of the idea. When Jason raised these objections, Melvyn would reply that wearing glasses couldn't possibly be more damaging to one's social career than the inability to see, especially considering the way that Jason was constantly having to squint at things in that highly disturbing way...
"Say, Mel, d'you think they're gonna load up that sofa?"
Melvyn blinked in surprise as Jason's interjection interrupted his musings. Slowly, he turned his attention to the driveway. There was the van, the front seat occupied by Jason's brothers (whose intelligence, or, rather, lack thereof had taught Melvyn to be far more appreciative of Jason's high-school-educated approach to life). Positioned directly behind the van was the maroon-and-cerulean-paisley-on-taupe sofa, a housewarming gift from Jason's mother. Melvyn hated that sofa. For one thing, it didn't match any of their other furniture, and then there was the fact that it was made of some horrid fabric like polyester or rayon only more evil that gave Melvyn a rash if it touched his skin, so he couldn't wear shorts if he was going to sit on it, not that he ever wore shorts, he couldn't understand why any men ever wore shorts, they looked so silly, but anyway it's not like Melvyn could say anything negative about the sofa because Jason was so childishly attached to his mother that Sigmund Freud would've wept for joy if they'd been introduced...
"Well, I assume so."
"Okay. It's just... doesn't it look like they're gettin' ready to go?"
"Well, yeah, but I'm sure they'll jump out and shove it in before they go. Relax, Jason."
No sooner had Melvyn said this than the van's engine was revved and the van began to pull out of the driveway.
"Mel, look, they're leavin' the sofa!"
Melvyn shrugged. "I guess they ran out of room. They'll probably come back for it-"
"No, they won't!" Jason interrupted, in a voice far more tinted by panic than Melvyn considered to be necessary. "Mel, this was 'sposed to be the last trip! Oh, you don't know my bros, Mel. When they say somethin's gonna be the last trip, it's gonna be the last trip! There's no way they'll come back for that sofa!"
"Oookaaaay..." Melvyn replied slowly. "Um- I see the problem, but what exactly do you intend-"
"We've gotta grab it and catch up with 'em!" Jason yelled enthusiastically as he ran toward the dreaded piece of décor.
"Whaaat?"
"C'mon, Mel!" Jason had already lifted one end of the sofa and was looking at Melvyn with a desperate urgency that was massively disproportionate to the scale of the problem at hand.
Ranked only slightly behind "Stubborn Refusal to Get Glasses" on Melvyn's list of Jason's more regrettable tendencies was "Unchangeable Belief in Action Hero Status". Jason seemed to be of the opinion that taking things far too seriously would make him cooler and would, ultimately, turn him into the type of man that violent shoot-'em-up movies with twist endings tended to center on. Melvyn, meanwhile, firmly believed that Jason wasn't remotely the sort of person who ends up running from the government with a beautiful girl in tow and more the sort who... well, who ends up chasing vans while carrying paisley sofas.
"Jason," Melvyn said remonstratively as he ran up to the other end of the sofa, mentally preparing his hugely logical rebuttal to Jason's hugely illogical plan. "You-"
"WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO TALK! PICK UP THE SOFA, MEL!"
Considering the circumstances, Melvyn can certainly be forgiven for reflexively lifting his end of the sofa. And really, once Jason had inexplicably squeezed his eyes shut and then began running backwards after the van, Melvyn didn't have much of a choice but to come along.
Right off the bat, the two ran into some problems.
The difference in their heights, for one, which made the sofa's balance awkwardly lopsided. It also made it difficult for Melvyn to see over Jason's head, which caused a few steering complications. But after running into (and upsetting) three trash cans, Jason finally opened his eyes and turned his head so as to watch where he was going, which made the whole process go much more smoothly.
But even after that, there was still the problem of Jason's bad eyesight, which resulted in the pair (or rather the trio, if you count the sofa) ramming into a few walls and also a cat which Jason afterwards swore looked just exactly like a blanket until it yowled in anger and attacked his legs.
Then there is the generally known fact that carrying a full-size overstuffed sofa while running is slightly exhausting, especially, and note that this is not meant to insult anybody, when one is a short, bookish sort of a fellow, i.e. someone not much accustomed to exercise. This special dilemma of Melvyn's was somewhat exacerbated by his continuing attempts to talk Jason out of the whole "catch-up-with-the-van" idea.
"Jason, couldn't we just bring the sofa in our car when we go up later?"
"THERE'S NOT ENOUGH ROOM! THIS IS THE ONLY WAY!"
"Well, we could ask to borrow your brother's van-"
"HE'LL NEVER AGREE! YOU DON'T KNOW HIM, MEL, HE KNOWS NO REASON!"
"Jason, I am right here. You don't have to keep shouting at me."
"GO FASTER, MEL! WE'RE LOSING THEM!"
They had, in fact, already lost them, due to the fact that vans, in general, move more quickly than people on foot, especially when those people are carrying sofas. But Jason Lunt was nothing if not persistent.
Luckily for all persons and sofas involved in the debacle, Jason and Melvyn's original home was not very far away from their new one, and was even nearer to the first streets that could theoretically be considered "downtown". And, as everyone knows, no matter the day of the week or the time of day, downtown streets will invariably, inexplicably, and inevitably be more difficult to traverse than suburban ones.
And so it occurred that, within a few more minutes, Jason and Melvyn caught sight of Jason's oldest brother's van, now moving much more slowly than it had been when it left the house.
They then immediately lost it again, because it turned a corner.
"C'MON, MEL! WE'VE ALMOST GOT IT!"
"Oh, my back," Melvyn moaned in response.
That was about when they met Janie.
Well, actually, they met Ms. Anderson first.
Well, actually, first Jason said, speaking in a normal (if rather breathless) voice for the first time since the commencement of their grand adventure, "Yikes, I wouldn't want to be on her bad side."
Melvyn was rather surprised, equally by the quietness and the randomness of Jason's comment.
His surprised was greatly increased by the abrupt and rather painful collision between his head and a large jonquil-and-magenta-plaid handbag.
"Dirty thieves!" came a screeching voice from far too close to Melvyn's ear. He turned to see the heavily-made-up face of a female of uncertain age who was wearing a mauve dress with teal polka dots and wielding the aforementioned mercenary handbag. She proceeded to hit Melvyn again as she demanded, "Who do you think you are, running off with a helpless old lady's couch? That couch cost me good money, you young rapscallions!"
That was when Janie showed up, bouncing along beside the two men, the sofa, and the gaudily dressed lady. Janie was a small, bookish sort of a girl with large horn-rimmed spectacles and messy, wispy black braids. Perhaps Melvyn would've detected a sort of kindred spirit in her, if he hadn't at that moment been so distracted by the cacophonous explosion of breathlessly simultaneous talking that had broken out right around that time.
"Ma'am, this isn't your couch, it's ours," Melvyn said.
"Mel, what's a rapscallion?" Jason asked.
"Why would two young whippersnappers have a couch like this?" Ms. Anderson demanded.
"Some people have uncommon tastes, Ms. Anderson." Janie explained sagely.
"Is it a kind of vegetable?" Jason asked.
"Where did you two come from?" Melvyn asked Janie and Ms. Anderson. (At the time, Melvyn was wondering how this plump lady and skinny girl were keeping up with him and Jason so easily, having apparently forgotten that he and Jason had been running while carrying a sofa for several blocks and were thus moving at a rather easily kept pace.)
"There's an apartment complex a few blocks behind us. Ms. Anderson saw you guys running by as she was coming home from her jazzercise class and she thought you must've stolen her couch," Janie explained (she was quite an adept explainer).
"Who are you?" Melvyn asked.
"Are whippersnappers food, too?" Jason asked.
"I'm Janie," Janie explained.
"Okay," Melvyn said.
"By the way, it's a sofa, not a couch," Jason said, having given up on getting the definitions of rapscallions and whippersnappers.
"Oh," Ms. Anderson said, pulling up in surprise. "Well, if it's a sofa, it can't be mine. I have a couch."
Janie stayed behind with Ms. Anderson while Melvyn, Jason, and the sofa (which was not a couch) ran on. "Maybe we'll see you around," Janie called after them.
"Yeah, maybe," Melvyn called back, realizing how close he and Jason were to their new home.
This episode had rudely shattered Jason's glorious action hero ideal, as action heroes generally aren't attacked by colorfully attired ladies and their helpful explanatory companions. And so it was that the latter leg of the roommates' trip featured a lot less yelling and running into things than the former. Of course, there was still some yelling and running into things, most of it occurring when Jason briefly stopped looking over his shoulder and they consequently bowled over an old man who, as it turned out, was a sailor, and who, incidentally, spoke and acted in the way that the most depressingly stereotypical sailors do.
But, at last, Jason and Melvyn stumbled into the parking lot of their new apartment complex. Jason's two brothers were there, awaiting Jason and Melvyn's eventual arrival in their car. They expressed the appropriate amount of shock and confusion, gave Jason the proper amount of meaner-than-necessary brotherly teasing, and went on with their mundane lives.
While Jason's brothers fulfilled these responsibilities, Melvyn and Jason sat sprawled on the sofa, panting. When the brothers had finished and wandered away, Melvyn panted out, gasping after each word, "I. Hate. You."
"Well," Jason replied, gasping in turn, "We. Couldn't. Just. Leave it. There. Now could we?"
Melvyn sat up, stared deep into Jason's eyes, and said, "YES. We could've."
Alas, Melvyn had donned a short-sleeved shirt on that fateful morning, and the prolonged exposure to whatever absolutely wretched fabric covered the sofa had resulted in the worst rash Melvyn had ever had. To make matters more humiliating, the following day the local newspaper's front page sported a photograph of Melvyn, Jason, and the sofa running through the crowded city streets underneath the headline "TWO MEN AND PAISLEY SOFA RACE THROUGH DOWNTOWN". Melvyn wanted to find as many copies as possible and burn them; Jason had the front page framed and hung in the living room over the sofa. Melvyn vowed he would never forgive Jason for the episode. But the simple fact of the matter is that no two people who had such a symbiotic mutual dislike as Melvyn and Jason could possibly stay mad at each other for long, and Melvyn ended up forgiving Jason long before his rash had faded.
THE END.
No, really, I am. I haven't posted in a month and a half, and trust me, I feel quite sheepish about the whole thing. I do have a lame explanation, though.
See, remember how I was doing that thing where I asked people to give me suggestions for short stories with every intention of taking their brilliant ideas and making them into full-on narratives? Well...... I received two wonderful suggestions from some very good friends of mine. Suggestions so wonderful, in fact, that, frankly, they scared me a bit. I looked at them and I said to myself, "Pearl, how are you ever going to do justice to those suggestions?"
But it's been too long now, and I've finally decided that, regardless of my ability, I need to buckle down and get these stories written. So here goes.
This story is written from the prompt, "write about two people carrying a sofa running through the middle of a big city chasing a van", courtesy of my very dear friend Aloisa.
Keep the ideas coming! I'll write them all eventually, I promise! :)
Ahem.
How Melvyn Martin Came to Develop an Unfortunate Rash on His Forearms
It was at exactly twelve minutes past noon on the third day of a swelteringly hot July that the whole debacle began. Melvyn Martin, a short, bookish sort of a fellow with wispy hair and cumbersome eyeglasses, would remember that fact for the rest of his days, as he'd just been amusedly noting the delightfully symmetrical time when he heard Jason come out of the house.
12:12, Melvyn thought as the door slammed. There's just something about that number that's so... nice.
It would be the last time Melvyn ever thought something so naïve.
Jason walked up and stood next to Melvyn, shading his eyes with his hand and squinting down at the driveway. Jason Lunt was Melvyn's roommate. This arrangement had originally been set up because Melvyn lacked the funds to get through college and rent a house. At the time, sharing a house with the six-something, boorish, outdoorsy Jason had seemed to Melvyn rather like penance for some unspeakable sin, but as time passed, they'd grown quite used to each other's company. They were so accustomed to each other, in fact, that when they had an intense discussion of their finances in which Melvyn did most of the talking and realized that, now that Melvyn was out of college and had gotten himself a job of reasonable respectability, they were collectively bringing in a great deal more money than they had at first, instead of joyfully deciding to move out and finally get his own place, Melvyn suggested that he and Jason get a bigger house.
Today was moving day. Melvyn, Jason, and Jason's two older brothers had finally finished loading the last of the furniture into Jason's oldest brother's van, and the two elder Lunts were getting ready to set off for Melvyn and Jason's snazzy new downtown apartment. Melvyn and Jason would follow later. It was 12:12 and all was right with the world.
Except that the way Jason was squinting down at the driveway was making Melvyn nervous. Melvyn was constantly telling Jason that he needed glasses, but six years of closely observing the damper that Melvyn's truly daunting spectacles seemed to put on his social interactions (particularly those involving the participation of the opposite gender) had permanently turned Jason off of the idea. When Jason raised these objections, Melvyn would reply that wearing glasses couldn't possibly be more damaging to one's social career than the inability to see, especially considering the way that Jason was constantly having to squint at things in that highly disturbing way...
"Say, Mel, d'you think they're gonna load up that sofa?"
Melvyn blinked in surprise as Jason's interjection interrupted his musings. Slowly, he turned his attention to the driveway. There was the van, the front seat occupied by Jason's brothers (whose intelligence, or, rather, lack thereof had taught Melvyn to be far more appreciative of Jason's high-school-educated approach to life). Positioned directly behind the van was the maroon-and-cerulean-paisley-on-taupe sofa, a housewarming gift from Jason's mother. Melvyn hated that sofa. For one thing, it didn't match any of their other furniture, and then there was the fact that it was made of some horrid fabric like polyester or rayon only more evil that gave Melvyn a rash if it touched his skin, so he couldn't wear shorts if he was going to sit on it, not that he ever wore shorts, he couldn't understand why any men ever wore shorts, they looked so silly, but anyway it's not like Melvyn could say anything negative about the sofa because Jason was so childishly attached to his mother that Sigmund Freud would've wept for joy if they'd been introduced...
"Well, I assume so."
"Okay. It's just... doesn't it look like they're gettin' ready to go?"
"Well, yeah, but I'm sure they'll jump out and shove it in before they go. Relax, Jason."
No sooner had Melvyn said this than the van's engine was revved and the van began to pull out of the driveway.
"Mel, look, they're leavin' the sofa!"
Melvyn shrugged. "I guess they ran out of room. They'll probably come back for it-"
"No, they won't!" Jason interrupted, in a voice far more tinted by panic than Melvyn considered to be necessary. "Mel, this was 'sposed to be the last trip! Oh, you don't know my bros, Mel. When they say somethin's gonna be the last trip, it's gonna be the last trip! There's no way they'll come back for that sofa!"
"Oookaaaay..." Melvyn replied slowly. "Um- I see the problem, but what exactly do you intend-"
"We've gotta grab it and catch up with 'em!" Jason yelled enthusiastically as he ran toward the dreaded piece of décor.
"Whaaat?"
"C'mon, Mel!" Jason had already lifted one end of the sofa and was looking at Melvyn with a desperate urgency that was massively disproportionate to the scale of the problem at hand.
Ranked only slightly behind "Stubborn Refusal to Get Glasses" on Melvyn's list of Jason's more regrettable tendencies was "Unchangeable Belief in Action Hero Status". Jason seemed to be of the opinion that taking things far too seriously would make him cooler and would, ultimately, turn him into the type of man that violent shoot-'em-up movies with twist endings tended to center on. Melvyn, meanwhile, firmly believed that Jason wasn't remotely the sort of person who ends up running from the government with a beautiful girl in tow and more the sort who... well, who ends up chasing vans while carrying paisley sofas.
"Jason," Melvyn said remonstratively as he ran up to the other end of the sofa, mentally preparing his hugely logical rebuttal to Jason's hugely illogical plan. "You-"
"WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO TALK! PICK UP THE SOFA, MEL!"
Considering the circumstances, Melvyn can certainly be forgiven for reflexively lifting his end of the sofa. And really, once Jason had inexplicably squeezed his eyes shut and then began running backwards after the van, Melvyn didn't have much of a choice but to come along.
Right off the bat, the two ran into some problems.
The difference in their heights, for one, which made the sofa's balance awkwardly lopsided. It also made it difficult for Melvyn to see over Jason's head, which caused a few steering complications. But after running into (and upsetting) three trash cans, Jason finally opened his eyes and turned his head so as to watch where he was going, which made the whole process go much more smoothly.
But even after that, there was still the problem of Jason's bad eyesight, which resulted in the pair (or rather the trio, if you count the sofa) ramming into a few walls and also a cat which Jason afterwards swore looked just exactly like a blanket until it yowled in anger and attacked his legs.
Then there is the generally known fact that carrying a full-size overstuffed sofa while running is slightly exhausting, especially, and note that this is not meant to insult anybody, when one is a short, bookish sort of a fellow, i.e. someone not much accustomed to exercise. This special dilemma of Melvyn's was somewhat exacerbated by his continuing attempts to talk Jason out of the whole "catch-up-with-the-van" idea.
"Jason, couldn't we just bring the sofa in our car when we go up later?"
"THERE'S NOT ENOUGH ROOM! THIS IS THE ONLY WAY!"
"Well, we could ask to borrow your brother's van-"
"HE'LL NEVER AGREE! YOU DON'T KNOW HIM, MEL, HE KNOWS NO REASON!"
"Jason, I am right here. You don't have to keep shouting at me."
"GO FASTER, MEL! WE'RE LOSING THEM!"
They had, in fact, already lost them, due to the fact that vans, in general, move more quickly than people on foot, especially when those people are carrying sofas. But Jason Lunt was nothing if not persistent.
Luckily for all persons and sofas involved in the debacle, Jason and Melvyn's original home was not very far away from their new one, and was even nearer to the first streets that could theoretically be considered "downtown". And, as everyone knows, no matter the day of the week or the time of day, downtown streets will invariably, inexplicably, and inevitably be more difficult to traverse than suburban ones.
And so it occurred that, within a few more minutes, Jason and Melvyn caught sight of Jason's oldest brother's van, now moving much more slowly than it had been when it left the house.
They then immediately lost it again, because it turned a corner.
"C'MON, MEL! WE'VE ALMOST GOT IT!"
"Oh, my back," Melvyn moaned in response.
That was about when they met Janie.
Well, actually, they met Ms. Anderson first.
Well, actually, first Jason said, speaking in a normal (if rather breathless) voice for the first time since the commencement of their grand adventure, "Yikes, I wouldn't want to be on her bad side."
Melvyn was rather surprised, equally by the quietness and the randomness of Jason's comment.
His surprised was greatly increased by the abrupt and rather painful collision between his head and a large jonquil-and-magenta-plaid handbag.
"Dirty thieves!" came a screeching voice from far too close to Melvyn's ear. He turned to see the heavily-made-up face of a female of uncertain age who was wearing a mauve dress with teal polka dots and wielding the aforementioned mercenary handbag. She proceeded to hit Melvyn again as she demanded, "Who do you think you are, running off with a helpless old lady's couch? That couch cost me good money, you young rapscallions!"
That was when Janie showed up, bouncing along beside the two men, the sofa, and the gaudily dressed lady. Janie was a small, bookish sort of a girl with large horn-rimmed spectacles and messy, wispy black braids. Perhaps Melvyn would've detected a sort of kindred spirit in her, if he hadn't at that moment been so distracted by the cacophonous explosion of breathlessly simultaneous talking that had broken out right around that time.
"Ma'am, this isn't your couch, it's ours," Melvyn said.
"Mel, what's a rapscallion?" Jason asked.
"Why would two young whippersnappers have a couch like this?" Ms. Anderson demanded.
"Some people have uncommon tastes, Ms. Anderson." Janie explained sagely.
"Is it a kind of vegetable?" Jason asked.
"Where did you two come from?" Melvyn asked Janie and Ms. Anderson. (At the time, Melvyn was wondering how this plump lady and skinny girl were keeping up with him and Jason so easily, having apparently forgotten that he and Jason had been running while carrying a sofa for several blocks and were thus moving at a rather easily kept pace.)
"There's an apartment complex a few blocks behind us. Ms. Anderson saw you guys running by as she was coming home from her jazzercise class and she thought you must've stolen her couch," Janie explained (she was quite an adept explainer).
"Who are you?" Melvyn asked.
"Are whippersnappers food, too?" Jason asked.
"I'm Janie," Janie explained.
"Okay," Melvyn said.
"By the way, it's a sofa, not a couch," Jason said, having given up on getting the definitions of rapscallions and whippersnappers.
"Oh," Ms. Anderson said, pulling up in surprise. "Well, if it's a sofa, it can't be mine. I have a couch."
Janie stayed behind with Ms. Anderson while Melvyn, Jason, and the sofa (which was not a couch) ran on. "Maybe we'll see you around," Janie called after them.
"Yeah, maybe," Melvyn called back, realizing how close he and Jason were to their new home.
This episode had rudely shattered Jason's glorious action hero ideal, as action heroes generally aren't attacked by colorfully attired ladies and their helpful explanatory companions. And so it was that the latter leg of the roommates' trip featured a lot less yelling and running into things than the former. Of course, there was still some yelling and running into things, most of it occurring when Jason briefly stopped looking over his shoulder and they consequently bowled over an old man who, as it turned out, was a sailor, and who, incidentally, spoke and acted in the way that the most depressingly stereotypical sailors do.
But, at last, Jason and Melvyn stumbled into the parking lot of their new apartment complex. Jason's two brothers were there, awaiting Jason and Melvyn's eventual arrival in their car. They expressed the appropriate amount of shock and confusion, gave Jason the proper amount of meaner-than-necessary brotherly teasing, and went on with their mundane lives.
While Jason's brothers fulfilled these responsibilities, Melvyn and Jason sat sprawled on the sofa, panting. When the brothers had finished and wandered away, Melvyn panted out, gasping after each word, "I. Hate. You."
"Well," Jason replied, gasping in turn, "We. Couldn't. Just. Leave it. There. Now could we?"
Melvyn sat up, stared deep into Jason's eyes, and said, "YES. We could've."
Alas, Melvyn had donned a short-sleeved shirt on that fateful morning, and the prolonged exposure to whatever absolutely wretched fabric covered the sofa had resulted in the worst rash Melvyn had ever had. To make matters more humiliating, the following day the local newspaper's front page sported a photograph of Melvyn, Jason, and the sofa running through the crowded city streets underneath the headline "TWO MEN AND PAISLEY SOFA RACE THROUGH DOWNTOWN". Melvyn wanted to find as many copies as possible and burn them; Jason had the front page framed and hung in the living room over the sofa. Melvyn vowed he would never forgive Jason for the episode. But the simple fact of the matter is that no two people who had such a symbiotic mutual dislike as Melvyn and Jason could possibly stay mad at each other for long, and Melvyn ended up forgiving Jason long before his rash had faded.
THE END.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Short Story #1: The Readin' Lass
Introduction - Following is the first short story of my new writing project (refer to previous post for details), based on a suggestion from my mentor: "a story from the perspective of a Nac Mac Feegle who is spying on a young woman who is reading The Wee Free Men for the first time". I hope that it is appreciated, and please give me some more suggestions because writing this has been great fun.
Disclaimer - Because I am not Terry Pratchett, I cannot vouch for the accuracy or inoffensiveness of the Wee Free Man-speak (in fact, my Wee Free Man-speak might even be shamefully intermingled with some Southern American inflection because I happen to be reading To Kill a Mockingbird), but I tried writing it without using the affected Scottish brogue and it just looked wrong. Also, this will probably make very little sense to anyone who hasn't read Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books.
And now, without further ado......
The Readin' Lass
I peek oot from behind the curtains at the big wee lass, tryin' to figure out what she's doin'. She's not movin' much. Looks a bit lazy, really. Maybe she's just starin' doon at her hands. I've seen bigjobs doin' stranger things. But I've got no pressin' engaygements at the mooment, so I might as well go en for a closer look.
I zip aroond to the other side of the room and lean in. I can jest aboot see what she's holdin' noo. I lean in, jest a little closer, and...
Och, crivens! She's readin'!
I make a beeline for the nearest exit. Nayver trust a lass who reads, noo that's jest common knowledge. Written words is dangerous things.
I've nearly made it safely oot when I hear somethin' odd and turn back aroond without stoppin' to think it through. I hafta squint to see her better, cause ye can bet yeer boots I won't be gettin' too close agin.
She's laughin.
Noo, I've heerd o' writin' causin' the wailin', and the pullin' o' the hair, and the gnashin' o' the teeth; I've heerd o' writin' leadin' to the likes o' curses and murder most foul; but I've nayver heerd o' any writin' makin' a body laugh.
Laughin' is somethin' ye do when fightin', or boozin', or when the Big Man tells a joke whether it's amusin' or not.
I take a wee step closer.
I turn my heid a bit to see what the book's front looks like and I nearly leap outta my skin.
Feegles.
There're Feegles on her book, painted up nice and pretty! I'd swear it on my heid!
Ooh, so she's a-laughin' at Feegles, is she? Weil, she'll wish she hadn't, oh, she'll wish...
"Hello."
CRIVENS!
I leap right outta sight and git back to hidin' behind her curtains, but it's too late. She saw me alreidy, and now she's laughin' agin.
I'll no' stand fer this.
I spring back oot, holdin' my sword high and lookin' quite terrifyin'. "Now see here, ye big wee lassie!" I say in my moost commandin' voice. "I dunno what filthy slanders yu've been readin', but they're none o' them true, ye hear? Who wrote 'em? I'll find 'im and he'll wish he'd never so much as thought about Feegles!"
She's not smilin' anymore. Clever lass. The corners of her mooth is jest twitchin', that's all (from fear, undootedly).
"Forgive me, master Feegle," she says very po-lightly. "But I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh yeah?" I say. "Then how'd ye ken I'm called a Feegle?" (Noo I've caught her in her deception.)
"Why, I've just been reading about you," she says. "Well, not you specifically, but Feegles in general. The Wee Free Men."
"Tell me what it says!" I insist. She reaches for the book and starts to open it. I shriek (in a verra manly way). "No, don't read it, that's no' safe! Jest tell me what it says about Feegles."
"Well... It says you're very brave," she esplains.
"That's... oh," I say. That's no' a slanderous falsehood. "Go on."
"And very ferocious."
"Yeah?"
"And that you're the greatest drinkers and fighters the world has ever known."
Maybe this book isn't soo bad after all.
Then I remember somethin'.
"Weil, if it says all that about Feegles, what were ye laughin' at?" I inquaar. We'll jest see hoo she dodges that.
She smiles. "I was laughing at everybody else in the book. They're all a bit ridiculous, especially when compared to all you Feegles."
I think this over a mooment. "That makes sense," I say.
"Well, of course it does," she says back.
I think it over another mooment. "I'm still no' entirely shure I believe ye," I say at last.
"Oh?"
"Per'aps... per'aps, big wee lassie, ye could read me a little?" I ask.
She lifts her eyebrows. "Are you sure? I thought it wasn't safe."
I puff my chist out. "Are yu' suggesting that a Nac Mac Feegle is afeerd of a few written words?"
"Of course not," she says. "I wouldn't dream of saying anything half so silly. Come over here."
I go over and sit doon next to her.
Truth be told, it is a big risk lettin' somebody read alood to yu'. But surely somethin' that says so many good things aboot Feegles canna be too dangerous.
Besides, I'm a Nac Mac Feegle. I can handle a wee bit o' danger jest fine.
THE END.
~Pearl Clayton
Disclaimer - Because I am not Terry Pratchett, I cannot vouch for the accuracy or inoffensiveness of the Wee Free Man-speak (in fact, my Wee Free Man-speak might even be shamefully intermingled with some Southern American inflection because I happen to be reading To Kill a Mockingbird), but I tried writing it without using the affected Scottish brogue and it just looked wrong. Also, this will probably make very little sense to anyone who hasn't read Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books.
And now, without further ado......
The Readin' Lass
I peek oot from behind the curtains at the big wee lass, tryin' to figure out what she's doin'. She's not movin' much. Looks a bit lazy, really. Maybe she's just starin' doon at her hands. I've seen bigjobs doin' stranger things. But I've got no pressin' engaygements at the mooment, so I might as well go en for a closer look.
I zip aroond to the other side of the room and lean in. I can jest aboot see what she's holdin' noo. I lean in, jest a little closer, and...
Och, crivens! She's readin'!
I make a beeline for the nearest exit. Nayver trust a lass who reads, noo that's jest common knowledge. Written words is dangerous things.
I've nearly made it safely oot when I hear somethin' odd and turn back aroond without stoppin' to think it through. I hafta squint to see her better, cause ye can bet yeer boots I won't be gettin' too close agin.
She's laughin.
Noo, I've heerd o' writin' causin' the wailin', and the pullin' o' the hair, and the gnashin' o' the teeth; I've heerd o' writin' leadin' to the likes o' curses and murder most foul; but I've nayver heerd o' any writin' makin' a body laugh.
Laughin' is somethin' ye do when fightin', or boozin', or when the Big Man tells a joke whether it's amusin' or not.
I take a wee step closer.
I turn my heid a bit to see what the book's front looks like and I nearly leap outta my skin.
Feegles.
There're Feegles on her book, painted up nice and pretty! I'd swear it on my heid!
Ooh, so she's a-laughin' at Feegles, is she? Weil, she'll wish she hadn't, oh, she'll wish...
"Hello."
CRIVENS!
I leap right outta sight and git back to hidin' behind her curtains, but it's too late. She saw me alreidy, and now she's laughin' agin.
I'll no' stand fer this.
I spring back oot, holdin' my sword high and lookin' quite terrifyin'. "Now see here, ye big wee lassie!" I say in my moost commandin' voice. "I dunno what filthy slanders yu've been readin', but they're none o' them true, ye hear? Who wrote 'em? I'll find 'im and he'll wish he'd never so much as thought about Feegles!"
She's not smilin' anymore. Clever lass. The corners of her mooth is jest twitchin', that's all (from fear, undootedly).
"Forgive me, master Feegle," she says very po-lightly. "But I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh yeah?" I say. "Then how'd ye ken I'm called a Feegle?" (Noo I've caught her in her deception.)
"Why, I've just been reading about you," she says. "Well, not you specifically, but Feegles in general. The Wee Free Men."
"Tell me what it says!" I insist. She reaches for the book and starts to open it. I shriek (in a verra manly way). "No, don't read it, that's no' safe! Jest tell me what it says about Feegles."
"Well... It says you're very brave," she esplains.
"That's... oh," I say. That's no' a slanderous falsehood. "Go on."
"And very ferocious."
"Yeah?"
"And that you're the greatest drinkers and fighters the world has ever known."
Maybe this book isn't soo bad after all.
Then I remember somethin'.
"Weil, if it says all that about Feegles, what were ye laughin' at?" I inquaar. We'll jest see hoo she dodges that.
She smiles. "I was laughing at everybody else in the book. They're all a bit ridiculous, especially when compared to all you Feegles."
I think this over a mooment. "That makes sense," I say.
"Well, of course it does," she says back.
I think it over another mooment. "I'm still no' entirely shure I believe ye," I say at last.
"Oh?"
"Per'aps... per'aps, big wee lassie, ye could read me a little?" I ask.
She lifts her eyebrows. "Are you sure? I thought it wasn't safe."
I puff my chist out. "Are yu' suggesting that a Nac Mac Feegle is afeerd of a few written words?"
"Of course not," she says. "I wouldn't dream of saying anything half so silly. Come over here."
I go over and sit doon next to her.
Truth be told, it is a big risk lettin' somebody read alood to yu'. But surely somethin' that says so many good things aboot Feegles canna be too dangerous.
Besides, I'm a Nac Mac Feegle. I can handle a wee bit o' danger jest fine.
THE END.
~Pearl Clayton
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
So I Had This Crazy Idea
Hello, humans.
I have a somewhat shocking revelation to make to you all:
I like writing.
I know, it's stunning. I'm sure you would have had no way of guessing or predicting that.
Anyway, I enjoy making fictional compositions as much as I enjoy contributing to this blog, but I find that I don't actually do much fictional writing (or at least, not as much as I'd like to). Well, no, that's a filthy lie. I currently have two mostly completed manuscripts of not insignificant length sitting on my desktop glaring at me reproachfully. I've been working on one since last April and the other since last November, and yet I keep not finishing them. I also have a "short" story (which, if I ever finish it, is ideally going to end up being just over 10,000 words) that I've been working on for three months and am not even halfway through yet.
I don't know why I've been having so much trouble making myself write lately. If I really thought hard about it, I could probably come up with a lot of very plausible explanations (like laziness, my self-imposed and overly strenuous reading schedule, a fear of dissatisfaction with finished products stemming from my crippling perfectionism, etc.) but instead I've chosen to believe the very silly explanation that my currently half-finished stories and all my other story ideas are just so long that I've been daunted and exhausted by the length (but I am going to finish both of them before the end of the summer, dang it!).
So now we come to my crazy idea.
Several months ago, I asked my mother to, as part of our minimalistic homeschooling method, start assigning me short story projects (and I mean, like, actually short, not 10,000 words). The thinking behind this was that, since I respond very well to instruction I would benefit greatly from being told what to write about, and that the practice might help and inspire me to get through my longer stories. But, due to the miles of difference between my mother's and my personalities, this project ended after just one assignment.
So now I'm trying a different approach.
My idea is that you, my readers, can give me suggestions or setups for short stories, which I'll then write right on my blog and post for your general enjoyment. This will, in theory, accomplish the same objectives I was hoping to accomplish through the other, failed project, while also giving me the chance to get more extensive feedback on my work than I usually do.
And before you start asking what I mean by "suggestions or setups", allow me to say that not even I am entirely sure what I mean. Basically I'm looking for any kind of jumping-off point, which could be anything from "a story about a raindrop" to "the first-person narrative of a girl caught outside during an air raid in the London Blitz" to "a 'Doctor Who' fanfiction" (also, please don't actually say a story about a raindrop; I do not want to write a story about a raindrop).
So...... yeah. If anyone thinks this is a terrible idea or doesn't want to see new fiction writing on this blog dedicated to fiction, go ahead and say so and I'll try not to cry too much. Otherwise, please offer up your suggestions and we'll see where this goes.
*Takes deep breath*
You may begin.
~Pearl Clayton
I have a somewhat shocking revelation to make to you all:
I like writing.
I know, it's stunning. I'm sure you would have had no way of guessing or predicting that.
Anyway, I enjoy making fictional compositions as much as I enjoy contributing to this blog, but I find that I don't actually do much fictional writing (or at least, not as much as I'd like to). Well, no, that's a filthy lie. I currently have two mostly completed manuscripts of not insignificant length sitting on my desktop glaring at me reproachfully. I've been working on one since last April and the other since last November, and yet I keep not finishing them. I also have a "short" story (which, if I ever finish it, is ideally going to end up being just over 10,000 words) that I've been working on for three months and am not even halfway through yet.
I don't know why I've been having so much trouble making myself write lately. If I really thought hard about it, I could probably come up with a lot of very plausible explanations (like laziness, my self-imposed and overly strenuous reading schedule, a fear of dissatisfaction with finished products stemming from my crippling perfectionism, etc.) but instead I've chosen to believe the very silly explanation that my currently half-finished stories and all my other story ideas are just so long that I've been daunted and exhausted by the length (but I am going to finish both of them before the end of the summer, dang it!).
So now we come to my crazy idea.
Several months ago, I asked my mother to, as part of our minimalistic homeschooling method, start assigning me short story projects (and I mean, like, actually short, not 10,000 words). The thinking behind this was that, since I respond very well to instruction I would benefit greatly from being told what to write about, and that the practice might help and inspire me to get through my longer stories. But, due to the miles of difference between my mother's and my personalities, this project ended after just one assignment.
So now I'm trying a different approach.
My idea is that you, my readers, can give me suggestions or setups for short stories, which I'll then write right on my blog and post for your general enjoyment. This will, in theory, accomplish the same objectives I was hoping to accomplish through the other, failed project, while also giving me the chance to get more extensive feedback on my work than I usually do.
And before you start asking what I mean by "suggestions or setups", allow me to say that not even I am entirely sure what I mean. Basically I'm looking for any kind of jumping-off point, which could be anything from "a story about a raindrop" to "the first-person narrative of a girl caught outside during an air raid in the London Blitz" to "a 'Doctor Who' fanfiction" (also, please don't actually say a story about a raindrop; I do not want to write a story about a raindrop).
So...... yeah. If anyone thinks this is a terrible idea or doesn't want to see new fiction writing on this blog dedicated to fiction, go ahead and say so and I'll try not to cry too much. Otherwise, please offer up your suggestions and we'll see where this goes.
*Takes deep breath*
You may begin.
~Pearl Clayton
Sunday, June 29, 2014
An Utterly Random and Overlookable Post
You know what the worst part of reading a book without a fandom is?
It's being awake, reading, in those dark, lonely hours between midnight and dawn, and feeling things which aren't quite feels because you're not quite invested enough in the book to be crying or laughing or excited, but are still heavy and weighty and maybe just the slightest bit overwhelming, and having nowhere to go.
It's not worse, in my opinion, to be reading a book I'm actually super invested in alone. If I'm reading a book so good that I'm laughing or grinning or hanging on every word or, with those rarest of rare books, crying, I don't need anyone else. Sure, it's glorious when somebody else finally listens to my recommendations, like my best friend is now finally doing with Charlie Bone (we have a marvelous little two-person fandom now, complete with excessive amounts of shipping and fangirling and she's rapidly approaching the feelsy sections of the series and I am so freaking excited) but when I love a book I can happily love it alone.
And, for the most part, I'm okay reading older books alone. Basically anything written before, like, 1990 and I'll happily read by myself whether I'm enjoying it or not.
Well, maybe that's not quite true.
Here's the thing: try to talk to me about school, or politics, or my nonexistent plans for my life, or the shockingly grandiose implications of the speed with which news travels, or philosophy, or the future, etc., and I'll be bored in two minutes, irritated in five, and attempting to leave the room in ten. But get me talking about books and movies and I'll be devastated if you try to leave or change the subject after just an hour and a half. I've said it before. This blog is called "Everything Unreal" because this blog is primarily focused on that which is unreal. For some reason I don't know which might possibly be a sign of deep-rooted psychological unwellness but probably isn't, the dreamy stories born in other people's heads are the surest ways I know of grounding myself and knowing my identity, of getting through life and staving off loneliness. They're the only things I'm really passionate about and they always have been. (And I now have a song stuck in my head that goes, "she is the one who tempts me and she for whom I'm pure; my love for her confounds me and is all of which I'm sure". With some lyrical changes, I think it becomes quite fitting.)
But if I want to spend two hours talking the ears off my longsuffering best friend or my longer-suffering family members in an elaborate and mostly one-sided discourse on the myriad feelings and thoughts elicited in me by some book or movie I've experienced alone, I first have to describe in great detail any plotlines or characters I'll be bringing up, and even if I can get past the guilt brought on by such a spoiler-filled speech I still tend to be met by mostly blank looks and minimalist responses, because no one else I know feels the way I do about stories. My best friend comes closest, and she'll gladly fangirl with me and listen to my monologues for as long as I want her to, but of course she's not always immediately available, and she also has absolutely brilliant plans and ambitions and ideas that make my current life goal of achieving immortality so I can be a sixteen-year-old sitting in my messy bedroom reading books forever look even more pathetically childish than it already is. And my mom...... well, she's basically the best mom I've ever encountered, but we're never going to care about the same things.
Thus the Internet has somewhat spoiled me by giving me the ability to discuss all the stories I long to without even having to say anything. On Facebook posts and YouTube videos, I can read comments for as long as I like, and instead of feeling like an annoyance or a blathering teenager displaying her emotional immaturity way too proudly, I feel like one piece of a massive and brightly colored jigsaw puzzle, acceptable and accepted, united to hundreds and thousands of other people by my love for a story.
But of course this only works for as long as I like super popular stuff. Which isn't very long.
So now we're back at the beginning of the post, a post brought on by a couple of things, like the fact that I just read a few books that were dense and heavy, and then I watched a movie that was heavy, and now I'm a little more than halfway through a book that's quite heavy for different reasons and I don't like any of those three books or the movie but I don't dislike them either and I have no one to talk to about any of it, not really, and I feel like I'm going crazy. And then there's the fact that the last time I discovered a book I really liked was almost six months ago, and that was just a book I liked and I'm more than ready to find something I love again. Or at least to have a deep, probing, fulfilling, three-hour-long discussion with someone about things I don't quite love.
*Deep sigh*
Look, it's not really as bad as I'm melodramatically making it sound. I've been brought down a bit by the book I'm reading, which I was rather expecting to love and which I am instead being disappointed and slightly befuddled by. I'm greatly questioning the advisability of even posting this particular post, because I feel like it says a great many things I'm not entirely sure I mean, and seems to reveal a lot about me to the vast and indestructible Internet, and might very well make no sense. But I've been working on it for a long enough time that I figure I might as well reveal it to the world and face the consequences if there are any. Plus, I think that right now I'm being largely driven by the hateful, ugly part of my brain that desperately wants people to feel sorry for me. Ugh.
But like I said...... this mood shouldn't last. It never does. And there're lots of books coming up on my reading list that look really good (they wouldn't be on my reading list if they didn't). And I've seen some really good movies recently. And Netflix is just a few clicks away, brimming with random movies and TV shows that don't have fandoms but might just be good enough they don't need them. And is it just me, or do I sound insufferably immature right now?
Well, who cares? I don't. (Much.) I am who I am.
Lamest self-affirmation ever, huh?
*Second deep sigh*
And now I sound all sad again. I promise I'm okay. Watch, I'll probably be back in just a few weeks, sheepishly blogging about some amazing new book I'm reading and pretending this post doesn't exist.
I'll see you then.
~Pearl Clayton
It's being awake, reading, in those dark, lonely hours between midnight and dawn, and feeling things which aren't quite feels because you're not quite invested enough in the book to be crying or laughing or excited, but are still heavy and weighty and maybe just the slightest bit overwhelming, and having nowhere to go.
It's not worse, in my opinion, to be reading a book I'm actually super invested in alone. If I'm reading a book so good that I'm laughing or grinning or hanging on every word or, with those rarest of rare books, crying, I don't need anyone else. Sure, it's glorious when somebody else finally listens to my recommendations, like my best friend is now finally doing with Charlie Bone (we have a marvelous little two-person fandom now, complete with excessive amounts of shipping and fangirling and she's rapidly approaching the feelsy sections of the series and I am so freaking excited) but when I love a book I can happily love it alone.
And, for the most part, I'm okay reading older books alone. Basically anything written before, like, 1990 and I'll happily read by myself whether I'm enjoying it or not.
Well, maybe that's not quite true.
Here's the thing: try to talk to me about school, or politics, or my nonexistent plans for my life, or the shockingly grandiose implications of the speed with which news travels, or philosophy, or the future, etc., and I'll be bored in two minutes, irritated in five, and attempting to leave the room in ten. But get me talking about books and movies and I'll be devastated if you try to leave or change the subject after just an hour and a half. I've said it before. This blog is called "Everything Unreal" because this blog is primarily focused on that which is unreal. For some reason I don't know which might possibly be a sign of deep-rooted psychological unwellness but probably isn't, the dreamy stories born in other people's heads are the surest ways I know of grounding myself and knowing my identity, of getting through life and staving off loneliness. They're the only things I'm really passionate about and they always have been. (And I now have a song stuck in my head that goes, "she is the one who tempts me and she for whom I'm pure; my love for her confounds me and is all of which I'm sure". With some lyrical changes, I think it becomes quite fitting.)
But if I want to spend two hours talking the ears off my longsuffering best friend or my longer-suffering family members in an elaborate and mostly one-sided discourse on the myriad feelings and thoughts elicited in me by some book or movie I've experienced alone, I first have to describe in great detail any plotlines or characters I'll be bringing up, and even if I can get past the guilt brought on by such a spoiler-filled speech I still tend to be met by mostly blank looks and minimalist responses, because no one else I know feels the way I do about stories. My best friend comes closest, and she'll gladly fangirl with me and listen to my monologues for as long as I want her to, but of course she's not always immediately available, and she also has absolutely brilliant plans and ambitions and ideas that make my current life goal of achieving immortality so I can be a sixteen-year-old sitting in my messy bedroom reading books forever look even more pathetically childish than it already is. And my mom...... well, she's basically the best mom I've ever encountered, but we're never going to care about the same things.
Thus the Internet has somewhat spoiled me by giving me the ability to discuss all the stories I long to without even having to say anything. On Facebook posts and YouTube videos, I can read comments for as long as I like, and instead of feeling like an annoyance or a blathering teenager displaying her emotional immaturity way too proudly, I feel like one piece of a massive and brightly colored jigsaw puzzle, acceptable and accepted, united to hundreds and thousands of other people by my love for a story.
But of course this only works for as long as I like super popular stuff. Which isn't very long.
So now we're back at the beginning of the post, a post brought on by a couple of things, like the fact that I just read a few books that were dense and heavy, and then I watched a movie that was heavy, and now I'm a little more than halfway through a book that's quite heavy for different reasons and I don't like any of those three books or the movie but I don't dislike them either and I have no one to talk to about any of it, not really, and I feel like I'm going crazy. And then there's the fact that the last time I discovered a book I really liked was almost six months ago, and that was just a book I liked and I'm more than ready to find something I love again. Or at least to have a deep, probing, fulfilling, three-hour-long discussion with someone about things I don't quite love.
*Deep sigh*
Look, it's not really as bad as I'm melodramatically making it sound. I've been brought down a bit by the book I'm reading, which I was rather expecting to love and which I am instead being disappointed and slightly befuddled by. I'm greatly questioning the advisability of even posting this particular post, because I feel like it says a great many things I'm not entirely sure I mean, and seems to reveal a lot about me to the vast and indestructible Internet, and might very well make no sense. But I've been working on it for a long enough time that I figure I might as well reveal it to the world and face the consequences if there are any. Plus, I think that right now I'm being largely driven by the hateful, ugly part of my brain that desperately wants people to feel sorry for me. Ugh.
But like I said...... this mood shouldn't last. It never does. And there're lots of books coming up on my reading list that look really good (they wouldn't be on my reading list if they didn't). And I've seen some really good movies recently. And Netflix is just a few clicks away, brimming with random movies and TV shows that don't have fandoms but might just be good enough they don't need them. And is it just me, or do I sound insufferably immature right now?
Well, who cares? I don't. (Much.) I am who I am.
Lamest self-affirmation ever, huh?
*Second deep sigh*
And now I sound all sad again. I promise I'm okay. Watch, I'll probably be back in just a few weeks, sheepishly blogging about some amazing new book I'm reading and pretending this post doesn't exist.
I'll see you then.
~Pearl Clayton
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Allegiant, Day 4
*Long sigh*
Well, I'm done. Finished. Another series read and filed away in my memory.
This morning, as I was taking a short break before finishing completely, I thought about some of the many things I considered saying and ended up leaving unsaid throughout this process, because I changed my mind or I couldn't figure out a smooth way of fitting them into the posts or because I got so carried away writing about something else that I forgot about the other points I was going to make. Some of those omitted things were silly, like the observation that I really hate it when books say "so-and-so said" or "so-and-so says" when so-and-so has just asked a question (here's a better example that's actually from Divergent: "I look at her and say, 'Then why did you come, if you didn't believe him?'") (this happened, like, at least once every conversation, too; it about drove me insane). Others were more serious, like the revelation that the main reason I tend to hate dystopias so much is the frequent appearance of frustrating preachiness so thinly veiled it might as well not be veiled at all.
Basically, I got a lot of thoughts and impressions reading this series, so many I couldn't realistically record them all. But I didn't get a lot of feelings. Now, that doesn't mean that this series didn't effect me emotionally. It did. But other books have made me laugh from amusement or joy. Other books have gotten me misty-eyed with happiness or empathy or sadness. One book has succeeded in giving me such a mess of emotions simultaneously that it brought real tears onto my cheeks. Divergent did none of those things. (Actually, I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but during the scenes which were probably supposed to make me cry I found myself quoting "Sherlock", singing a song from Wicked, and thinking, "For pity's sake, Tris, haven't you ever read poetry?". 'Cause see, I'm eccentric and I like to avoid the mainstream.)
That doesn't mean Divergent is a bad series. It isn't. I don't think it's some new pinnacle of great literature, and I'm not adding it to my list of favorite books and book series, but it isn't bad. I read it, I liked it, I'll remember it, and now I'm moving on.
But first, there's one more thing I need to write about.
Killing off characters.
Why do authors do it? What purpose does it serve? How can it possibly make a narrative better?
I find that most writers do it, me included. I've written two stories, am currently writing a third, and have several more elaborately planned out that feature at least one character dying. It's instinctive, somehow. I get an idea, I work on it a little, and pretty soon I'm asking myself, "Should I kill anyone off?"
I have a bit of a method, though, which I discovered as I was mentally drafting this post earlier. Once I've marked a character as doomed, I groom them for it. I damage them through circumstances within or beyond their control. I create characters so demented or desperate or despairing or dysfunctional that they couldn't possibly heal, couldn't possibly build fulfilling lives for themselves after the events of the story have concluded. I manipulate my stories so that, for the characters I've chosen, an early death becomes the only truly satisfactory fate.
I don't feel like this is a common practice.
A similar practice that seems slightly more common among more popular authors, especially of older books like Little Women and Daniel Deronda, is the practice of killing characters who are old or have been sick for a while, characters who have had time to make their peace with God and the past and who go out gently. These deaths, I think, hurt the most, but they might very well be the most justifiable. They remind us of our mortality and force us to ask ourselves who we will become and what will matter most to us when our own deaths approach.
But by far the most common practice, I think in recent years especially, is the practice of creating what I have decided to call "Casualties of Expectation".
J. K. Rowling was a bit of a pioneer in this practice. Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth and, undoubtedly, many others are following in her footsteps, all of them killing off so many characters they make you afraid to like anyone, any character, anywhere. It's become an expectation that there will be casualties, fatalities. So there are.
If you asked any of the authors of action series, Rowling or Collins or Roth, why they wrote so many death scenes, they'd probably say, "It's a war. It's a battle. I'm only trying to be realistic." But I can't help but feel, reading, that characters die who realistically wouldn't have. Authors write past the point of logic just for the sake of killing the youngest characters, or the ones with the most elaborate plans for their lives. They do the exact opposite of what I do. Or at least, it seems that way.
Some of these characters die bravely and heroically. Most don't.
I go on a lot of fandom-themed pages on Facebook, and there I constantly see reactions to all these Casualties of Expectation. Posts like, "Hush little fandom, don't you cry; you all knew your favorite character was going to die", or "Look at this great picture of all my favorite fictional characters!" accompanied by a drawing of a graveyard. Fangirls talk about their "feels" (a word which can mean one's emotions, one's capacity to feel emotions, or simply negative emotions) being broken, or destroyed, or simply being felt. They write about how much they wish they could read a story where all the best characters are alive and living happily ever after come the last page.
But here's the thing (watch out for possible spoilers).
The Charlie Bone series has (in my opinion) the best, brightest, and most hopeful final chapter of any book or book series ever written. The Tiffany Aching series has a happy ending. Really, compared to most modern teen literature, The Lord of the Rings has almost no death, at least not among named main characters. You would think that these series would be massively popular (and I guess that Lord of the Rings is, but at the moment it's rather paling in comparison to Divergent and HG and the like), seeing as how fangirls seem to be constantly begging for them.
And yet they're not.
This is where we get to the disturbing part.
I think that, for some reason unknown to me, we crave death. We crave grief. Fangirls can cry, "You broke my feels!" and "Who gave you the right?" and "I wish so-and-so hadn't died!" all they like, but deep down they're always looking for more. I think that some part of all of us yearns to feel heartache and longing, and fiction has always existed as a safe place to feel it, a place where people can die and be mourned without harm coming to anyone of flesh and blood, a place where we can experience loss and whatever positives we're apparently deriving from it without there being truly irreparable damage done.
And then, there's that even darker impulse, the one I think is buried deep in most authors: the desire to cause heartache. From some dark recess within ourselves we get a horrifying, sickening craving to write pain into existence, and we do. I'm aware of it in myself, and that's why I think I only kill characters whose stories couldn't end any other way. Even though I'm the one who made them miserable in the first place, the fact that I'm ending their misery and sending them to better horizons means I can say they would have been more miserable if they'd survived the story, that their deaths are merciful, necessary, and that I don't have to be terrified of myself.
I wonder if Rowling and Collins and Roth, if the infamous George R. R. Martin and the ruthless Julian Fellowes, feel it too. If you went up to them and asked "Why did so-and-so die?", I wonder if they would immediately reply with an inaccurate, kneejerk excuse like "realism", or if they would pause and blush and look at their hands because they dislike facing their dark sides as much as I dislike facing mine.
*Shrugs*
And with that, I'm out. Through. Run dry.
Finished.
So...... does anyone have any suggestions for next summer?
~Pearl Clayton
Well, I'm done. Finished. Another series read and filed away in my memory.
This morning, as I was taking a short break before finishing completely, I thought about some of the many things I considered saying and ended up leaving unsaid throughout this process, because I changed my mind or I couldn't figure out a smooth way of fitting them into the posts or because I got so carried away writing about something else that I forgot about the other points I was going to make. Some of those omitted things were silly, like the observation that I really hate it when books say "so-and-so said" or "so-and-so says" when so-and-so has just asked a question (here's a better example that's actually from Divergent: "I look at her and say, 'Then why did you come, if you didn't believe him?'") (this happened, like, at least once every conversation, too; it about drove me insane). Others were more serious, like the revelation that the main reason I tend to hate dystopias so much is the frequent appearance of frustrating preachiness so thinly veiled it might as well not be veiled at all.
Basically, I got a lot of thoughts and impressions reading this series, so many I couldn't realistically record them all. But I didn't get a lot of feelings. Now, that doesn't mean that this series didn't effect me emotionally. It did. But other books have made me laugh from amusement or joy. Other books have gotten me misty-eyed with happiness or empathy or sadness. One book has succeeded in giving me such a mess of emotions simultaneously that it brought real tears onto my cheeks. Divergent did none of those things. (Actually, I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but during the scenes which were probably supposed to make me cry I found myself quoting "Sherlock", singing a song from Wicked, and thinking, "For pity's sake, Tris, haven't you ever read poetry?". 'Cause see, I'm eccentric and I like to avoid the mainstream.)
That doesn't mean Divergent is a bad series. It isn't. I don't think it's some new pinnacle of great literature, and I'm not adding it to my list of favorite books and book series, but it isn't bad. I read it, I liked it, I'll remember it, and now I'm moving on.
But first, there's one more thing I need to write about.
Killing off characters.
Why do authors do it? What purpose does it serve? How can it possibly make a narrative better?
I find that most writers do it, me included. I've written two stories, am currently writing a third, and have several more elaborately planned out that feature at least one character dying. It's instinctive, somehow. I get an idea, I work on it a little, and pretty soon I'm asking myself, "Should I kill anyone off?"
I have a bit of a method, though, which I discovered as I was mentally drafting this post earlier. Once I've marked a character as doomed, I groom them for it. I damage them through circumstances within or beyond their control. I create characters so demented or desperate or despairing or dysfunctional that they couldn't possibly heal, couldn't possibly build fulfilling lives for themselves after the events of the story have concluded. I manipulate my stories so that, for the characters I've chosen, an early death becomes the only truly satisfactory fate.
I don't feel like this is a common practice.
A similar practice that seems slightly more common among more popular authors, especially of older books like Little Women and Daniel Deronda, is the practice of killing characters who are old or have been sick for a while, characters who have had time to make their peace with God and the past and who go out gently. These deaths, I think, hurt the most, but they might very well be the most justifiable. They remind us of our mortality and force us to ask ourselves who we will become and what will matter most to us when our own deaths approach.
But by far the most common practice, I think in recent years especially, is the practice of creating what I have decided to call "Casualties of Expectation".
J. K. Rowling was a bit of a pioneer in this practice. Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth and, undoubtedly, many others are following in her footsteps, all of them killing off so many characters they make you afraid to like anyone, any character, anywhere. It's become an expectation that there will be casualties, fatalities. So there are.
If you asked any of the authors of action series, Rowling or Collins or Roth, why they wrote so many death scenes, they'd probably say, "It's a war. It's a battle. I'm only trying to be realistic." But I can't help but feel, reading, that characters die who realistically wouldn't have. Authors write past the point of logic just for the sake of killing the youngest characters, or the ones with the most elaborate plans for their lives. They do the exact opposite of what I do. Or at least, it seems that way.
Some of these characters die bravely and heroically. Most don't.
I go on a lot of fandom-themed pages on Facebook, and there I constantly see reactions to all these Casualties of Expectation. Posts like, "Hush little fandom, don't you cry; you all knew your favorite character was going to die", or "Look at this great picture of all my favorite fictional characters!" accompanied by a drawing of a graveyard. Fangirls talk about their "feels" (a word which can mean one's emotions, one's capacity to feel emotions, or simply negative emotions) being broken, or destroyed, or simply being felt. They write about how much they wish they could read a story where all the best characters are alive and living happily ever after come the last page.
But here's the thing (watch out for possible spoilers).
The Charlie Bone series has (in my opinion) the best, brightest, and most hopeful final chapter of any book or book series ever written. The Tiffany Aching series has a happy ending. Really, compared to most modern teen literature, The Lord of the Rings has almost no death, at least not among named main characters. You would think that these series would be massively popular (and I guess that Lord of the Rings is, but at the moment it's rather paling in comparison to Divergent and HG and the like), seeing as how fangirls seem to be constantly begging for them.
And yet they're not.
This is where we get to the disturbing part.
I think that, for some reason unknown to me, we crave death. We crave grief. Fangirls can cry, "You broke my feels!" and "Who gave you the right?" and "I wish so-and-so hadn't died!" all they like, but deep down they're always looking for more. I think that some part of all of us yearns to feel heartache and longing, and fiction has always existed as a safe place to feel it, a place where people can die and be mourned without harm coming to anyone of flesh and blood, a place where we can experience loss and whatever positives we're apparently deriving from it without there being truly irreparable damage done.
And then, there's that even darker impulse, the one I think is buried deep in most authors: the desire to cause heartache. From some dark recess within ourselves we get a horrifying, sickening craving to write pain into existence, and we do. I'm aware of it in myself, and that's why I think I only kill characters whose stories couldn't end any other way. Even though I'm the one who made them miserable in the first place, the fact that I'm ending their misery and sending them to better horizons means I can say they would have been more miserable if they'd survived the story, that their deaths are merciful, necessary, and that I don't have to be terrified of myself.
I wonder if Rowling and Collins and Roth, if the infamous George R. R. Martin and the ruthless Julian Fellowes, feel it too. If you went up to them and asked "Why did so-and-so die?", I wonder if they would immediately reply with an inaccurate, kneejerk excuse like "realism", or if they would pause and blush and look at their hands because they dislike facing their dark sides as much as I dislike facing mine.
*Shrugs*
And with that, I'm out. Through. Run dry.
Finished.
So...... does anyone have any suggestions for next summer?
~Pearl Clayton
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Allegiant, Day 3
Today's post is going to be uncommonly short (in theory, anyway; sometimes I end up writing way more than I think I'm going to) for two reasons. Reason one is that my next post will be written about the end of the series, and based on reports from trustworthy sources concerning the traumatic nature of the conclusion, I'm assuming I'll have tons to say, making up for a lack of insight and ranting in this post. Reason two is that today's reading was even more dull than yesterday's.
In the 191 pages I read today, there were three scenes that could be classified as action scenes. The first was reasonably intense. The second was very short and basically pointless. The third was, in addition to being really short, only observed from a distance and not participated in by either of our narrators.
And speaking of our narrators, remember how in one of my Insurgent reviews I complained about the frequency of their arguing? Well, at the beginning of Allegiant they had a long, heartfelt conversation in which they apparently worked through their myriad issues, leaving me with high hopes that the rest of the series would be focused on more important matters than relationship drama. Which were fulfilled. They were fulfilled, that is, until Four did something unspeakably stupid which resulted in 70 more pages of Tris being mad and them arguing and me almost wishing there was a love triangle because these two seem so wrong for each other.
Almost.
Don't worry, they're back together now. They forgave each other, and as they hugged, Tris thought to herself, "I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me."
Sounds healthy. (Note my sarcasm.)
In other news, my favorite character from Insurgent who hasn't really been in Allegiant much because Veronica Roth doesn't like me was critically injured and is now slowly dying, and I was right to assume that absolutely everybody in the scientific compound is untrustworthy, deceptive, and if not intentionally evil, at least evil due to ignorance. And how was this information revealed? Through pages and pages and pages of expository conversations.
Ufta.
Well, there is one scientist named Matthew who seems nice and is trying to help the Chicagoans overthrow the compound. Therefore I trust him least of all. I know how this works now. I will not be fooled again!
Actually, I have one more observation about that. Plot twists cease to be powerful if readers are slinking cautiously through books, wracked by paranoia and reluctant to count on anything because of past reading experiences. I'm also in the middle of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and today while reading that I came across a plot twist that doesn't really even qualify as a plot twist that shocked me way more than any of the surprises in Divergent or Across the Universe or The Hunger Games. I was so startled I expressed my surprise verbally reading Great Expectations, which is way more than can be said for any of the YA series I've read. Why? Because I've learned to always expect the unexpected reading teen lit, and so I've come to the point in it where nothing is unexpected and therefore there is no anticipation or suspense.
To conclude, I was bored today. I was really bored. And frustrated. And irritated. If the conclusion of this series is truly as overwhelmingly traumatic as everyone's been hinting it is, I think that something majorly earth-shattering is going to have to go down in the next 50 pages or so.
But I guess I'll see tomorrow.
Until then, I remain,
~Pearl Clayton
In the 191 pages I read today, there were three scenes that could be classified as action scenes. The first was reasonably intense. The second was very short and basically pointless. The third was, in addition to being really short, only observed from a distance and not participated in by either of our narrators.
And speaking of our narrators, remember how in one of my Insurgent reviews I complained about the frequency of their arguing? Well, at the beginning of Allegiant they had a long, heartfelt conversation in which they apparently worked through their myriad issues, leaving me with high hopes that the rest of the series would be focused on more important matters than relationship drama. Which were fulfilled. They were fulfilled, that is, until Four did something unspeakably stupid which resulted in 70 more pages of Tris being mad and them arguing and me almost wishing there was a love triangle because these two seem so wrong for each other.
Almost.
Don't worry, they're back together now. They forgave each other, and as they hugged, Tris thought to herself, "I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me."
Sounds healthy. (Note my sarcasm.)
In other news, my favorite character from Insurgent who hasn't really been in Allegiant much because Veronica Roth doesn't like me was critically injured and is now slowly dying, and I was right to assume that absolutely everybody in the scientific compound is untrustworthy, deceptive, and if not intentionally evil, at least evil due to ignorance. And how was this information revealed? Through pages and pages and pages of expository conversations.
Ufta.
Well, there is one scientist named Matthew who seems nice and is trying to help the Chicagoans overthrow the compound. Therefore I trust him least of all. I know how this works now. I will not be fooled again!
Actually, I have one more observation about that. Plot twists cease to be powerful if readers are slinking cautiously through books, wracked by paranoia and reluctant to count on anything because of past reading experiences. I'm also in the middle of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and today while reading that I came across a plot twist that doesn't really even qualify as a plot twist that shocked me way more than any of the surprises in Divergent or Across the Universe or The Hunger Games. I was so startled I expressed my surprise verbally reading Great Expectations, which is way more than can be said for any of the YA series I've read. Why? Because I've learned to always expect the unexpected reading teen lit, and so I've come to the point in it where nothing is unexpected and therefore there is no anticipation or suspense.
To conclude, I was bored today. I was really bored. And frustrated. And irritated. If the conclusion of this series is truly as overwhelmingly traumatic as everyone's been hinting it is, I think that something majorly earth-shattering is going to have to go down in the next 50 pages or so.
But I guess I'll see tomorrow.
Until then, I remain,
~Pearl Clayton
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