pound cake: if nobody's doing it

[kaigou]

A few days ago, lilithsaintcrow posted about the I can do it betters, and that's had me thinking about my running internal commentary when I read (fiction or nonfiction), and even a bit about when I post critiques and reviews.

It seems to me -- from what I can recall, at least -- that it's been a long time since I've read anything and actually thought, "I can do that better." I mean, although my daily focus is not story-writing per se, I have done enough of it in enough different styles to be able to say with some confidence that it would not automatically be true that I could do anything better. It would, though, be true that I can do it different.

Which I think results in some other kind of critique thought-process, where in deconstruction I can see how the author was aiming for A, B, and C, but I'm also detached enough to see that D, E, and F were options, character- or plot-wise. Even mid-story I find myself thinking, "oh, I would've had the character do X, instead," and then I compare how the author walks through the outcome versus my vaguely-posited outcome. (Yes, there are times when -- as the story unfolds -- I can see the reasons for the author's choices, and sometimes I can even see that in hindsight I now prefer the author's choice.)

In fanfic terms, certainly, this is where the impetus often comes for a fanfic, but I get annoyed when this urge is interpreted as saying the fanfic story (or just the general thought-process) is some kind of admonishment: this is me, doing it better. That's not always the case: plenty of fanfic authors will tell you up front they can't do it better. That's not their purpose; they just want to do it different.

Lili made a passing remark in the same post that touches on something that bothers me, sometimes:

Be careful who you open your mouth about the I could do betters to. You never know who might be listening, and publishing being the close little business it is, that person could have control of the next stage of your career at some point. In other words, think this all you want, but be careful who you say it to.

There are maybe three or four books that I could say honestly I have completely sliced from one end to another (which isn't really a great percentage now that I stop and think of how many books, overall, I've read/reviewed). The rest, well: yeah, plenty I don't finish, and some I don't like, but every book has something good, even if that was just a well-written premise and a snappy first chapter that gets me intrigued.

Or maybe it's not enough for some writers, or won't be enough for some, to think: hey, this person still paid for the book, before reading and not-being-satisfied. Is that an empty consolation? Could be.

If there's anything that pushes me to write (and I say push because on some levels I am not inclined to dedicate my life to writing nearly as much as I'd like to dedicate my life to, say, cabinetry or architecture), it's that more often than not, I just can't find what pleases my palate. My most recent request for recommendations is point in case, and just the tip of the iceberg: didn't care for that author's style, don't like this author's content, wasn't really into this author's premise, don't like that trope, whatever.

I quite possibly sound like the pickiest damn reader around, but to put myself in context, we have at least a thousand or so books in this house -- and my share of those books are rotated semi-annually. I buy, read, and then the majority get traded in at the used bookstore or given away. Sometimes I feel like a one-person, personalized version of a slush reader: open a book, read the first page or two, set it aside. Next one on the stack, read, frown, set it aside. Repeat for years, so when I find one that I realize I'm on chapter five and haven't moved in twenty minutes, I'm golden.

(Which is why some of those books are also given away, in turn, because when I find something that really knocks me like that, of course I must share. Then again, I also like to give away the ones that didn't really knock me, too, but in hopes that the next reader will like it, and treasure it more than I could.)

Sometimes I think to myself, I should be more open-minded. I should be the kind of customer/reader that I encouraged people to be, when I was selling books: try it, I know it's not quite what you said you want, but it's a great book, you never know... And sometimes, it's true that this is how you can discover works that blow you away despite being "not really what you want."

Sometimes, too, I think to myself of the folks who annoy me in fandoms, making the comments most any fandom-goer probably sees at some point: "What I want is a story with A and B, that involves some action but no gore, that's a blanketfic but with tentacles, with some hurt/comfort, but without C and D being paired in the background." Some even go so far as to specify the fanonical backstories they want for A or B, that deviate from canon: "G shouldn't have died in the series, so I want a story where G survived."

Seems to me that's like saying, "I want a cake made of sugar, flour, eggs, and butter." There may be a thousand cakes out there with those ingredients but in the end all you're eating is a thousand variations on pound cake.

That inner-snark about pound cake is what makes me feel guilty when I decry any story as unsatisfactory, because I can't help but wonder if it's not that it's a bad cake, so much that I prefer black forest cake and this was carrot cake. Doesn't help when I originally picked up the book because of someone else's recommendation: how am I to know whether the person has a taste for raspberries versus zest of an lemon?

Every now and then I wonder if I should just exorcise all critiques from my journal, or figure out how to completely detach this journal from any/all mention of any writing I myself might do, in advance protection against someone down the road bearing a grudge. Or something. Then I try to think of a good disclaimer, but I feel like an idiot (and a slightly resentful idiot, at that) to have to say, over and over: look, I'm all for upside-down pineapple cake, but these books turned out to be lemon meringue pie. I'll eat it if there's nothing else, but I won't finish the slice and I'll be thinking the whole time about how it's not my first pick." It makes me feel like I have to diplomatically apologize in advance for any chance that I am not the exact ideal audience to laud an author's work.

I try to balance that out with the reminder to myself that I have not left a single review on Amazon or similar sites, ever, and that I don't go around telling people not to read a work. I just figure, hey, it didn't put me through paroxysms of deeeelight, and I'm curious why, and where, it went off the rails from the train I'd hoped I'd be riding -- but I have no interest in staging a mission of sabotaging the author or his/her sales.

Maybe I just need a shorthand phrase (ala DNF) that translates to: the idea was good, but the execution left something to be desired.

The biggest irony about this post? ...is the fact that the draft I'd been working on (prior to losing it all in iMac deaththroes) was a review of Saintcrow's Watcher series. Whoops. Timing, timing.

Now I'm in the mood for some pound cake. Damn it.

Comments

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

I've been having a hard time finding books that bowl me over the way I used to be bowled over. Decent books, but not necessarily bowled. I tend to be very aware of my own biases about books though, and what I'm looking for sometimes is just good rompy reads, and sometimes something more involved and complex. Lately I've been going back more to trusted reads than not because I've been less than excited about some of my newer choices. One writer I'll suggest to you is C.E. Murphy. i think you'll like her stuff. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damned good. I've read the Urban Shaman stuff and also the Queen's Bastard. The first is US, the second not, but I ended up getting sucked into QB and couldn't get out until it was over. Also had the same sort of response to Elizabeth Bear's Dust, which is SF, but really intriguing.

Okay, going away. Packing up the kitchen, yanno. Trying to get ready for the remodel.

[teeheeiambad.livejournal.com]

I didn't give you a single req', mainly because what sprang to mind, were a few bits of higher level YA series/novels and you said you didn't want those. Low on the sexah, high on tight world building, scene set ups and characters. "Blood and Chocolate" quality. Except, no wolves. I dunno, but for a while now, I've been finding good YA that has sort of gone back to basics. Big on character and plot, light on the filler, makes for a good quick read.