The issue about "accepting slacking if it's the forerunner" is really the problem I had with Tanya Huff. She does a major bait-and-switch in every story, going from mystery to suspense, and the two are radically different genres. (I think I've posted about this before.) That really creates a major cognative dissonance at the halfway juncture of the story, and threw me out on every single one of her stories -- I only kept reading out of sheer obstinancy, to be honest, that, and the hopes that the next one, the editor might have said, "look, you need to stop this."
Unfortunately, no editor did, nor, it appears, did anyone else: but she's one of the few in the SFF/horror genre who has a bi protag, a gay supporting character, and so on. For that alone I was willing to keep buying/reading, if only to support that branch of the genre. But eventually I had to realize that spending money on her stories -- with flaws that made me want to rip her story to shreds -- might not be interpreted as "I am doing this to support your bi/gay characters" but instead as "your writing/storytelling is just fine as it is."
That's part of the problem: when people read/buy your stories, what is it that's making them hold on? Is it really the same as what you think it is? Or is it only that there's this one positive element they can't get elsewhere, that they're willing to accept the trade-off of the rest of the crap in your story to get that one thing? I think this may be what's confusing LKH: people are reading for reasons that she may not entirely realize, and instead she assumes that purchasing her books mean you think the story is good as a whole.
There are plenty of books I read for which I hate 90% of it, but one single detail, or conflict, or character, is enough to make me keep going despite all else, despite pathetic copyediting, despite sparse description, despite stilted dialogue, whatever. Buying a book does not mean I am unabashedly supportive of every word in it.
Now, the key is: will I remember all this when I am published? Or shall I have to keep all of you around to remind me? *snerk*
no subject
Date: 4 Jan 2007 10:05 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, no editor did, nor, it appears, did anyone else: but she's one of the few in the SFF/horror genre who has a bi protag, a gay supporting character, and so on. For that alone I was willing to keep buying/reading, if only to support that branch of the genre. But eventually I had to realize that spending money on her stories -- with flaws that made me want to rip her story to shreds -- might not be interpreted as "I am doing this to support your bi/gay characters" but instead as "your writing/storytelling is just fine as it is."
That's part of the problem: when people read/buy your stories, what is it that's making them hold on? Is it really the same as what you think it is? Or is it only that there's this one positive element they can't get elsewhere, that they're willing to accept the trade-off of the rest of the crap in your story to get that one thing? I think this may be what's confusing LKH: people are reading for reasons that she may not entirely realize, and instead she assumes that purchasing her books mean you think the story is good as a whole.
There are plenty of books I read for which I hate 90% of it, but one single detail, or conflict, or character, is enough to make me keep going despite all else, despite pathetic copyediting, despite sparse description, despite stilted dialogue, whatever. Buying a book does not mean I am unabashedly supportive of every word in it.
Now, the key is: will I remember all this when I am published? Or shall I have to keep all of you around to remind me? *snerk*