Time Enough for Love

[erastes]

Over the past couple of weeks I've had reviews for Frost Fair which have said similar things, that the characters were hard to empathise with, that the story was too short, that Gideon was too cold. It's always hard to get reviews like that, although

the reviews had nothing but praise for the writing and they all loved Mordecai, too.  I think it shows to me that perhaps I'm not really right for novellas, and that maybe I'm shoving a quart into a pint pot, as they say. There was a lot more, for example, to Chiaroscuro than was in the novella. It was destined to be a full-sized novel, but I'd stalled at about 20k words. Then I saw the call on MLR Press and decided to shape it accordingly and submit it to them. Consequently more than one reviewer said they felt it was too short.

I'm not--as you probably know by now--a writer who jumps in with the action, and my builds up and layering work for too many chapters for a novella, I imagine, and by the time I've explained who HE is and then who HE is and what the conflict is, and found a secondary character or two, there's not enough time to successfully pull off a convincing and passionate relationship.  That being said, though--the relationship in FF isn't the same depth as Standish. I never had any doubt--no matter how wrong they were for each other--that Rafe and Ambrose loved each other furiously, truly, madly, deeply etc. It's not the same for Gideon and Joshua though, it was tentative, even at the end. I know some people have said it wasn't passionate enough--but that was deliberate.

I'm pushing ahead with Mere Mortals, and I was just thinking "nothing's really happened" and then I realised that I still had 80k words or so to go, so there wasn't any hurry, and if character A wants to sit there and stare at character B's long slender fingers as they edge the rim of his wine glass FOR AN ENTIRE PAGE, then it was ok.  Because it's a novel. And hopefully will be full of passion. At some point. No hurry.

Comments

[storm-grant.livejournal.com]

I *like* a story that unfolds slowly. (I wrote a whole rant here, but decided I'd really made my point in the first sentence. ;-D)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

aw! cheated out of a rant! *snugs*

[storm-grant.livejournal.com]

I remember reading Michener's bestseller, Hawaii, back in the 70s? 80s? It began with the coral polyps that formed the islands. And I liked it.

Sorry Joseph Campbell, but The Hero's Journey has, apparently, been re-written by short-sighted publishers. It no longer begins "in the real world" and they've eliminated that pesky "crossing of the threshold". We're just dropped into the action with no idea who the hero is or what s/he's doing or where the plucky sidekick came from. *I like* a little backstory upfront.

And don't get me started on couples who fall in love or worse, go from hate to love, in less than 4 paragraphs!

Well, not as ranty as the first one, but still pretty ranty for this non-combative Canadian. ;-D

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I never read Hawaii, but I remember my mother telling me that it took a huge chunk of the book for any people even to show up! :)

I agree - it's possible/probable that one day I'll start a story with a homosexual being hounded through the streets in fear of his life but not just yet, I think. I like short stories more for that kind of immediacy!