Category Archives: Feature & Follow

Feature & Follow #95 (featuring ME!): One Thing to Tell My Favorite Author

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It’s an exciting day!

[Why is it an exciting day, Lauren?]

It’s exciting because I discovered that I was selected to be (i.e. volunteered/begged to be) the Feature for this week’s Feature & Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee’s View and Alison Can Read! Huzzah!

I’m sorry. I’m not normally quite this cheesy, holding imaginary conversations with myself and all. I do actually yell “huzzah” pretty regularly, though.

Please don’t be sorry you’re following me.

Anyway, to Parajunkee and Alison, thanks so much for hosting and using your powers for good to drive traffic over here to my little blog.

If this is your first time here, welcome! I hope you like what I have to say. And if you’re one of my established followers (or The Elite, as I refer to you in my head), thanks for bearing with me through my rambling.

Follow via whatever method you’d like: email, RSS, LinkyFollowers, Networked Blogs. They’re all over there in the sidebar like a little follow buffet. Be sure to leave me a comment letting me know how you’re following so I can return the favor. If you’re feeling really promote-y, you can also grab my button from the sidebar and put it up on your blog. That would be rad.

BEHOLD, THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:

What is one thing you wish you could tell your favorite author?

Oh my word. *headdesk* This isn’t fair. It’s too hard. I don’t even know who my favorite author is, much less what I’d tell them. Who came up with this question so I can glare at them menacingly?

[glares at Ali]

*sigh*

Okay, step one is picking my favorite author, which is not so easy. Some of my favorite books are written by authors who have only written a couple books, or only one series. So how do I know if I like everything they write or just that small sampling? Some of my favorite books are written by authors who have written other books I didn’t like, so I guess that means they’re not my favorite authors. And how do I compare authors who write adult sci-fi to authors who write YA fantasy? Both are genres I love, but it’s apples and oranges.

You know what? Screw this. I’m not picking my favorite author. The question doesn’t actually say I have to reveal who my favorite author is, and in the spirit of living by the letter of the law (that’s an oxymoronic statement if there ever was one), I’m not going to. Let’s just say there is a whole slew of authors that I adore and whose brains I would pick to smithereens if I could.

(Can you pick something to smithereens? Let’s just assume that’s a thing).

They include J.K. Rowling, Lauren Oliver, Orson Scott Card, Robin Hobb, Suzanne Collins, Myra McEntire, Michael Crichton, and probably many others that I’m forgetting. I love the stories they tell, the characters they introduce, and the worlds they create; but what’s more, I love the way they use words to accomplish this. Lots of books can be enjoyable and have good characters and an interesting story, but not all are actually written in a way that draws me into the world. I don’t always care about the characters I read about. I don’t always feel immersed in the world they live in. I don’t always put down a book wondering what happened next, even though I know the characters aren’t real.

But these authors have all created worlds and characters that I miss when I finish the book. I wonder about them. I care about them.

So to take the question literally, “what do you wish you could tell your favorite author,” there’s actually not much I’d want to tell them, besides “You’re awesome.” But that’s probably nothing they haven’t heard before.

If I can modify the question slightly to “what do you wish you could ask your favorite author(s),” I would ask them, how do they write characters and worlds in a way that makes me care? How do they get inside their characters’ heads? How do they write a world that completely absorbs my senses? (I know, that looks like 3 questions, but it’s really just one: “How do you make readers care?”)

Maybe it’s just one of those intangible gifts, where there is no technique; it just comes naturally to them. But if there is a method to their glorious madness, I would like to know what it is.

Thanks for stopping by!

Feature & Follow #94: Character that Disappointed Me

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Feature & Follow is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee’s View and Alison Can Read. Time to discover some new blogs and (hopefully) gain some new followers! Yay!

I would love for you to follow via whatever method you’d like: email, RSS, Linky Followers or Networked Blogs. Be sure to leave me a comment letting me know you’re following so I can return the favor!

Also, my husband just designed me a snazzy new button (Isn’t it snazzy? I find it quite snazzy) which you can grab in the sidebar if you’d like. Let me know if you stuck my button on your blog, and I’ll grab yours to put on mine. That’s obviously not a requirement of the Feature&Follow; just a bonus if you are so inclined. Thanks!

This week’s question:

Q: Have you ever had a character that disappointed you? One that you fell in love with and then “broke-up” with later on in either the series or stand-alone book? Tell us about him or her.

Hmmmm, this is a hard one. Typically, a character either annoys me right off the bat, or I love them forever. It’s pretty rare that I would start out a book enjoying a character and end up hating him or her.

Okay. If we are sticking just to books, I’m going to kind of have to be a little loose in my answer to this question, because I honestly can’t think of a character that I fell in love with and then “broke up” with. So let’s just stick to disappointed.

I’m going to go with Elphaba from Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. I went into reading the book knowing the basics of the plot. I knew she was going to become the Wicked Witch, and that eventually Dorothy was going to throw a bucket of water on her and she was going to melt and die and all of Oz would rejoice. And somewhere along the way, she was going to sing “Defying Gravity.”

Okay, maybe not that last part.

But I was expecting for her to still be a sympathetic character. I was looking forward to the book putting a new spin on her story and making me really understand her, maybe even feel sorry for her. I wasn’t really expecting it to be a tragedy (this is a story about Oz, after all), so I didn’t think I’d be too broken up when she died, but I was expecting her to have a slow fall from grace. [Spoiler warning ahead]

But no, she was pretty much unlikable throughout the entire book. I understand she had a rough childhood and adolescence, but even so, she pushed away, ran away from, or downright rejected anyone who attempted to be kind to her. I couldn’t figure out what Fiyero  ever saw in her to make him want to have a romantic relationship with her. And then once he’s out of the picture, she’s even more withdrawn.

The part where I knew I could never, ever feel sympathetic towards this character was when some horrible children play a prank on her young son — who she is never even slightly affectionate towards — and he spends two days clinging to a bucket at the bottom of a well, and nearly dies. And she doesn’t notice, and once they find him, she doesn’t care.

What. The. Heck.

So yeah. Sorry Elphaba. I’m kind of glad Dorothy threw that water on you. You were a pretty horrible person. I was looking forward to seeing another side of you, but every side of you kind of sucked.

And just because I can’t seem to let it go…..

As an honorable mention, and ranging outside of the world of books, I would like to give a shout-out to Chief Galen Tyrol from Battlestar Galactica. His character was awesome during the first couple seasons of the show, started a slow descent in Season 3, and was utterly decimated in Season 4. Congratulations, Ronald D. Moore, for completely ruining a sympathetic and interesting character.

Battlestar Galactica kind of had that effect on a few characters. Tyrol was just, in my opinion, the worst.

Happy Friday everyone!

Feature & Follow #93: Fictional Character Smackdown!

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Feature & Follow Friday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee’s View and Alison Can Read. Each week, they’ll pick one blogger to feature, and it’s also a great way to discover new blogs and gain new followers. I’m excited to be participating this week, and can’t wait to discover some new blogs!

If you’re participating in the hop, I’d love it if you could follow me via the Linky Connect link in my sidebar, or you can sign up to follow me via email. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d leave a comment to let me know you were here. I’m still new to all this, so I want to know who’s out there in the blogosphere!

Thanks everyone! I look forward to “meeting” all of you!

So, moving on to this week’s question:

Q: Fight! Fight! If you could have two fictional characters battle it out (preferably from books), who would they be and who do you think would win?

Okay. This may be because one of my kids woke up crying for no reason, then I remembered I forgot to load the dishwasher last night, and then there was a bug on my coffee maker.

Needless to say, I woke up snarky this morning.

Anyway, I would like to have Bella Swan (Twilight) battle Hermione Granger (Harry Potter). And no, Edward is not allowed to save Bella.

Hermione would win. Duh. She would trounce her. Even if 11-year-old Sorcerer’s Stone Hermione was fighting 18-year-old vampire Bella, Hermione would win. Why? Because Hermione is resourceful, intelligent, and downright scrappy if need be. Oh, and also she knows magic. Lots of magic.

So yeah. I think what would make me happy this morning is a good smackdown of someone who needs a good smackdown, and Bella definitely could use one.

But Hermione is kind and fair, and she’d want to adhere to the rules of proper deuling (especially 11-year-old Hermione), so she wouldn’t leave Bella bruised and bleeding (well….maybe bruised). She’d just teach her a lesson about standing up for herself, even if you don’t have the boy you want, and how whining and moping isn’t the answer.

Then she’d probably help her up. Because Hermione is cool like that.