Review: Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse & Writing Complicated Characters

Tried to watch the third season of True Blood, the HBO series based on Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series, while I was in deep recovery. I'm still stuck on episode six ... and can't seem to find time to watch it even though the DVD is loaded and ready for the click of a button. I don't mind the series not following the books, but I do mind the way the scenes jump from one character to another without much development. Like chickens running around without their heads to no purpose.

Guess, I'm a character kind of gal. Don't like the character, I don't read ... or watch, in this case. -- Maybe that's why so many TV series fail? Because the simply-drawn characters keep going through the motions after their characters stop growing. Still, I need to get back and watch it. I think the show should be introducing Sookie's Fae cousins ... and I definitely want to see how the series handles them. -- Hey, there had to be a reason why Sookie could read minds.

Instead of watching the series, I ended up reading Definitely Dead, the tenth (?) book in the Sookie Stackhouse series. Seems I missed it ... or got confused by the sample chapter at the end of the last book I read into thinking I had read it.

Definitely Dead again has Sookie smack-dab in the middle of vampire politics while she tries to settle her cousin's estate and start a romance with a warm-blooded creature. How good is the book? The storyline is complete in itself with just enough back story to understand what's going on and a few loose ends to lead you into the next book in the series.

Harris is sort of an old hand at this series stuff. She has four successful ones [Sookie Stackhouse, Lily Bard, Harper Connelly, and Aurora Teagaren] and has fans still asking for more in the series she's closed. So far, when Harris has ended a series, the major character complications have usually been solved, ie the character stopped growing. If Harris continued, the character would be on repeat of solving a mystery in the British cozy pattern where the detective seems more a deus ex machina rather than a character.

Of course, at this point, I'm not worried about ending my own stories, but found an interesting blog on getting an ending on your stories -- long or short. I have more problems with getting them into second gear. Do you have trouble progressing with your current story, ie floundering for an ending? WiseInk has some ideas that might help you locate the the problem at Four Reasons You Can't Finish Your Book. I've tried to use the ideas to jump-start my writing, but so far ... I just run out of steam. [I'm blaming my surgery.]

Complications can help move a story. I've been trying to create more three dimensional characters, especially with my Half-Elven. Alexia Reed has a neat little list of Seven Ways to Create Character Depth. She even includes backstory as a way of preventing your characters from appearing sui generus from the page.

Give them a visit. I'll wish you an insight that will put you in Charlaine Harris' league.

Plot Points

The Read:  Plot points, big and little, need to be embedded a story -- fiction or narrative non-fiction.  I think plots work as a compass to keep us on track to where we need to end up.  Think of a hook dragging the writer through the story.  If we're lucky, the happenings will hook readers into our tale and keep them there.  Woe be to the writer who can't stay interested in the book they are trying to write.  They will gnash their teeth mightily. 

Now that I've played Cassandra, all gloom and doom, I'll move on to admire Charlaine Harris's nimble exercises in keeping the action in Dead and Gone moving.  No secret that Harris is one of my favorite authors.  I started the book sometime over the week-end (Sunday?) and expected it to take as long to read as Pure Blood.  Only, I was more than half-way through it as of Tuesday, making me wonder why the novels I like the most finish the quickest.  

Dead and Gone is the ninth in the Sookie Stackhouse series [in mass paperback, at least].  I picked it from the pile to comment on because I'm watching the True Blood DVDs.  Only the two don't compare too well.  So, I'll gnaw on the plot points.  By the first fifth of the book [some 60 pages],  Sookie contends with the weres of America coming out, finds herself married to Eric [the New Orleans vampire], and having her sister-in-law [Jason's wife and a werepanther] crucified with silver nails.  A third of the way into the book, Sookie discovers her life's in danger because her great-grandfather (a faery prince) is in the middle of a fae war.  Also, somewhere in that mix, the FBI has shown up to determine whether Sookie's powers are real enough to recruit her.  Yeah, Harris ties it all up in a smoothly flowing story.  --  My mouth hangs open in admiration.  I'll try not to drool in front of you.

In the middle of all this, I went out and bought Dead Until Dark, the first in the series after spending a half hour last night looking for my Charlaine Harris pile.  (I was certain they were behind the Laurell K. Hamiltons, but they weren't.)  It'll be a couple days before I finish the DVDs, and then, I might have something to say about the differences between the two formats.  [Actually, I stayed up late last night and finished them.]

Web Notes:  Technically, I'm commenting on printed material, but since the editor is Chuck Sambuchino of Guide to Literary Agents  [ http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/ ] , I'm going to mention the Writer's Digest Get an Agent.  Haven't looked at too much of it yet, except for the 21 agents panting for new clients.  --  Just my luck.  Very few of them were interested in MG/YA or fantasy.

The publication offers lots of tips to digest, if not implement.  Revising your manuscript.  How not to start your book.  [Probably the next thing I read after failing to get Maren out of the blocks.]  Successful Queries.  Lots, lots more.  Much of the information can be gathered free by reading agent blogs, but I think it's nice to have it contained in one publication.

This blog.  I'm always amazed at the number of non-Americans taking a look at what I write.

Progress:  Gave up on Maren and consigned her to My Documents ... maybe after some fermentation, she'll reappear in another form.  At least, a different story.  I still like her and the new villains.

Emma.  Still, thrashing over a query.  Or, is that twisting in the wind? 

Kaffy Anne.  Pulled her from limbo where she's been languishing for a couple years.  From the looks of it, it's 2/3s drafted with lots of notes for the subsequent chapters.  Got a couple chapters read yesterday, and it wasn't too distressing to read even though it was written before Britt and the gargoyles.

Trivia:  After laying in a stock of sheep sh*t bags ... we went looking for the kind of parsley the old man likes.  The flat leaf kind since he thinks it's best, but that may be a Greek prejudice.  --   I like it too since it has more flavor.  Gives more snap to my mom's German noodle dishes.

Keeping a Reader Hooked

The Read:   Once a writer gets a reader to buy the book, they have to keep them hooked long enough to keep reading.  Right?  Well, Caitlin Kittredge has pulled me pass the middle of PURE BLOOD.  Hey, I'm squirming here, but still reading.  [Duty is a harsh mistress.]

The writing isn't that bad.  The structure is twisting tighter with a bomb blast starting the change in the dynamics of the MC's partnership with the Barbie detective.   I'm at the last third of the book, and Kittredge is finally concentrating on the war between the two witch clans.  Must admit I'm hooked enough to want to see how she semi-resolves the issues with MC's personal and professional life.   But ...

The DVD set of True Blood arrived.  [Have you notice fantasy has gotten decidedly bloody in the last couple years?  Oh, for simple marauding orcs!]  The HBO series is based on Charlaine Harris'  Dead Until Dark.  Like the casting of the Bill Compton character, but I don't think Sookie Stackhouse  is portrayed with enough dippiness.  Grew up with kids like her [without the ability to hear thoughts], once removed (by parents moving to California), and don't think Paquin quite catches it.  Still, I look forward to the news ending so I can fire up the next episode.

The reading of Pure Blood is going to take a long time.  Too much competition for my free time.

Web Notes:  Got my horizons broadened by a blog again yesterday.  Nugget of wisdom:  You shouldn't limit your visits to classrooms to promote your book -- if you're lucky enough to be published.  Jewel Allen did a guest blog on Chuck Sambuchino's Guide to Literary Agents with a wonderful suggestion to find out what kind of stories children like.  Visit their classrooms with a partially written story ... and have the kids put the ending on it.  Visit http://tinyurl.com/yge42uk  to read all her excellent suggestions.
 
Blogging:  I'm thinking more and more that the web/social media are a huge time vampire.  Maybe that's why so many people are writing about the undead, you think?  They're trying to use the research they did when trying to discover ways to escape from vampires?  --  I now follow so many blogs, you have to hook me into clicking as I rush through my allotted web time.

Progress: I'm staggering on with Maren's metamorphosis.

Trivia:  On a more positive note.  Had tempura for lunch.  Love unhealthy vegies.