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Slashy Books
Sep. 11th, 2004 06:14 pmI've been reading my birthday presents, about £100 worth of books I bought for myself, and I realised the series and authors I like the best have a strong slashy component. Not necessarily outright boy meets boy and goes happily into the sunset, but at least boy meets person of confusing gender status, or vice versa, and true love happens on at least one side. How it works out after that rather depends.
In the Vorkosigan books theres a hermaphrodite in love with our hero for a while. In the Tamir books there is a boy who is secretly a girl and gets all stressed about falling in love with other boys. In the Nightrunner books then two guys meet and fall in love and theres also plot and magic and all that good stuff. And in the Robin Hobb books about the Fool there is the abiding love he has for his Catalyst.
Thing is not all the authors have the slashy version of a happy ending in mind. ( Read more... )
Things not having the right ending bugs me like nothing else. And I've been told off before now because the author makes up the story so whatever ending they slap on there is the right ending. Well, no. The author writes down the story, but a story has a shape, and the craft of the writing leads the reader to a certain set of expectations by the end of the book. If you have someone going off into the sunset with the wrong person, then yes, it is the wrong ending, because the story didnt lead there. If it has to jump and lurch and skip to get to that particular sunset then it is going to annoy some readers. Including me.
Which is frustrating, because up until then I was liking the story.
In the Vorkosigan books theres a hermaphrodite in love with our hero for a while. In the Tamir books there is a boy who is secretly a girl and gets all stressed about falling in love with other boys. In the Nightrunner books then two guys meet and fall in love and theres also plot and magic and all that good stuff. And in the Robin Hobb books about the Fool there is the abiding love he has for his Catalyst.
Thing is not all the authors have the slashy version of a happy ending in mind. ( Read more... )
Things not having the right ending bugs me like nothing else. And I've been told off before now because the author makes up the story so whatever ending they slap on there is the right ending. Well, no. The author writes down the story, but a story has a shape, and the craft of the writing leads the reader to a certain set of expectations by the end of the book. If you have someone going off into the sunset with the wrong person, then yes, it is the wrong ending, because the story didnt lead there. If it has to jump and lurch and skip to get to that particular sunset then it is going to annoy some readers. Including me.
Which is frustrating, because up until then I was liking the story.
