My Heroes Have Always Been Anti-Heroes

If you've been following my tweets you know that I'm re-watching LOST and because of that I've now lost interest in the real world. LOST is one of those shows that is so well written, acted, paced, plotted and executed that it worms into your brain and eats away that part of you that allows you to be entertained by mediocrity. Now I want nothing except LOST.

That being said, The Walking Dead is on tonight, and you can bet your ass I'll be watching.

And those two things side by side brought me to a realization. As a writer, reader and overall storyaholic, I love the anti-heroes - those complex, warped fellows that find themselves unable to fit into social situations. They'd rather make up insulting nicknames for people or throw squirrels at them than actually participate in a helpful way.

The first thing we see Sawyer do in LOST is smoke a cigarette and glare at people. When he finally does get social it's to accuse Sayid of being a terrorist and get into a fistfight with him. And thank God Jack broke that up early because it would've been a shame if Sayid had to break Sawyer's neck with his ankles.

Our first exposure to Daryl is when he comes lunging out of the brush, completely filthy and armed to the teeth, pissed off that a zombie got the deer he's been tracking... and then he throws dead squirrels at people and makes racist comments.

Yes, these are my heroes. Aggressive rednecks.

So why are they so much more compelling than the real heroes?

Because Jack and Rick are good, clean-cut people thrown into bad situations where they begin to deteriorate. Rick is killing the living and getting phone calls from heaven, Jack ends up strung out and makes a pretty crappy husband / boyfriend. These transformations happen after they go down the rabbit hole and their personalities get a reality check. My anti-heroes grow after the world falls apart.

In "Two for the Road" (LOST S2 E20) after Libby dies, Kate is crouching on a bench in the hatch attempting to hide her tears. Sawyer more or less forces his comfort on her with a sweet man-friend chest-pillow hug and I'm like "DEAR GOD I WISH YOU REALLY EXISTED TAKE ME HOME." And Sawyer just gets better from there. He reads (YA, no less), he plays ping-pong, and he threatens people who threaten Kate. Also, he sports a half-ponytail every now and then and it's super hot.

And then he backslides. I've never been so upset as when Sawyer stockpiled weapons and declared there was a new sheriff in town. OK, I have been, but you know what I mean.

Daryl is like Sawyer (minus aggressive sexual manipulation of every attractive female he meets) in that the worst possible situation is bringing out the best in him. He's stopped throwing squirrels at people. Now he's feeding everyone with his bow. He's a team player and Rick's right hand man, (although I'd argue that Daryl is more important to their survival than Rick but *anyway*) he may even have feelings for Carol down under that filthy skin. And the equivalent of Sawyer's man-friend chest-pillow hug was the cuddling and christening of Baby Kickass. Yeah, even my tin can of a heart rattled around a little.

But I sense a backslide coming as his path converges with his brother's. I'm actually worried about this and have a feeling I'm going to be shouting obscenities at my TV sometime soon.

And these are the kind of characters that I love - the ones that you worry about. Creating a character that keeps people waiting for the next episode or forcing themselves to stay awake for just one more chapter because they need to know what's going to happen to him/her is a true art.

We're writers. Our job is to make readers care about things that never happened to people that don't exist. It's not easy, but it's doable.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to make characters as compelling and complex as Sawyer and Daryl, but I promise you I'll try.

Thursday Thoughts

Thoughts lately -

1) When I was little I used to think that the world ended when we ran out of space to bury people. Think about it - there's a lot of people and only so much soil. Surely there's a formula to mathematically figure out when the entire earth will be tombstones. And yes, I'm aware you can be cremated. But you can also be composted, if you live in Scandinavia. Yep.

2) But you can't be buried on your own property, that's illegal because of water tables and such. Gone are the good old days of being hauled out to the family plot. This is odd to me. It's my body, but I don't get to say where I want it to go when I'm done with it. I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to do the thing where you are stuck up on a plank in a tree and the birdies get you. Will check on that.

3) It makes me think about placentas. You don't get to keep yours. Yep - that's right. You grew it inside of yourself, you expelled it out of your vagina but it does not belong to you. Because there's a .0000001 chance I might take it home and do stem cell experiments.

Laura Barnes On Querying Without Fear

I'm lucky (or cunning) enough to have lured yet another successful writer over to my blog for an SAT - Successful Author Talk. SAT authors have conquered the query, slain the synopsis and attained the pinnacle of published. How'd they do it? Let's ask 'em!

Today's guest for the SAT (Successful Author Talk) is Laura Barnes, a great person who definitely deserves the light at the end of the slog tunnel. Laura's story is one of those that makes you say, "Yes, I can do this! Good stuff happens to regular people too, not just the insane ones like Mindy!"

I call this SAT "Querying Without Fear" because Laura queried an agent who only accepts new clients through referrals. She knew the odds, but she also knew she wanted this guy and that the worst he could tell her was "no." And we grow immune to that. So she did it... and boy is she glad she did.

Here's to no fear.

Are you a Planner or Pantster?

I like to pretend I’m a Planster because I admire people who write on the fly and I think Planners are boring, but I’m really a Planner. I like to call it mulling. I mull and mull and mull – as I’m driving, as I’m falling asleep, in the shower – and then when I sit at the computer it’s ready to go. I also generally write an outline near the beginning of writing.

How long does it typically take you to write a novel, start to finish?

About four months. I’m hoping to finish my current W.I.P. in three months though. Fingers crossed.

Do you work on one project at a time, or are you a multi tasker?

One at a time. I have a feeling I’m going to have to learn to multi-task since I have a lot of material on submission/getting ready for submission. I’m not looking forward to it.

Did you have to overcome any fears that first time you sat down to write?

Not really. I say that because I can’t remember the first time I sat down to write – I’ve always been a writer. I do have recurrent doubts though. Days when I think everything is shit, and not in a submission hell way, but in a why does everything I write make me want a puke kind of way.

How many trunked books did you have before you were agented?

When I got my agent, I had three complete books and had considered at least one of those to be trunked (my first one). However, it appears that all three of my books will be put out on submission after some revisions.

Have you ever quit on an ms, and how did you know it was time?

I’ve started a few that are waiting for me to return. Does that count as quitting? The ms that I had considered trunked I gave up on because I had queried, like, 150 agents and though I had a lot of requests, no one took me up on it. I quit querying it when my next book was finished, mostly because I was more excited about the new one then the old one.

Who is your agent and how did you get that "Yes!" out of them?  

My agent is Bob Diforio at D4EO literary agency. He usually only accepts referrals, but I queried him anyway since I love his agency. He asked for the full the same day I queried him and offered representation the next morning. I’m also working with Kristin Miller, another agent at D4EO, for my MG novels.

How long did you query before landing your agent?

I’d queried my first two books for over a year, but I’d only been querying the book that landed me an agent for one week.

Any advice to aspiring writers out there on conquering query hell?

Ha ha. I laugh because every bit of advice I read when querying made me bitter. But that’s probably just me. So I’ll say this: querying sucks. It sucks mostly because we let the results of querying tell us how good our writing is, which is total bull crap. A lot of getting an agent is being in the right place at the right time when whatever particular agent was in the right mood. Don’t let rejection tell you you’re not good.

How much of your own marketing do you?  

I have a blog that has been ignored a lot this last year. I was hard core blogging for a long time. Then more real life responsibilities (ie: working more) forced me to have to back down. I have a Twitter account but I really don’t use it much.

When do you build your platform? After an agent? Or should you be working before?

Before! Before, before, before because after you get your agent you’re busy. If you’ve got things in place before, it will be much better to maintain.

Do you think social media helps build your readership?

I do. I’m not sure if it’s enough to counter the amount of time spent on it, but I believe the relationships built through social media are valuable for other reasons as well.