Reading, 'Riting, and Ramblings

About 20,000 words into my cozy mystery, I aborted ship and gave up the genre. Writing about a book-loving heroine leading an idyllic life in an adorable seaside town was so very boring.

I happily breezed through the scenes of death and destruction and emotional turmoil, but when it came to the heroine's cute dates with her dreamboat crush and the sugar-laden tea parties with her quirky friends, I couldn't do it. I'm not the sort of person who can portray the world as sweet and fluffy, topped with pink frosting and sprinkles. So while I enjoy reading cozy mysteries, I can't write them.

Now I'm back to an idea that's been rattling around in my head for a year or so, but I was too afraid to try because it's different from anything I've read or written before, an action-packed fantasy set in historical Asia filled with political intrigue, fight scenes, and a touch of romance. The two-word elevator pitch: "steampunk ninjas."

Usually when I start a new writing project, I try to find popular books in the same genre to study. But Western novelists don't write about steampunk ninjas. Our historical fantasies take place in either Medieval Northern Europe, a la Camelot and Middle Earth, or Victorian Britain/America. Our storytelling style also focuses on one hero fighting one central villain. Americans aren't keen on the head-hopping, time-skipping, name-dropping style of classic East Asian novels like Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Jin Yong's Legend of the Condor Heroes.

The task of finding a popular novel to dissect for this project was a head-scratcher, until I spotted the perfect candidate on my own bookshelf: The Hunger Games.

The Hunger Games is not about steampunk ninjas. As a story that takes place in a futuristic dystopian America, it appears to be the exact opposite of a historical Asian fantasy. But it's not. In every respect but the setting, it's precisely what I intend to write, an action-packed fantasy filled with political intrigue, fight scenes, and a touch of romance.

In a previous blog post I said, "[Copycat novelists] see the success of The Hunger Games and Divergent and assume people like dystopian YA novels about teenage girls fighting oppressive dictatorships, so they write more dystopian YA novels about teenage girls fighting oppressive dictatorships. But these big-name novels aren't popular because of their settings. They're popular because they offer excitement and adventure."

After reading the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy, I'm even more convinced that the setting and basic premise of the trilogy are not the root of Suzanne Collins' commercial success. Rather, she succeeded because she carefully crafted the story elements to appeal to young readers. I believe she could have set it in any time period, any place, and it still would have been popular for the following reasons.

The story is packed with action and drama.

Collins doesn't shy away from raw emotions and brutal subjects. Characters feel intense rage, despair, and fear. They face the worst situations a human can: starvation, torture, the loss of loved ones, and helplessness in the face of certain death. The book is an emotional roller coaster that offers young readers the extreme highs and lows they love to revel in.

Every scene is full to the brim with action and emotion. In many books the story grinds to a halt for whole pages while the author describes the scenery or the food or a character's appearance. But in this book, the action moves forward on every page. Any lulls in the action are deliberate, like Collins sticking Katniss and Peeta in a cave for three days to develop their tortured romance. Otherwise, the plot train stops for no one.

Even descriptive passages tell stories. A mountain isn't just a mountain—it's a trigger for Katniss to recall a precious memory with her father, or to explain a landmark in the history of Panem. A piece of bread isn't just a piece of bread—it's a symbol of how precious food is in this dystopian world. If birds are singing in the trees, they're birds that were genetically engineered for war and became metaphors for peaceful rebellion and human resilience. There are no extraneous birds.

The protagonist is heroic, but not a goody-two-shoes.

Katniss is an unimpeachable hero. She's smart, strong, mature, humble, and beautiful. She refuses to cry even when she's saying goodbye to her family before being shipped off to her death. She performs impressive and unlikely feats, like sticking it to the adults who underestimate her at her skills evaluation and outsmarting gangs of bloodthirsty bullies during the Games. And of course she's an underdog, a street urchin from the deep South with nothing to her name but her spunk and wits.

She doesn't have any faults that readers would genuinely dislike: pettiness, arrogance, selfishness, etc. Her only shortcomings are ones that teenagers will approve of and identify with: she can be brutal for the sake of her loved ones, she has a hot temper in the face of injustice, and she resents her mother for being weak and unreliable. Every teenager goes through a period in which they hate their parents for failing to be perfect saints.

Objectively, Katniss is a very reactive character. She spends most of the book hiding and tending her wounds until the Gamemakers or the Careers force her to come out and fight. The things she needs literally fall from the sky when she needs them. Katniss doesn't "win" the Hunger Games so much as survive them with a great deal of luck.

Still, she comes across as a heroic character because of her voice. Readers care a lot less about what a protagonist does than about how a protagonist speaks and acts. They want ideal, likeable heroes, and Katniss fits the bill.

In fact, if I were to accuse her of any real flaw as a character, it would be that she's too awesome. Nobody who lives outside the pages of a book (or the screen of a movie theater) could consistently shoot squirrels in the eye with a handmade longbow. But when you're writing for young adults—or for people in general—making a heroine "too awesome" is much better than making her "lame."

There's a strong aspect of wish fulfillment.

Because of her beauty and virtues, Katniss becomes a celebrity and a heroine of the people. Everyone in her hometown gives her a touching salute when she volunteers to take her sister's place in the Games. All eyes in Panem focus on her during the parade, the whole world regularly chants her name, and two handsome boys have been secretly in love with her for years.

Other than the bit about the country going to hell in a hand basket, this is the dream life of every teenager and many adults.

Even the setting, though dystopian in principle, is somewhere people would want to live. The Capitol of Panem resembles the Emerald City in the merry old land of Oz. People with crazy neon skin walk around in cool futuristic fashions. Like Dorothy, Katniss has a posse of beauticians who make her look like an exotic princess. Her room at the Training Center is full of toys straight out of Star Trek, like a contraption that magically styles her hair in a glossy curtain and a kiosk that zaps up any snack in seconds.

Plus, she gets to gorge herself on gourmet meals polished off with cake, and it does her good because she's too skinny. (Screw you, Katniss. Screw you.)

Collins' portrayal of the Capitol surprised me, because every other dystopian novel I've read emphasized how scary the future could be, not how fun it could be. I expected the usual toxic ruins of once great cities, the pale masses huddling together for warmth in dank subway tunnels, the fights to the death over moldy scraps of food. I was not expecting crystal elevators, gorgeous rooftop gardens, and evening gowns made of dazzling gemstones.

The term "wish fulfillment" is often used derogatorily, to imply that a work is insubstantial, unrealistic, and mercantile. But it's a very important part of any story, because it's the primary reason people read. People read romances to dream about falling passionately in love with handsome millionaires who treat them like royalty; they read historical novels to dream about living in simpler times and wearing elegant clothes; they read mysteries to dream about using their smarts to save the day and restore order to the universe. Wish fulfillment is the reason Jane Austen has avid fans 200 years after her death, why Disney's live-action Cinderella grossed more than $120 million worldwide in its opening weekend, why the Star Trek franchise is still going strong, and why J. K. Rowling is still the world's richest author eight years after the last Harry Potter book was published.

And I have no doubt that it played a key role (if not the key role) in the popularity of The Hunger Games. Every kid wants to be a beloved star like Katniss, and reading about cool fashions and toys is a lot more pleasant than reading 400 pages of misery, misery, misery.

There's tragic romance and comic relief.

No matter the basic recipe of a YA book, there are two spices that no author can skip if they want happy readers: romance and humor.

The Hunger Games has plenty of romance. I actually think it has a bit too much romance. Of all romantic polygons, triangles are my least favorite. But I'm not a teenager anymore. When I was a teenager, the romantic plot-line of a story was the only one that mattered, whether it was the main point of the story or not. I skimmed the boring historical/philosophical/political bits of Anna Karenina to see if Levin and Kitty would ever make up. I was mildly amused by Anne Shirley's misadventures with Diana, Matthew, and Marilla, but I got excited only when I saw the name Gilbert on the page. And forget stupid Voldemort and his stupid wizarding world wars—I was reading Harry Potter to make sure Ron and Hermione ended up together like they were destined to.

I believe that of every ten teenagers who read the entire Hunger Games trilogy, seven or eight of them do so primarily because they want to see Katniss and Peeta get married and live happily ever after. The whole restoring democracy thing is interesting too, but not interesting enough on its own to keep teenage hands from wandering away from the books and towards smartphones and TV remotes.

Another important aspect of the book is the clever humor, which Collins throws in at the moments you'd least expect it. The dialogue crackles with dark wit, especially when Peeta's in the scene.

"I've seen you in the market. You can lift hundred-pound bags of flour. That's not nothing."

"Yes, and I'm sure the arena will be full of bags of flour for me to chuck at people. It's not like being able to use a weapon. You know it isn't," [Peeta] shoots back.

"He can wrestle," I tell Haymitch. "He came in second in our school competition last year, only after his brother."

"What use is that? How many times have you seen someone wrestle someone to death?" says Peeta in disgust.

"There's always hand-to-hand combat. All you need is to come up with a knife, and you'll at least stand a chance. If I get jumped, I'm dead!" I can hear my voice rising in anger.

"But you won't! You'll be living up in some tree eating raw squirrels and picking off people with arrows."

Collins wrote for television for decades before she wrote The Hunger Games, and I think it shows in the dialogue. Her conversations have the snappy pace and tone of a classic Nickelodeon show, and she writes smart characters instead of relying on cursing or vulgarity for flavor.

If there's one thing I've learned by reading many reviews of books, movies, and TV shows, it's that Americans like their characters to be smart. We hate, hate, hate it when heroes or heroines act or speak like idiots. When I see many Korean, Chinese, or Japanese shows translated for American audiences, the comment walls are nothing but complaints about how annoying the main characters are. The weak, girlish heroines that charm audiences in Asia are seen by us as air-headed, and the humble, self-sacrificial heroes stuffed to the gills with filial piety are seen by us as dumber than a sack of rocks.

Westerners enjoy reading or watching characters like Gregory House, Veronica Mars, Lord Peter Wimsey, etc., who are smarter than everyone else and talk like it. So when Peeta hides his badly injured body in the mud and quips, "Frosting: the final defense of the dying," it's right up our alley.

Before this past Monday, I hadn't blogged, written, jogged, enjoyed a work-free weekend, or slept for an uninterrupted 8 hours for approximately two months. The reason was this, the bane of my existence since January 2014.

Pictured is the website of the Portland Community College Library, which went live at midnight on Monday, June 15. (I used to attempt to hide where I work, but my LinkedIn account is the first result if you Google my name, so I might as well show off.)

If you think writing and publishing a book is exhausting, try developing a website for academics. :p

Now I'm taking an official vacation for two weeks. I have a lot to do in these weeks before I have to drag myself back to work. So far I have...

Turned a summer dress I haven't worn since college into a handy-dandy apron.

Used the remaining fabric to make drink coasters.

Made hair accessories out of old bobby pins and headbands, nail polish, and plastic gems torn off a thank you card the library director gave me for surviving the redesign.

Took a picture of myself for the first time since I cut my hair in bangs last year. All the beauty experts in women's magazines say you can't have bangs with a round face, so since elementary school I'd worn my hair in one uniform length, pulled back and/or parted to one side. Then last summer I rebelled, seized a pair of scissors, and discovered that the magazines lie. My face looks smaller than it ever did without bangs.

An added benefit of this hairstyle: I can cosplay as Maya Fey or an ancient Chinese palace maid without using a wig.

All I need is a long robe, and I'm all set to serve court ministers bowls of wine infused with the blood of traitors.

I've also been walking/jogging on the treadmill every other day, when Luna's not using it.

Still on the to do list:

• Finish some blog posts that were left half-written weeks ago.
• Experiment with sweet and savory baozi fillings. I recently tried steaming my bean paste buns instead of baking them, and I'm never baking them again. So magically fluffy!
• Sit down and outline my steampunk wuxia trilogy. Cozy mysteries didn't work out because there weren't enough sword fights.

Often main characters—especially female main characters—exist solely to share their feelings with the reader as things happen to or around them. They don't take the initiative to do anything and they don't significantly affect any other characters' lives. If you erased them from their books, their story worlds would progress just the same without them.

If a main character is not directly responsible for most of the significant events in a story, you don't have a protagonist. You have a Watson.

How to Recognize a Watson

Take a story. Summarize it through the key plot points only—no extraneous junk. Does the main character's name come up more often than any other? If not, you probably have a Watson on your hands.

If you succinctly summarize any Sherlock Holmes mystery, the name "Watson" rarely comes up at all. If it does, it's only because "Holmes and Watson visit so-and-so" or "Watson accompanies Holmes to such-and-such place." Holmes finds the clients, Holmes does the investigating, Holmes solves the cases and explains them. Watson is a pair of eyes and a hand with a pen, nothing else.

Here are some other famous stories told by Watsons.

The Great Gatsby

How much do we know about Nick Carroway? Very little, because the story isn't about him. He's practically invisible, an eloquent ghost who hovers around the characters who really matter.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Scout Finch is six years old; what could she possibly do? Nothing, really. This novel is about her father, Atticus Finch, and how his job as a defense attorney affects his neighbors and his children.

Pride and Prejudice

Here's a fun question for book club discussion. Who's the protagonist of Pride and Prejudice? I can tell you who it isn't: Elizabeth Bennet.

Elizabeth doesn't initiate a single plot point. Her mother drags her to the ball where the family meets Misters Bingley and Darcy, then cooks up the scheme that forces Elizabeth and Jane to stay at Netherfield. Darcy ropes Elizabeth into dancing with him at the Netherfield ball, then breaks up Bingley and Jane. Charlotte invites Elizabeth to stay at Rosings, where Darcy proposes to her. Her aunt and uncle take her to tour Pemberley, where Darcy arrives unexpectedly. Darcy redeems himself by kissing up to the relatives, bribing Wickham to marry Lydia, and putting Bingley and Jane back together. Eventually he achieves his goal of winning Elizabeth over.

In fact, Elizabeth doesn't do a gosh-darned thing, besides say some witty lines and refuse a couple of proposals. She's 100% reactive. In other words, she's a Watson.

There are pros and cons to writing a Watson. If written accidentally, Watsons can be disastrous. But if written purposefully, Watsons can work out well.

When Watsons Fail Horribly

Protagonists drive the story. So if you're writing about a main character who isn't the protagonist, and you don't know it, you could waste a lot of time and pages writing about things that are not the story.

Imagine if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed he was writing The Adventures of John Watson, and he didn't realize that Sherlock Holmes is the real star of the show. The stories might have been all about John Watson looking for a wife, John Watson enjoying tea and crumpets, John Watson reminiscing about his time in the army...and in the meantime, Sherlock Holmes would quietly solve crimes in the background. The Adventures of John Watson would be incredibly boring.

Unfortunately, this is exactly how many modern authors write books for women and girls. The heroine merely tags along while other characters push the plot forward. And since she has nothing to do, she spends 250 pages blathering about sex, cupcakes, shoes, etc. Sex isn't a story. Cupcakes and shoes are also not a story, unless the cupcakes were poisoned and the shoes reveal whodunnit. These things can spice up a novel, but they're not adequate substitutes for its substance.

Here's a brief synopsis of a mystery I read last year.

An alcoholic lawyer is cruelly rejected by her crush, who works in the same firm she does. Then a famous client she's defending embarrasses her during a trial. Her career is over. She flees to the US Virgin Islands, where her parents died in a suspicious "accident" a few years prior.

Ostensibly, she's there to solve the mystery of her parents' deaths. She does this by hiring a creepy private investigator and leaving the case up to him. While she waits, a nightclub singer befriends her and guides her around the island. A friendly ghost saves her from local bullies. A new love interest invites her for romantic strolls.

Then the creepy PI shows up on her doorstep. He declares that he murdered her parents and kidnaps her. She manages to escape from the car before it goes over a cliff, but he isn't so lucky.

The End.

This heroine does nothing important that affects the trajectory of the story. She spends the whole book being the victim of the male characters (her crush, her client, the local bullies, the murderous PI) and being rescued by the female ones (the nightclub singer, the ghost). Clues fall into her lap without effort, and the killer obligingly confesses to save her the trouble of interrupting her tropical vacation to catch him.

Yet she hogs the spotlight to catalog every outfit she wears, every tear that falls down her cheek, and every margarita she drinks on the beach. She's the worst kind of Watson.

When Watsons Work

There are legitimate reasons to write a Watson. For example, you might find one useful if your true protagonist is someone unlikeable, or if readers will relate to your Watson much better.

Sherlock Holmes is a terrible person. He's a cold, selfish, condescending show-off. He doesn't feel any sentimental emotions and holds people who do in contempt. He's all brains and no heart.

Watson, on the other hand, is all heart and no brains. He's humble, empathetic, generous, good-natured, and a bit slow on the uptake. He's a man readers can relate to, which makes him a much better choice for the narrator.

The original Watson works because he rarely talks about himself. He obligingly fades into the background and puts the spotlight where it belongs: on his friend Sherlock Holmes. In this way, he becomes the stand-in for the readers themselves.

If The Great Gatsby had been told from the point of view of the titular character, it basically would have been The Sorrows of Young Werther. Gatsby would've spent the whole book whining about Daisy this, Daisy that, and then he dies. The characters are frustrating enough from an outsider's perspective—they would have been unbearable if we'd been subjected to their inner voices.

To Kill a Mockingbird has the opposite problem. The actual protagonist, Atticus, is too good. He's the perfect father and the perfect gentleman. He's perfectly open-minded, perfectly pious, perfectly clever, and he even handles a gun perfectly. Too much perfection makes for a very dull main character. Readers sympathize more with the rambunctious Scout, who's honest about her feelings and rushes headlong into trouble.

And though Fitzwilliam Darcy is much more of a protagonist than Elizabeth Bennet is, Pride and Prejudice couldn't have been told from his perspective. It's a romantic story aimed predominantly at young women. Young women want to be Elizabeth, dancing at balls and flirting with handsome gentlemen. They don't want to be Darcy, dealing with tedious business and political affairs.

My advice: tread carefully.

I can come up with a handful of good Watsons, but there are many, many bad Watsons out there. Watsons are usually the result of writers not knowing who their protagonist is, not the result of deliberate choice.

You'll also notice that the good examples are quite old. Before the late twentieth century, you could get away with telling stories with main characters that weren't protagonists. But standards today are different. Twenty-first century women aren't supposed to be Elizabeth Bennets, meekly allowing their parents and suitors to control their lives. "Fly on the wall" narrators like Nick Carroway work only in literary novels, and even then they're hard to pull off. Readers of both sexes want to be the detective, not the sidekick. Sweetie watched one episode of Sherlock and was greatly annoyed because John Watson "doesn't do anything."

So unless you have a very strong reason to write a Watson, I would avoid it.