hrm. well, from the perspective of a voracious reader who dabbles in writing--
the thing I enjoyed most about both EHR and TWS was your characterisations, Elias especially. If the characters are good, are really good, I don't give two hoots if the story's been done before. The interesting part, for me, is seeing how these characters deal with it. That is what captured me during your Nimbus reading -- even from just the snippets we got to hear, there's incredible depth in these characters. I do want to know what happens to them, but that's because I want to know what it will do to them, and how they got that way.
Granted, this doesn't solve your plot problem, I know. But I just wonder, even if it's structurally similiar, doesn't the fact that you are working in a new setting, with new characters, count for anything? Solveig (am I spelling that right?) seemed very different, to me, from all your other characters, especially in light of the ice-skating scene you read. You showed us Solveig's childhood in a detail that you didn't really use in your other books, and you're writing her from a very different period in her life -- she just feels like a very different person to me than Eliza or Jena, for all that she fits into that 'strong/independent woman' archtype. I suppose I'm just saying, in my usual long-winded fashion, why not let your mind run with it? I cannot for the life of me remember who came up with that line about there being only five real stories that just keep getting told over and over again, but we all keep reading, because people come up with new ways to tell them, right?
hoping i've been at least somewhat helpful, Sternel, who really enjoyed the Nimbus reading
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Date: 2003-08-01 11:08 pm (UTC)the thing I enjoyed most about both EHR and TWS was your characterisations, Elias especially. If the characters are good, are really good, I don't give two hoots if the story's been done before. The interesting part, for me, is seeing how these characters deal with it. That is what captured me during your Nimbus reading -- even from just the snippets we got to hear, there's incredible depth in these characters. I do want to know what happens to them, but that's because I want to know what it will do to them, and how they got that way.
Granted, this doesn't solve your plot problem, I know. But I just wonder, even if it's structurally similiar, doesn't the fact that you are working in a new setting, with new characters, count for anything? Solveig (am I spelling that right?) seemed very different, to me, from all your other characters, especially in light of the ice-skating scene you read. You showed us Solveig's childhood in a detail that you didn't really use in your other books, and you're writing her from a very different period in her life -- she just feels like a very different person to me than Eliza or Jena, for all that she fits into that 'strong/independent woman' archtype.
I suppose I'm just saying, in my usual long-winded fashion, why not let your mind run with it? I cannot for the life of me remember who came up with that line about there being only five real stories that just keep getting told over and over again, but we all keep reading, because people come up with new ways to tell them, right?
hoping i've been at least somewhat helpful,
Sternel, who really enjoyed the Nimbus reading