I think of Superman as a perfect example.  Superman is a flawed character.  His flaw is his unflinching morality, his absolute desire to do good.  Too many people seem to miss the point of giving Superman this quality.  Without it, he becomes supremely uninteresting.  Without a limitation, Superman is nothing but a god-like being who can overcome any obstacle.  His desire not to abuse his power is his most laudable quality, but it is also his most important flaw.

Too often, people mistake the idea of a flaw as being a negative quality.  But flaws need not be bad things a character carries.  Story-wise, a flaw is something that gets in a character’s way in achieving their goals.  And a moral center can definitely be a flaw to contend with.

On the other side, having a negative quality that makes a character more effective is usually missing the point of why a flaw should exist.  If a maverick cop’s flaw is that he “doesn’t play by the rules”, but that’s exactly why he can catch the bad guy, he isn’t flawed.  He’s empowered.

A moral code is often the most basic flaw any protagonist must deal with.  It might make the character easier to root for, but it also places limits on what he’s willing to do.  Without limits, all protagonists become increasingly less interesting.

The problem I have with “dark” and “gritty” interpretations of characters like Batman and Superman is that the first step is usually to deprive them of their moral center in some attempt to make them flawed.  But all the writer usually ends up doing is making a hero who is invincible and unfettered.  A Superman willing to kill anyone who stands in his way, who isn’t distracted by a convenient hostage situation or a city about to be destroyed, is far less interesting than one who cares.

Yes, being a good person can be a serious character flaw.

My favorite interpretation of Batman is of a person pathologically dedicated to saving the world, to seeing that what happened to him never happens to anyone, to not just terrorizing criminals in some bizarre revenge fantasy, but instead, determined to strike at crime at its deepest levels.  His goal is to protect the world (or at least his city), and that extreme nobility is his most important flaw.  My Batman doesn’t need to be messed up or damaged.  He’s much more intriguing as a guy who bears the weight of the world on his shoulders because he sincerely wants to save everyone.  Even the bizarre criminals he faces on a regular basis.

It honestly bugs the crap out of me that Frank Miller said Batman is crazy, and most everyone decided to go with that.  Crazy, revenge-driven Batman makes no sense.  There are easier ways to get revenge.  And he certainly wouldn’t have a code against killing.  He d be more akin to the Punisher than the methods and style of Batman.  But heck, even the Punisher has a certain code he follows.  Without it, he’s just a guy who shoots people.

Being good is a flaw, and it’s a flaw I enjoy in most of my protagonists.

Most characters have flaws though not all have flaws that get in the way of their stories.  Tarzan is technically an uncivilized savage, but it never really gets in his way.  He’s still rich.  He still gets the girl.  He has all the skills he needs to triumph.  If he isn’t perfectly civilized, it’s not really an obstacle.

When Batman hangs out with The Justice League, he is a “normal” guy among superhumans.  But it never prevents him from contributing.

Scrooge McDuck is a greedy bastard, but he still goes on adventures and is rarely punished for it.

Conan might be a “barbarian” but it doesn’t get in the way of beheading evil wizards and slaying monsters.

Flaws are funny things.  They require context.  And they don’t always have to be crippling fears or psychotic rages.  They can be a touch too much arrogance, a dislike for the color yellow, being too tall or too short, or too “good”.  In the right circumstances, anything can be a flaw.

But it’s only a flaw if it gets in the character’s way.  Otherwise, it’s just another character trait.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

First, a political thing.  Sort of.  Not that you should come to me for political opinion, but hey, if you’re here, why not?  If you’re a diehard Sarah Palin fan, skip this.  It’s okay.  I don’t mind.  I’m not really going to criticize her politics, but I know that some things are hot buttons.  So no need to offend you.

SO JUST SKIP THIS AND GO TO THE NEXT BOLD LINE IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE BOTHERED BY ANY POSSIBLE IMPLICATION THAT SARAH PALIN IS NOT JESUS AND OPTIMUS PRIME COMBINED.

The thing that bugs me about Palin isn’t her politics.  Sure, I don’t agree with them, but I don’t agree with most politicians.  And disagreement isn’t a bad thing.  It means were talking about stuff, and I am all about talking about stuff.  The more discussion, the more shared ideas, the better off we are.  That’s my opinion, and maybe you disagree.  And that just makes me smile.

The thing that bugs me about Palin (and about people like her) is that they embody nothing less than the sin of hubris, of arrogance, of absolute certainty.  She lives in a world where she can do no wrong, even unintentionally.  She is master of fate, queen of circumstances, always right.  And if you disagree or criticize her than you are clearly an enemy and not worth listening to.

Seriously, Palin fans.  Has she ever admitted to making a mistake?  Has she ever admitted to a lapse in judgment?  Even the smallest moment of humanity where she screwed up or misspoke?  No, because she’s perfect.  Because nothing bad is ever her fault, but certainly everything good in her life is because of how awesome she is.  Heck, even when confronted with the very messy world and its unpredictability despite the best of our intentions (like a pregnant daughter while preaching the value of abstinence only education) she refuses to admit that sometimes, oftentimes, life is muddled and difficult and the answers aren’t always easy.  When confronted with such complex dilemmas, Sarah just smiles and winks and spouts some well-worn catch phrase.  Which is fine.  She’s a politician (sort of), and that’s partof her job.  But what’s annoying about Palin is that there’s no indication that she’s playing for the camera, acting certain while understanding the screwed up mess that is our world.  No Palin believes this, wholeheartedly.  She lives in a world of absolutes, and when you dare to suggest that there might be a shade of gray or two in this reality, she merely shakes her head, covers her ears, and wraps herself in a forcefield of smug idealism.

To be fair to Palin, this isn’t about her political affiliation.  There are those like her in all spectrums of society.  They’re the people who make life harder than it has to be because they’re smarter than you, because they blind certainty for confidence, and flat dismissal as debate.

I don’t blame Palin for the recent shooting.  That’d be silly.  Crazy people do crazy stuff, and we who are not crazy are usually obsessed with trying to understand it when it’s usually impossible to do so.  But I do dislike Palin for refusing to even consider that it didn’t help to put crosshairs on a map and that phrases like “Don’t retreat.  Reload” might have some accidental unpleasant implications behind them.  To blame Palin for the actions of a lunatic is ridiculous.  To expect her to use it, as so many of us have, to consider our actions and how they might effect the world, is not.

But that’s not Sarah.  She’s blameless.  She’s perfect.  And the sooner the rest of us figure that out, the happier she’ll be.

ENOUGH OF THAT.

The other thing that’s on my mind is pretty big too.  It’s the changing of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to make it more palatable for our time.

I’m just going to call bullshit on this.

I get where this desire comes from.  Let’s remove an unpleasant word because it is unpleasant, because it carries a terrible history that we would all rather forget.  But that’s exactly why it should stay there.  Because once you alter a piece of history, you destroy its relevance forever.

Let’s face it.  Humans have lousy memories.  It’s why politicians can say they don’t remember integration being hard, or why, after two months with a new piece of technology, we immediately start to complain about its limitations.  We forget.  Not because we want to forget, but because it’s so easy to do.  Our brains are not recording devices.  They are imagination devices, and that’s all our memories are.  Bits of imagination cobbled together from half-formed bits of the past.  That’s why you can convince someone they saw a Bugs Bunny costume at Disneyland.  All it takes is a doctored photo, a few people they trust reinforcing the idea, and they’ll remember.

This is why we have to write things down, preserve art, and carry the actual recollections of the past with us.  Because if we just trust we’ll remember, we’re sure to forget.

For Huckleberry Finn, inserting Slave might seem like a good idea.  But if you do it, then what happens in fifteen years when the word Slave might be deemed offensive?  Do you change that too?  Perhaps to Servant.  And, heck, while we’re at it, let’s take out any references to smoking.  Kids shouldn’t smoke.  And why have any reference to skin color at all?  Why not leave it undescribed so that everyone can enjoy Huck and Jim’s adventure without feeling left out? And does he have to run away?  Can’t Huck and Servant Jim just go and have a little adventure before returning home for dinner?

Ridiculous?  Maybe.  But why not?  Why not change everything, one step at a time?  If a book is only a thing meant to reflect our current attitudes and beliefs, then who really cares?  Let’s rewrite the whole damn thing and just ignore it.

The problem is one of memory.  We need to remember our imperfections, our faults.  We need to remember that not so long ago, as civilizations measure things, black people were slaves, women couldn’t vote, and even if you were a white guy, life still wasn’t perfect.  It’s all too easy to pine for a glorious golden yesterday that never existed, which is why we occasionally need a hard slap in the face to remind us that it didn’t.

It’s watching A Day at the Races and seeing the Marx Brothers in blackface.  It’s unsettling, but it’s also necessary.  It’s reading the Constitution.  ALL of the Constitution.  Even the bad parts.  Especially the bad parts because the bad parts show us how far we’ve come and how far we have to go.  They remind us that even the most sacred document was created by flawed human beings who were just doing the best they could.  And perhaps it’s wrong to judge them for their failings, but to acknowledge those failings is a good thing.

The second reason I hate the idea of changing a classic novel (a book I haven’t even read by the way) is that it renders all art vulnerable, transitory, meaningless.  Once we decide to rewrite history itself, then we are guilty of denying the flaws in ourselves.  We become obsessed with covering them up and then, you might as well call it a day as a civlization.  Because it takes a lot of effort to continually rework the past into something you aren’t embarrassed by.

Take Star Wars.  I really don’t care if Lucas wants to play with his creation until the end of time.  Special Edition, Extended Edition, Edition with More Sound FX.  It’s his thing.  Let him do what he wants with it.  But that’s not enough for Lucas, who, if he had his way, would erase the originals from existence in favor of his new versions.  I’m not going to argue that the originals are better than the new versions (though, let’s be honest, they are), but I am going to argue that a cultural event such as the original Star Wars deserves to be preserved, warts and all.  Lucas isn’t just indulging in creative masturbation, but that he’s guilty of something much worse.  He’s destroying a sacred artifact, one re-release at a time.

And that’s why we can’t allow anyone, not even artists, to go back and change things in their work.  Once anyone starts down that road, once they start seeing history as optional, they will begin erasing it.  Because it’s not human nature to reconcile different versions of the same thing.  We like things neat and tidy.  We want one version of Star Wars, one version of Huck Finn.  And if you give many of us the option of taking the original or the new version that edits out unpleasantness or is just more readily available, we’ll go for it.  We’ll erase the past. 

And the ultimate irony is we won’t even remember doing it.

On that pleasant note, I bid you happy A. LEE MARTINEZ APPRECIATION DAY!!

I couldn’t do any of this without you, gang.  There’d be no A. Lee Martinez to appreciate without all your support.  And I think we can all agree that would be a terrible thing.  Thank The Mighty Robot King we don’t live in that universe.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

I notice a lack of independant female characters in media. Do you go out of your way to do this or does it come innate?

First of all, thanks.

It’s a great question, but I think it’s the wrong question.  Instead of asking for strong, well-defined female characters or strong, well-defined minority characters, we should ask for strong, well-defined characters of all types.  Male, female,  black, white, human, robot, etc.

I like to think that I write interesting female characters, but I like to think I write many types of interesting characters.  I don’t put more thought into writing a female than I do a male.  I just try to treat them like a character, to make them interesting, believable (as much as the reality allows), and to give them life.  That’s how you make a character worth remembering.  By treating them like characters worth knowing.

To some degree, that means avoiding stereotypes.  Although you don’t have to avoid them entirely.  It’s all right to start with a classic archetype and build on it.  But if you don’t build on it then you’re going to end up with a flat character that, while not necessarily wrong for the situation, is going to have trouble standing out.

In fantasy and science fiction, we see this problem all the time.  It’s not generally found in the humans, but every character that isn’t human.  The mistake many writers make is in assigning defining characteristics right off the bat, based on something as simple as what fantastic race a character might be.  Dwarves are gruff.  Elves are aloof.  Vulcans are logical.  Klingons are war-like.

You really don’t have to look very far to realize how limiting this can be.  In Star Trek, is there any need for a recurring Vulcan character other than Spock?  They’ve introduced other Vulcans, but they tend to stand in Spock’s shadow.  Whether it’s Tuvok fromVoyager or the hot chick from Enterprise, there is very little to distinguish them from a garden variety Vulcan.

How about dwarves?  In nearly every fantasy setting I’ve ever come across, the dwarves are a sturdy people who live in the mountains.  They’re blacksmiths and miners, and they love to drink and carouse.  And they’re hardy brawlers who favor axes and, maybe, muskets.  This is such a standard that creating a dwarf who enjoys the arts or writing poetry smacks of untruth.  Never mind that dwarves are imaginary and that the only limits we place on them are limits we’ve created.

An example close to my heart is that of Mack Megaton, the protagonist of The Automatic Detective.  Mack is a robot, and we all know how robots are supposed to be.  Cold, logical, unfeeling machines.  The standard issue robot either suffers from Pinnochio Syndrome or Skynet Dysfunction.  I deliberately avoided both extreme with Mack.  Mack is logical, but he isn’t unfeeling.  He has emotions.  He isn’t necessarily ruled by them, but they are an important part of who he is.

Mack’s journey as a character isn’t in becoming more human.  Or less human.  Mack’s problems don’t stem from his lack of humanity because I always felt that he was already human.  He thinks.  He aspires.  He faces dilemmas and doubts.  His perspective might be different because, as a robot, he has different concerns, a slightly different way of looking at the world.  But he’s a character, and aside from a few quirks from his robotic nature, he behaves like one first, and a robot second.

It might seem strange to compare female characters to Vulcans, dwarves, and robots, but that’s my point.  Too often, women are handled in this way.  They are assumed to have innate characteristics that MUST define them or that they MUST defy to be interesting.  And if this is how you start, then is it any wonder that women characters can become as flat and lifeless as any stereotype?

To continue the fantasy character example, something I’ve touched upon before, you’ll see that women are often defined by a very narrow set of physical characteristics.  Just as elves must all have pointed ears and all dwarves have thick beards, so it is that women in fiction are usually defined exclusively by their sexuality.  Often to the point of hypersexualization, accidental or not.  Just check out every single urban fantasy book cover.  90% of them feature an extremely attractive woman with exposed skin.  Or a tramp stamp.  Or impractical, form fitting clothing.  While it’s true that male characters are usually attractive on covers too, it’s always less sexual. 

Compare Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files to Kim Harrison’s The Hollows novels.  The original Dresden covers didn’t even feature the protagonist.  The new version of the covers all feature the hero standing in a rather generic fashion.  But he’s fully clothed.  He’s wearing a long coat, a hat, holding a staff.  He might be a good looking guy, but it’s certainly not overemphasized.  Meanwhile, The Hollows shows close up butt shots, mini-skirts, and thigh high boots.  Despite the fact that the protagonist of the books (at least in the first novel) was described as attractive, but not drop dead gorgeous.  Her clothes are tasteful and mostly practical.  Yet if one were to go by the cover art, she fights monsters in a stripperiffic outfit.

The same effect can be seen in superhero comics.  Superman, Batman, Spider-Man all get to be fully realized characters in unrevealing costumes.  Meanwhile, women tend to wear revealing outfits that show off their cleavage and asses.  Part of this is fanservice, no doubt, but another part is that without these elements to define them, writers aren’t really sure what they are.  The same thing happens to minority characters, who usually have powers and origins related to their ethnicity.  Because apparently black people never stumble across strange meteors or have freak lab accidents.

The poster child for this particular effect is Luke Cage.  Once known as Power Man, he now fights crime as Luke Cage.  He doesn’t need a code name.  He doesn’t need a costume.  He’s black.  He’s from the streets.  That’s all the effort that really needs to be put into his character.  Once you understand this, you can see the problem, and it is everywhere.

Everywhere.

Female characters are far more likely to be “baby crazy” than male ones.  Even if it doesn’t fit with the female characters portraly in any other light.  Female characters are far more likely to cry.  Female characters are expected to be nurturing, and if they’re not, they’re ice queens.  There’s no in-between.

And they are almost always beautiful.  Even if it’s in that Don’t realize how beautiful she is way, which is kind of a copout.  Has there ever been a movie where the female equivalent of Seth Rogan scored with the male equivalent of Katherine Hiegel?

So how do I write strong female characters?  The same way I write strong male characters.  With a few simple rules:

RULE 1: CHARACTERS ARE INDIVIDUALS

Remember that every character should be an individual.  Important characters especially should not be defined by any of the following qualities: gender, race, job.  If the primary way of identifying a character is based on some external quality of appearance or occupation then it’s safe to say they are not very strong.

Appearance is of particular note.  I like monstrous characters, for example.  But all the great ones are more than a gimmick.  The Hulk might be a giant green man, but he’s also the embodiment of rage and possesses an often child-like innocence.  The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing is a guy made out of rocks, but he’s also a bruiser, an average Joe, and a dude who don’t take any guff.  Even one of my favorite Marvel characters, the Man-Thing, is defined by his lack of defining personality.  He is little more than an empathic plant monster, and that lack of personality is what makes him unique.

Rule 2: CHARACTERS SHOULD LIVE OUTSIDE YOUR STORY

Characters should never seem that they are just standing around waiting for the narrator to appear and get the action going.  They should seem like they had some sort of life before the story started, and, unless they die at the end, it shouldn’t seem like they’ll disappear once the story is over.  This is fairly easy to do with your protagonists and antagonists, and most writers get it right.

Where they fall flat is usually found in the supporting characters.   Too often supporting characters end up sitting on the sidelines.  Their entire existence revolves around the primary characters, the heroes and villains.

One of my favorite deconstructions of this notion was shown in an episode of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.  In the episode, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen spend much of their screen time talking about the lives of Lois and Clark.  Until at one point, Perry points out that it’s absurd that they’re doing this, that they have their own lives.  It’s a funny moment because, up to that point, I hadn’t even realized that every scene of Perry and Jimmy revolved around the series’s main characters.  It was invisible because it was so expected.

It’s important not to overdo this though.  We really don’t care that much about Jimmy or Perry.  We know who the heroes are, and that’s who we are there to see.  But you don’t do your supporting cast any justice by having them orbit the protagonists like tiny planets.

RULE 3: DON’T BE AFRAID TO LET EVERY CHARACTER CONTRIBUTE

You can create the most wonderfully well-developed secondary and tertiary characters in the world, but if they don’t add to your story, what’s the point?

I write a lot of crazy stuff about a lot of crazy characters.  And none of these characters succeeds or fails on their own.  This doesn’t make the protagonist seem weak.  It makes them seem like they are part of a living world.  We all get by with a little help from our friends, and having characters contribute to your hero’s successes shows that there is a real obstacle.

Okay, I could go on all night, but I’d rather stop than wear out my welcome.  The point is simple.  Treat characters of any type like individuals.  Avoid stereotypes.  Even the good stereotypes.  And remember that, whether a robot, a witch, a talking gorilla, or a giant fuzzy green monster that wants to devour the universe, there is something worthwhile and interesting about any character.  It’s just a question of finding it.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Well, far be it from me to allow lameness to gain a foothold in the universe, but I’ve been busy.  Doin’ stuff and junk.  It’s a hectic life, the adventures of a world-renowned novelologist, and really, sometimes I forget how wonderful it is to hear from me, how I enrich the lives of the little people, and how, just by being me, I spread sunshine and rainbows like leprechauns spread marshmallow cereal.

All kidding aside, I missed ya, gang.

I went to Armadillocon last weekend, and it was a great time.  I plan on writing up the event in more detail, but for now, I’ll just say it was swell and an honor and a pleasure to be invited.

Okay, so the simple question I got recently was this:  Do I ever focus on more than one book at a time?  Or do I just focus on one and get it done?

It varies.

When I first started writing seriously, it was usually a focus thing, working on just one thing, getting it done.  I might start a project and not finish it, but for the most part, it was straightforward.  Especially when first writing, I didn’t go in with any expectations other than to prove I could write a book.  So I focused less on writing a perfect book as just writing something.  It’s a common mistake for new aspiring writers to feel as if their first book must be good.

I’ll admit that never made much sense to me.  It’d be like picking up a baseball and expecting to be able to throw a no-hitter your first time on the mound.  You don’t get better without practice.  And even if you have all the natural talent in the world, you’re always better with training.

It’s also easier to focus on your first few efforts because everything is new and wonderful.  Every word, even the uninteresting, clumsy ones, are special.  Every page is a triumph of effort, even if not of talent.  It’s an adventure.

At this stage though, I’ll admit I don’t focus like I used to.  I think it’s because, the more you write, the harder it is to write something original.  Maybe that doesn’t matter to everyone, but I try to do different things, try not to just recycle the same stories.  Whether or not I succeed is a matter of debate, but I’d like to think that I’ve managed to create a variety of stories and characters, that I’m not just treading artistic water.

So I can skip around a bit more when I begin a new book, usually until I get along to a certain point and then there’s really no turning back.  It’s just not practical.  Evenutally, you have to commit.  And that’s the difference between being an amateur or a professional.  It’s not the paycheck.  (Okay, the paycheck is nice.)  It’s the commitment to getting the thing done.

I’d like to break it down more than that, but it’s late.  I’m tired.  I’m not sure I understand it enough to explain beyond that anyway.  So there you go.  A small blog entry to keep you warm at night.  Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

So much praise, so you will probably not be too heartbroken if I offer some criticism?
I read “In the company of ogres”, and sort of liked it. But it was something about it…
Then I stopped reading, as the next books (or former) did not seem to appeal to me. I don’t know why.
Then I picked up “Monster”. And read it. Some of it was funny. Some of it was really funny.
But I did make the mistake of visiting your blog before I had finished the book. And I read what you said about “TOO MANY CURSES”, about you being proud of writing a novel without any real “shift” in characters, and no romance, and that being the point. Then it struck me. What I had problems with in “In the company…”  I read the rest of “Monster”, with this thought in the back of my mind. Stuck, couldn’t get it out. I was expecting the same feeling I had when I finished “In the company…” And I got it. It might have been because I was expecting it. But I don’t think so.
The “problem” was that the stories seemed too much like “this happened, and then we went back to nothing (i.e. our ordinary lives)”. No closure, just “back to normal”.
So, you may be very satisfied you managed to write “too many curses” without any “shift” in the characters and no romance, but me personally, I am a bit dissatisfied that I feel you managed the same in “In the company…” and “Monster”.
I still might pick up your next book, though. Two books may not be enough to make a viable conclusion

Well, first of all, thanks for taking the time to post a comment.  Good or bad, it’s always flattering when someone takes the time to offer their opinion.  And you have some interesting ideas here.  I don’t necessarily agree with them, but hey, that’s what makes life so damned intriguing, isn’t it?

I’m not interested in defending my work, of course.  Neither of us are likely to change our minds, but since you went to the trouble of posting a comment, I thought I’d at least offer a reply.  So here goes.

I think you’re misunderstanding my idea of no major shifts in character.  I don’t mean that the characters don’t undergo some subtle changes in their personality through the events of the story.  They just tend not to be radical shifts.  Still they are profound and important elements to every story I write (with the possible exception of MONSTER, which I will get into in a bit).

Your assessment of IN THE COMPANY OF OGRES is intriguing, but I have to disagree quite a bit about character growth in that story.  In particular, Never Dead Ned grows immensely.  Ironically, he grows by accepting himself for who he is.  Going “Back to normal”, as you put it, isn’t Ned refusing to grow.  It’s Ned becoming exactly what he must.  I know the books been out a few years now, but in the interest of avoiding spoilers, I won’t get any deeper than that.

Meanwhile, Regina has learned that there’s more to life than just kicking everyone’s ass.  Frank has taken steps toward a relationship.  And the soldiers of Ogre Company, while still a group of hard-luck misfits, are on their way toward becoming the military outfit they could always be.

True, none of this is a radical shift.  But by the end of the novel, all the major characters better understand themselves and each other.  It isn’t a huge alteration in their characters, but they are not the same people they were in the beginning of the story in many important ways.

As for TOO MANY CURSES, again, it’s difficult to quantify because, on the face of it, the protagonist starts out as a sensible, level-headed character and remains so throughout the book.  But her transition from lowly servant to mistress of the castle is the crux of the story.  It’s true that she doesn’t rise to this position by becoming all-powerful.  In fact, she does so mostly through the realization that she has been the mistress of the castle for a long time and just didn’t know it.  But even this realization means that “back to normal” is not possible.  (Having not read the book, you, of course, will just have to take my word on it.  Or you could take a chance and buy it, but that’s your call.)

Thinking about it now, I think all my books have this quality.  The characters do not transform in any earth-shattering fashion.  They remain consistent throughout their stories.  But they do change.  They do grow.  They just do it in small (yet important) ways that I find more realistic and satisfying.

I hate to use the word subtle because, damn it, it just sounds pretentious.  But, what the hell?  I’m a semi-successful novelologist.  I have the books on the shelves to prove it.  Just this once, I’ll be pretentious.

As for MONSTER, I agree with your assessment.  Monster, our hero, starts out as a down-on-his-luck pessimist, and by the end of the novel, he really hasn’t grown one damn bit.  That was intentional though.  Sometimes, we just don’t learn.  If you don’t find that satisfying from a story perspective, who could blame you?  I knew when I wrote it that many wouldn’t.

But what about our other protagonist, Judy, who is finally free to pursue her own happiness for the first time?  While she might be the same person, more or less, her circumstances have changed in important ways.  Her life is certainly not “back to normal” by the end of the novel.

And let’s not forget the universe of Monster itself, which has already begun to change after the climax.  Trying to avoid spoilers here (again), but if I wrote another book set in this universe, it would have to be quite a bit different because the very rules of magic and reality that govern Monster’s world have been altered.  I could even argue that the universe itself is the central character of the story and that its transformation by the end could constitute real character growth.

I’m not suggesting that your interpretations are wrong.  All art is filtered through the audience, and if the audience doesn’t like it, then the art has failed.  There’s no debate on that.  I wish I could tell you that you would like my other books better, but I’m not sure you would.  Some of the major characters in DIVINE MISFORTUNE change and grow (though again, nothing very extreme).  Others don’t.  I don’t feel like the book goes “back to normal”, but I didn’t feel that way about the other books either, so what do I know?  I’m just the writer, and in the cosmic scheme of things, my opinion matters far less than the audience’s.

Still, I want to thank you again for taking the time to comment.  If you ever feel like giving any of my other books a try (hey, that’s what libraries and used book stores are for) then I hope you’ll find them worth your time.  If not, well, thanks for giving me a shot.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee