What I Look For In A Story

Intro/Overview

My brain sometimes likes to blog in the middle of the night. I wrote this thing and I wanted to share it. It's not what I usually do, but I figured I'd share it anyway. Please don't be turned off by the blocks of text.

SPOILER WARNING

There might be spoilers for The Twilight Saga, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Angel, His Dark Materials, Shrek Forever After, The Hunger Games, Torchwood, Doctor Who, Dragonriders of Pern, and Dollhouse. I say might because I'm not sure exactly what I wrote or if it contains anything that might be considered a spoiler. Just be aware that I talk about a lot of stuff.

What I Look For In A Story

I know I do an awful lot of reviews on this blog. I'm forever saying that I'm really into characters, but I've never really gone into why that is. So I want to talk about the stuff I look for when I'm getting to a story. This applies to books, movies, fanfiction, and TV shows, not specifically to the printed word.

The first thing I look for in my stories are relatable characters. If I don't find a character to latch onto, I don't get engaged. That character doesn't even necessarily have to be the main character or my favorite character. Nine times out of then, the character we as the audience meet first isn't the reason I ultimately stick with a show or keep reading a book. For example: The Twilight Saga. I don't read any of The Twilight Saga books or watch the movies for Bella or Edward or Jacob. I read and watch The Twilight Saga to see what happens with Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett. All of whom get little screen time/book time. My TV show example: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel. I started watching Angel because the first episode I saw featured Faith Lehane. I went to watch Buffy because I wanted to know Faith's backstory. I kept watching both shows because of Willow, Wesley, Fred, and Faith. I relate to and like these characters more than I like Buffy or Angel.

The second thing I look for is story. You can have great characters, but if your story is crap, you've lost me. I'm not just talking about the play-by-play here, either. To me, a story needs to gather up the characters and desposit them believably into a world that makes sense for them. The world around the characters needs to feel real to me and feel real to them. What the characters do to reach the endgame or come to the conclusions they do needs to make sense with how they and the world around them is established. The storyline should carry the characters through a journey that makes sense. There's a reason I had a gigantic problem with the His Dark Materials series. The world-building was largely great in the first book, but then fell apart in the later ones.

Fanfiction and movies often fall into problems with story. Fanfiction authors manage to disregard certain story elements more often than not. Looking back at my Minority Within Minority story, I was gigantically guilty of this myself. My characters did things that didn't make sense and didn't do things that made sense for how I'd created them. As for movies, the lack of or inconsistency in story can drop me a lot faster than almost anything else. Take Shrek Forever After for instance. I personally felt like this movie didn't need to exist. I get where the writers were trying to go with it, but the storyline was just ridiculous. I loved the first three movies and I loved the characters, but the story of Shrek Forever After didn't work for me in the least bit.

The third thing I look for is whether the story is a sequel or a spin-off or not. Oftentimes, I'll read or watch something because it's related to something else. If the first book in the series catches me, I'll read the second one. I'm actually going to cite a book series that failed to catch me here: The Hunger Games. I read The Hunger Games and have no desire to read either Catching Fire or Mockingjay. I was far more invested in the story once I saw the movie and I'll probably see the next ones. As for spin-offs, I'll definitely check out the spin-offs if I'm love the first thing. The same works in reverse. I watched Angel and Torchwood before I saw Buffy and Doctor Who, for example. I'm also more likely to check out a book or movie or whatever if it's set in the same world as the thing I'm interested in. For example, books by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and books set on Pern by Anne or Tood McCaffrey. I understand and like the worlds created by the authors and I really enjoy the stories of the people inhabiting them.

I also want to add that I have a lot of patience with slow-burning payoffs so long as they make sense. Dollhouse springs to mind here. A lot of people had problems with Dollhouse for various reasons. I've heard part of that had to do with how slow the slow-burn was. Dollhouse often came off like there was no concrete storyline because it was slowly building the mythology and characters up to their final forms, as it were. We got a glimpse of the characters' final forms during the last and unaired episode of Season 1. People who didn't necessarily enjoy the normal Dollhouse episodes really enjoyed that one episode and wanted more. When they didn't get it immediately in Season 2, they were extremely disappointed. Personally, I loved the individual stories and the slow buildup to what eventually happened. That kind of buildup was necessary to completely get invested in the characters based off the show's concept. If you didn't care about the characters under their "doll" selves, you didn't care about what ultimately happened to them. At least, that's how I see it. Slow-burns in stories give more time to flesh out the characters and the world around them. I like that.

But anyway, I'm digressing. These are all the things I look for in stories... which is a lame way to end what was essentially an essay, but I've always been really bad at endings, if you hadn't noticed... if you had no idea, well... welcome to the blog?

Love ya, Jessie.

It's a Vampire Thing

Okay so... I did not even get started on the Hellfire section of 500 Miles today... which you can go ahead and blame on The Vampire Diaries, and my little sister... who's the middle child in our family. She was watching TVD on Netflix yesterday morning and I decided to go ahead and get caught up with the stuff on there instead of watching Stargate: SG-1 or Buffy (which I watch with my other little sister, the youngest). Which then brings me to the topic of this blog post: Vampires.

I love Vampires. I've been in love with vampires since I was in highschool... probably even a bit before. My first real vampire book was Midnight Predator by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. After that, I devoured the rest of Amy's books and moved on to Anne Rice. I read Anne Rice's vamp books in a really odd order: first Queen of the Damned, then The Vampire Lestat, and then Interview With the Vampire... which I never did finish. Next on the list, I think, was this manga series called Vampire Game. And then I got into Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. And then there was Twilight, which I read before Twilight got really popular, before Eclipse came out. After that followed Angel, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Kim Harrison's stuff, Tanya Huff's stuff, and Karen Chance... among others, of course... *cough* The Vampire Diaries. *cough* I've seen the Underworld movies, the Blade movies, the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer movie, and a bunch of others that were honestly horrible. So there's my street-cred for what I'm about to talk about next: Types of Vampires.

Now, a lot of people have gigantic problems with Twilight vampires and the fact that they sparkle. This is not going to be a rant about how vampires should not sparkle. It's not going to be a rant about how awesome Twilight vampires are. It's not going to be anything having to do with bashing of any kind (except perhaps those who are stupid). If you were/are expecting any of these things, I'm going to ask that you leave. Now-ish. This is just me outlining a few similarities and differences between different types of vampires.

Nyeusigrube Vampires
     These vamps are written by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. They were my first official vampires. They do not a)dust, b)die by sunlight, c)usually act like teenagers. These vampires make the most sense to me. They are also only one type of vampire within the universe of Nyeusigrube. there are two types, actually. And I lied, one type does to two of those three things I said they didn't. Those are Solar Vampires and they don't show up in Amy's books, because she finds them uninteresting. The Lunar Vampires show up in most of Amy's books. The first of which, by the way, pretty much starts out stating what bits of mythology are bunk within this universe. Bursting Into Flames In The Sunlight? Nope. Lacking a Reflection? Some of them... depends on how powerful they are. Killed By Staking? The main character of In The Forests Of The Night states:

"If someone hammered a stake through my heart I suppose I would die, but I do not play with humans, stakes, or mallets."

And that whole religious item thing? Bunk. Garlic? Well, their sense of smell is very, very good and garlic has a strong odor so... they don't techincally care.

     Are we seeing why Nyeusigrube vampires make sense now? They truly are the next rung up on the food chain. And they're powerful enough to take over a human mind. Hence, more awesome than your average, run of the mill vampire.

Anne Rice's Vampires

     So... the only way to tell if you've got yourself a vamp, at least at night, is to look at their fingernails? Really? Their fingernails look like glass? Seriously? So do mine with a good clear coat of nail polish. Their skin looks funny under flourescents? So does mine, and I'm human. They're compelled to sleep all day? Gee, that just sounds like a recipie for trouble... what if you can't get anywhere safe? You just collapse randomly? Really? That's crap. Sucks to be you.

     So... other than personality, the Anne Rice vamps don't have much going for them. The books themselves have tons of padding... but I kinda like them. But can someone tell me why Louis is still around? I mean really... he's so close to human it hurts. He might as well be dead. And he whines. All. The. Time. Someone stake him, please.

Buffyverse Vampires

     How to tell you have a vampire: Do they dress like they're not from this time period? Check. Do their faces go all "grr" (to quote Cordelia) when they're about to feed? Check. Do they back away from Crosses? Check. Do they go "poof" when you stake them? Check. Do they start to sizzle and then burn in sunlight? Check. And finally, do they have kick-ass fighting skills right out of the grave? Check. Oh good, you've got a Buffyverse vamp. Oh, and then there's that soulless thing... but how do you check for that?

     Well... not really that much extra to say about these guys. I love Spike, and Angel kind of grows on you. He did better in his own show. Not so much with the mooning over Buffy. Angelus was more fun, but there you are. Harmony... what to say about Harmony? She's delightfully weird and awesome at the same time. And then Drusilla! Oh God, Drusilla. She's the awesome kind of insane that's actually insane. I lied about that "not really that much extra" thing, by the way...

Twilight Saga Vampires

     This is the part where people are proably running away or scoffing. Good, I don't like those people anyway. I do, however, love the Twilight vamps. Not necessarily Edward Cullen, but it's really his family I like. Stephenie is really good at writing secondary characters, I'll give her that. Also, the books are a pretty quick read, which I like.

     How to tell you've got a vampire: Are they super pale? Check. Are their eyes changing color every time you see them? Are those eyes gold or scarlet or black or somewhere inbetween? Check. Do they sparkle in sunlight? Check. Is their skin cold and rock-solid? Check. Looks like you've got a vamp. Good for you. Don't go all fan-girl, it's annoying. Some of them will eat you. Did I mention the Volturi?

     The sparkling dilemma is the main thing that has people laughing at Twilight vamps. This annoys me. Stephenie Meyer has explained why it is that Twilight vamps sparkle somewhere on her website, I can't be bothered to look it up right now. Basically, Twilight vamps sparkle because their cells have crystalized in the venom that now replaces all the fluid in their bodies. The cells reflect/refract/whatever sunlight. Sunlight specifically. No idea why flourescents don't do it, but sunlight is special. It's why other vamps burst into flame. Personally, I like my vamps properly indestructable... or mostly indestructable anyway.

Vampire Kids

     On the whole half-human, half-vampire kid thing... Renesmee is a stupid name. Should have had that as the middle name and Carly as the first name. Also, it's been done before. They're called dhampir (no, I don't know how to spell that). It's from folklore. LOOK IT UP. Stephenie isn't the only author to have done vamps having kids before, either. Laurell K. Hamilton had it happen. Kim Harrison has some weird sort of born/living vampire that becomes a true vampire when it dies... Karen Chance has a whole series based around a dhampir. You're having a heart-attack about it? Look that the "actual science" of it.

     Specifically about Renesmee: Stephenie has stated that Edward's body apparently had some left over semen that got venom-ized or whatever. That's what impregnated Bella Cullen (she was married at that point). Not about Renesmee: Laurell K. Hamilton had this sort-of happen pretty much the same way. Said vamp had left-over semen in his body and was young enough that it hadn't died yet... or something. Anyway, he impregnated his wife. Tada, another technical dhampir.

     Oh, and don't go making small children into vampires. Claudia from Interview With the Vampire and Nikolas from Guilty Pleasures both give me the shivers. And then there are those other two from the Anita Blake novels... I can't remember their names. But their children. And creepy. The Volturi from The Twilight Saga outlawed them for a reason. And now I gotta wonder why so many child vamps are girls... hmm...

And I'm done ranting. I'm not leaving links this time, because I don't feel like looking them up tonight. But seriously, look up some of this stuff, if you're interested. It's all awesome so far as I'm concerned... except Interview With The Vampire, that's annoying and pants. I also just realized I didn't mention Dracula... I don't like Dracula. But you should read it. It's a good grounding in what vamps were originally supposed to be like...

Love ya, Jessie.