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 Earlier this month, I participated in a large, multi-author fundraising campaign to benefit animal shelters called Authors Against Animal Abuse, and I’m pleased to report that Christine Johnson raised $543.27 with her auctions. (The signed lot of Rampant, Ascendant, and an ARC of Jeri Smith-Ready’s Shine went for over $123 alone!) All the money benefited the Indianapolis Humane Society.
Because both Carrie Ryan and I offered to match donations up to $1000 with donation to local animal rescue groups, that means I’ll be donating $543.27 to Reach Out Rescue, which is a local Maryland all breed dog Rescue Group I volunteer with.
But that’s not all! The balance of the “matching money” ($456.73) will be split among the following local rescue groups, which come highly recommended to me by fellow author and animal lover Michelle Hodkin:
Thank you so much for bidding on the auction. wishing you and all your furry friends a safe and happy new year!
Yesterday, I posted about my 2011 goals and how I was doing on them. Today, I’m posting about my goals for next year. I’ve divided them into three spheres: work, home, and family. My goals this year are much more ambitious than last year, when I was at home full time with an infant.
Home:
- Declutter bedroom: If you’ve been paying attention, this has been on the to-do list for quite some time. I’m kind of a tough customer when it comes to saying goodbye to clothes — even if they’re clothes I never wear anymore (like my office wardrobe, when I haven’t worked in an office since 2006).
- Organize attic, basement, and spare closet: the downside of all the reorganizing we’ve done in the rest of the house is that certain areas of the attic and basement have become catch-alls. I know a lot of the stuff in there is not needed anymore, and I should toss it.
- Get rid of unused furniture: Also a long-held to-do. This includes one dresser in the guest room and one dresser in the master bedroom that have both sat empty for months… and yet there they sit, taking up valuable real estate. I need to get my act together and Craigslist the darn things.
- Resod yard/rip out side garden: This is SB’s pet project for spring.
- Fix fence: We really need to get on this. We’ve been dragging our feet for almost two years now. What happened was a tree fell over on one corner of our chain link fence and pulled the whole thing out of whack. The gate hasn’t latched right since, but since it’s just one corner and we don’t want to replace the whole fence, we’ve had a tough time finding someone who wants to do that little job. (Every fence company I call quotes us replacing all the fences on our property). This is par for the course in home repair I’ve found. We have one cracked floorboard — but all the repair folks won’t do anything for us unless we let them rip up our entire floor. It’s ridiculous. You have to either become a DIY expert or get taken to the cleaners for every tiny piece of home repair.
- Plant herb garden: I’ve already started on this with winter hardy rosemary and sage.
- Plant veggie garden: I’m grateful for all the success I’ve had with tomatoes but I’d really like to start expanding my repertoire. However, everything else I’ve ever tried has been middling to full-on bust, including: lettuce, zucchini, squash, cucumbers, radishes, strawberries, and bell peppers. The hot peppers were okay, but we rarely ate them.
- Keep working on that Ent.: I spent days ripping down vines last spring and I don’t know how much good it did — most of them grew back. This year I’m going to try attacking it in winter. Maybe when they’re dead/dormant it’ll be easier to detach them.
- Fix bushes in front yard: Some of them are starting to look super raggedy and our last attempt and trimming/shaping didn’t go too well.
- Fix refrigerator ice machine: see above re: repairmen as to why that hasn’t gone over so well yet.
- Do at least two other home improvement projects. I have a few potentials on my list.
Family:
- Spend quality time with Sailor Boy: And that means more than just being couch potatoes in front of Netflix once Queenie’s gone to bed. If we’re going to be couch potatoes, it should at least be in the pursuit of finally finishing Portal 2’s 2-player game.
- Spend quality time with Queenie: Somehow, I think this will be the easiest resolution of all to keep, if only because Q herself actively pursues QT with us at all hours.
- Put Rio in agility (or similar) classes: This is part of my “Rio needs more QT” resolution. I also think she needs to spend more time with other dogs. Ever since we lost Gracie and stopped fostering, she’s been pretty dogless, and while in Florida for Xmas with my parents’ and brother’s dogs, it showed.
- Take Rio for a hike at least once a week: I miss our hikes.
- Take a family vacation: This is a biggie. We haven’t been on a real vacation since before Queenie was born, and she’s getting to an age where she might have fun on a vacation. We just have to decide what to do.
- Put Queenie in swimming lessons this summer. I think she’ll love it! She loves swimming here in Florida.
Work:
- Promote the six new releases and four reprints I have coming out in 2012. Yes, that’s how many I’ve got in the US alone. I have a few foreign releases planned as well. Schedule forthcoming.
- Pursuant to previous, update website!
- Finish Major Secret Marketing Effort for FDSTS #1. I’m actually haflway through that.
- Finish MSMEfFDSTS#2. Barely started on this one.
- Finish new book. About half way through this as well.
- Finish Secret Project #1. Have been making good headway here in Florida.
- Finish Secret Project #2. Or, you know, start it.
- Attend at least two writing-related conferences. Not sure which yet.
- Get invited to at least one short story anthology. Putting that out there in the universe. I love me some short stories, and I have a pretty good track record so far.
- Follow up with co-conspirators re: Secret Project #3. Hear me, co-conspirators? I haven’t forgotten!
First, an apology: I fell off posting my monthly goal check in around September. Oops. Here’s what happened: In the beginning of October, I got super busy with Queenie’s birthday party and a visit from my mom, and then I went to Florida, and then November and NaNoWriMo happened, and now… here we are.
How was my year in review?
In January, things were slow. I was in a sort of limbo, half on maternity leave, half trying to get back in the swing of things. I was caring for an infant full time and trying as hard as I could to squeeze in a little work on the side. However, I did write “Foundlings,” (Brave New Love, out February 2012)which was the first thing I’d written since having Q.
In February and March, I was finally back in the swing of things after I found help for Queenie’s daytime care. I wrote “Stray Magic” (Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, out fall of 2012) and finished the draft of For Darkness Shows the Stars. I also got the revision letter for the latter, and rewrote the ending. And did my taxes.
April was more about home life than writing life, as we redid several areas of the house, finally giving me that wall of bookshelves I’d always wanted, a new china cabinet, and a new office for Sailor Boy. Also, Q started solids and I planted my garden. On the writing front, I went to the Annapolis book festival and kept pounding away at FDSTS revisions.
In May, I got a new short story offer, finished the revisions, dog sat for my parents, worked in my garden, reorganized my kitchen, and spent lots of quality time with my new little family. That trend continued into June, where in addition to the usual summer family/garden/home diversions, I got a new non-fiction essay offer.
In July, we had a ton of fun with Q — who loves to swim — and my crazy tomato garden, and worked on the outline for my new book so I could dive into it in August during Camp NaNoWriMo, which I did, until I got the copyedits for FDSTS, which I proceeded to kill, and got some foreign offers for a bunch of my books.
In September, I wrote short story #4 and signed a hwole bunch of new contracts.
In October, I went to the NINC conference in Florida, planned out a new idea, wrote “Hunger Game Theory” for The Girl Who Was On Fire: Movie Edition (out in January), threw Q a wildly awesome birthday party, and watched her take her first steps while dressed up as an Ewok for Halloween.
In November, I did NaNoWriMo and wrote half my new book. I had a super mini writing retreat with writing retreat queen Carrie Ryan in Charlotte — during which she helped me fix my heroine and I helped her figure out an ending for one of her short stories, before we took off for Y’AllFest in Charleston, SC. When I got home, I threw myself into the marketing ramp-up for FDSTS. This pattern continued into December: working on new book, marketing for new release.
And the big list for 2011:
- Revise/finish my contracted novel.
- Write short story #1
- Write short story #2
- Write short story #3
- Write short story #4
- Write essay #1
- Write new proposal #1
- Write new proposal/book #2
- Go to one writing-related conference. (I did three!)
- Walk my dog. (I’m about 50% on this)
- Plant a garden.
- Make sure I spend quality time with Sailor Boy.
- Do at least two home improvement projects.(I did four!)
- Cut our budget.
- Read at least one new novel per month. (Also about 50% on this.)
I know where I’m falling down, and it’s the two Rs: reading and Rio. So my next year’s goals are definitely going to include some of that! Stay tuned tomorrow, when I share my hopes for 2012!
 (First: Today is the last day to enter the Cassandra Clare Giveaway. I’ll be picking the winner at 5 PM Eastern).
Today marks the 236th birthday of Jane Austen. Happy birthday, Jane.
Last night, I attended a performance of a play based on Austen’s novel, Pride & Prejudice. P&P is, undoubtedly, the most popular of all the Austen works, and with good reason It is the most soundly structured and tightly plotted of all her stories. Elizabeth is the most winning of all of Austen’s heroines, especially for the modern reader, due to her strength, spunk, and sense of humor. Kate Cook, the actress who portrayed Elizabeth in the production I saw last night said of the character:
“she’s beautifully drawn and virtually impossible to get right. Plus, a mythology has risen up around her, she has become something more than she is, which makes it a bit tough to find the person in there… I find her bottomless. There’s always more to discover.”
Everyone creates their own Elizabeth from what is on the page — focusing on one thing and ignoring some other that may not fit with their Elizabethan image. Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth clashes so wildly with my mental Elizabeth that I could never really like that film. I once got into a knock-down, drag-out fight with someone who insisted that Lizzie really did only fall for Darcy for the house.
Everyone also creates their own Jane. Some like to imagine for her a thwarted love story that informs the romances in her fiction:
Others eschew the love stories in her books and claim that Jane was a social satirist, full-stop, and knowing nothing of romantic love herself, could not properly express it in fiction. To this argument they like to quote a letter that Austen once wrote to the librarian of the Prince Regent, J.S. Clarke, claiming, in part: “I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter.”
Which betrays a misunderstanding in general as to what the term “romance” meant then. (Hint: it doesn’t mean what it does today.) Make no mistake: Jane Austen wrote love stories. She also wrote social satire, and stories about families. It was all of it.
In fact, novels in general then were regarded as highly suspect modes of entertainment, and people often pretended they DIDN’T like novels (ANY novels) back then, the way now that so many keep their love of romance novels or YA novels or Twilight (which is both) under wraps.
Jane’s books, when finally published (she sold one early on that didn’t make it into print) were popular with the reading public, including the aforementioned Prince Regent, who prevailed upon her to dedicate Emma to him. Sadly, she dies before her final complete novel, Persuasion, was published.
In the late 19th century, opinions on Austen’s work was divided between a readership that had an emotional and overwhelming adoration for the books (think Twihards) and one who “properly” apreciated Austen’s place in the canon. (This crap ain’t new, guys.) There began to be a noted division between Austen fans who fancied themselves admirers of the full range of Austen’s subject matter and ones who liked the books because Darcy was hawt. The division was pronounced enough that it was considered a strike against your own analysis if you spent any time appreciating the relationships in the novels.
Like I said, this crap ain’t new.
Nevertheless, it is impossible to divorce Austen’s social views from her views about love and marriage. Her books depict the lives and fortunes of a completely dependent class — women. Though Austen herself managed to make a tiny bit of money from the sale of her novels, women’s almost exclusive means of securing an income for themselves was to marry into one. The only heroine of independent fortune in the novels is Emma (Anne Elliot is supposed to have a dowry, but Sir Walter can’t be prevailed upon to cough it up.)
FWIW, here are the fortunes of Jane Austen’s heroines:
- Emma Woodhouse: 30,000 pounds (the modern equivalent of $150,000 a year)
- Anne Elliot: 10,000 pounds, officially, but she doesn’t get it.
- Catherine Morland (Northanger Abbey): 3,000 pounds
- Elizabeth Bennett: 1,000 pounds (this means her mother brought 5k dowry into her marriage with Mr. Bennett)
- Elinor and Marianne Dashwood: 1,000 pounds a piece*
- Fanny Price: zip (please note that Miss Crawford has a 20,000 pound dowry, and that her aunt secured a baronet with “only seven thousand”)
For an in-depth analysis of Austenian fortunes, see this great post, which attempts to explain the way money worked in the time, complete with a lovely chart, excerpted below.)
After her father’s death, Austen, her sister Cassandra, and their mother lived on ~450 pounds a year, which is very like the 500 pounds a year the S&S girls were impoverished on.
So what does all this mean? Well, the richest of Austen’s heroines states unequivocally that she has no inducements to marry, being a woman of independent fortune and a prominent place in society (since the marriage of her sister, Emma is the “lady” of her house). And even amongst the heroines of lower fortune, she states very clearly, over and over in her novels when her heroines refuse proposals from men who may offer them comfortable lives, that no matter what your situation, you should not marry unless you can be happy with your husband.
This parallels Austen’s own life. She was engaged once, for a day, to a man with money she’d known for a very long time. However, she realized quickly that she couldn’t be happy in that marriage, despite the financial stability it would afford her, and she broke the engagement. For Austen, “Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection.”
For Fanny Price, that meant risking alienating her adoptive family at Mansfield Park and being sent packing home to her own impoverished relations rather than marry the immoral and licentious Henry Crawford. For Elizabeth Bennett it meant risking her family’s welfare, first by not marrying the heir to her father’s estate (though you can argue she figured she was safe with Jane and Bingley’s romance seeming assured), and then, later, by not accepting Darcy’s first proposal. (If Mrs. Bennett was going to disown Lizzie for not accepting Mr. Collins, can you imagine what she’d do if she found out her daughter was rejecting a man with $10,000 a year?). For Anne Elliott, it means not marrying Charles Musgrove even though he would have gotten her out of her father’s house and into the bosom of the Musgrove family, whom she seems to like. And then later with Mr. Elliot, Austen says that what Anne might ever have thought of Mr. Elliot (before the revelations about his true character) coudln’t really have been known, because Anne is such a one-woman man.
But affection is not necessarily the same thing as romantic love. Indeed, in S&S, one gathers that the love Marianne ends up feeling for Colonel Brandon is not necessarily a passionate and romantic one, but one of strong regard and respect. However, it is enough to make the both of them happy, and that is the point Austen is making. She also likes to create examples of happy (Admiral and Mrs. Croft, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, etc.) and unhappy (Mr. Collins and Charlotte, Maria Bertram and Mr. Rushworth, Charles and Mary Musgrove) marriages in her books to drive the point home that unless her heroines make choices based not only in comfort/fortune (which she CERTAINLY thinks is important) but ALSO in affection, they are much better off staying single.
So the fact that Jane Austen’s stories are love stories in no way diminishes from everything else they are too. The thing I love so much about Austen’s romances is they are not destructive, they are not all-encompassing. The characters build something new with their relationships, working them into the fabric of their society, growing something made of not only of romance, but also of respect. Anne tells Wentworth it’s better that they are together now rather than when they were each young and had no place in the world. If Lizzie had taken Darcy when he first proposed, he would never have become a better person, and he would always have seen her as a prize to be won, and resented her as a fortune hunter. Could Fanny really have changed Henry Crawford’s evil ways? I don’t think so.
Where were we? Right.
Happy Birthday, Jane!
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* There is somewhat of an argument about what these ladies are living on — if you do the math from chapter 1 of S&S, they have 10k between their mother’s 7k and the 1k each that the girls got from their late uncle. That would give them an income of the modern equivalent of 50k a year, which isn’t horribly shabby. However, a 1k dowry isn’t going to help them much, as we see from the point of view of Elizabeth. It’s not “husband catching” money — they aren’t “prey for fortune hunters,” as Mr. Bennett puts it. Also, if you’ve just seen the Ang Lee movie, they make the Dashwoods much richer, reduce the widow Dashwood much more (the girls have NO dowries at all in the film), and make Brandon a good deal richer, too.
 Last month, author Christine Johnson witnessed something horrible happening to a local dog. (Seriously, do not click that link back there unless you have a strong stomach). Moved by the poor animal’s plight, as well as the plight of so many other homeless and abused pets, she enlisted the help of a bunch of other animal-friendly authors to do a fundraiser.
This is the result: a huge, multi-author auction, multi-state fundraiser, and multi books available!
I’m so excited to be a part of this fundraiser for the Humane Society of Indianapolis (where Christine is located). As many of you know, the plight of homeless and abused pets is one that’s very near and dear to my heart. Before Q came along and risked us out of the activity (she’s a bit of a tail-and-whisker puller, which Rio puts up with, but is definitely too much for a scared homeless foster), Sailor Boy, Rio, and I used to foster homeless dogs as part of a rescue organization and I still do what I can (like home visits for potential adoptive parents) to help great pets find forever homes.
 This is what I’m doing to help now.
First, we’re auctioning off a signed set of Rampant and Ascendant (hardcovers). Rampant the hardcover is out of print, guys. Which means you might get one of the VERY LAST COPIES in existence. The lot also includes a limited edition ARC of Jeri Smith-Ready’s SHINE.
You can’t imagine how happy this makes me, given that Jeri is the one who got me into dog fostering to begin with.
ALSO:
Carrie Ryan (another big animal lover) and I will be matching the aggregate of all donations/bids up to $1,000 and donating that amount to our local animal rescue groups.
This is an amazing chance to get your hands on some signed, limited edition books and do wonders for animals in need.
And, since I know I’m getting a lot of visitors right now due to the Cassandra Clare giveaway, I thought I’d point out that one of the lots includes signed copies of the entire Mortal Instruments tetralogy.
So go now! Check out all the lots. Bid on something and know that you are going to make a real difference in some poor animal’s life this Christmas.
So who says all Christmas presents need to be surprises? This one comes without wrapping paper.
I have one of these:
It is signed by the lovely Cassandra Clare. I am giving it away.
The giveaway goes until 5 PM EST Friday, at which point I will pick a winner and send it out so that, at least domestically, you will get it by Christmas. If the winner is international, I make no promises. But there’s a chance.
Leave a comment here to enter.
Updated to add: And PLEASE check out this post on authors against animal abuse, including a chance to bid on an entire signed set of the Mortal Instruments series, plus a lot of other great books.
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UPDATED AGAIN: Congratulations to #24, Ebithal. You’re our lucky winner.
I just can’t stop.
Veronica Mars:
Then I started doing one for Gossip Girl, but 1) I ran out of room, and 2) I’m about halfway through season four, and a wrench just got thrown into my design. I’m going to need to start employing curvy lines. Or at least catch up on the show before I try to parse ALLLLLLLL the pairings.
Meanwhile, I’m drafting away on my new secret project, codename PIMP (I know — naughty, naughty, right?) and am deeeeep into research. Research is a funny, funny thing. For instance, these are a few of the things I’ve been researching while working on my latest novel:
- orphan diseases
- Alexander McQueen
- sericulture
- Santorini
- taro
- juvenile canities
- Huntington’s disease
- animals in the family Mustelidae
- biomolecular computing
- solar sails
- coral spawn
- geothermal power
- hair dye and bleaching techniques
- ziplining
- rock cutting
- kites
My mind goes to strange places.
Today I had the privilege of being interviewed on Marissa’s blog, Many to Read Before I Sleep, in which I talk about my chidhood literary crushes and BFFS, and a few points of trivia you may or may not know. Check it out!
Some of you know this, but in my other life, I was a science major. (Geology to be precise). Which meant that in the course of my studies, I wound up making quite a lot of chemical diagrams. I love diagrams.
Now, of course, I do not have as many opportunities to chart molecules or chemical reactions (though I did manage to sneak a few of my favorites into Tap & Gown). However, in considering the whole “love triangle” situation the other day, I started to think about how it can get very complicated in some of my favorite books and… well, I may have gotten a little… involved.
Take Persuasion. So, yes, in Persuasion, there is a love triangle with Captain Wentworth and Louisa Musgrove vs. Anne Elliot. But there’s ALSO a love triangle, later on in the book, with Anne and the Captain and Mr. Elliot. And then when you consider who Mr. Elliot ends up with…
It gets complicated. Here’s what it looks like, when all’s said and done:
(Please note: you can click to enlarge any of these, and you’ll probably have to as we go on.)
The arrows are directional to indicate the direction of the affection/romance. For instance, Mr. Elliot is into Anne, but not so much the other way around. The faded dots indicate familial relations (cf. the Elliots), and the the dashed arrows indicate supposed or rumored affections.
Which of course, are all the rage in another favorite Austen: Emma.
Emma, of course, is all about the power of suggestion and rumor when it comes to relationships.
The more I did this, the more I realized that Jane Austen was ALL about the love triangles. And though Emma and Persuasion both feature love triangles prominently in the plots, they are not driving the plots. Louisa is not the thing keeping Anne and Wentworth apart, nor is Harriet the only obstacle between Mr. Elton and Emma. Only in Sense and Sensibility do we see a story entirely incumbent on the conflict of the love triangles:
Why can’t Edward be with Elinor? Because of Lucy. Why can’t Colonel Brandon catch Marianne’s eye? Because she’s completely besotted by Willoughby. (You see how the arrows between the Colonel and Marianne are of uneven end points? That’s to indicate degree of affection.)
I love these things. I may have to make them into T-shirts or something. They’re so pretty and sciency, but you know — Jane Austen.
You guys, I had way too much fun with this. After I finished up Jane, I went a little off the rails. More tomorrow.
 There has been a lot of discussion recently on the state of love triangles in the current crop of YA literature. Most of the discussion has focused on how gosh darn prevalent it is, with a lot of the usual refrain of “I’m so sick of love triangles” or “do all YA novels have to have love triangles in them” and etc. Some of the discussion has raised the point that there seems to be a particular focus, in love triangley books, for there to be a girl choosing between two guys, rather than the other way around. Others have pointed out the fact that book publisher publicity departments get a lot of mileage out of pushing a “Team X” vs. “Team Y” campaign on readers (I’m looking at you, Hunger Games).
While I will not deny that there are a lot of novels out there that have borrowed the love triangle formula (in the mathematical sense) that worked so well in Twilight, it’s not a singular occurrence. Also incredibly popular after the worldwide, game-changing, publisher-floating, industry-saving and genre-creating success of Twilight? Books about EVERYTHING that Twilight was about. Books about vampires, books about beautiful immortal people, books about unusual families of paranormal humanoid creatures living amongst us, books about girls with paranormal boyfriends, and books in which high school girls fall into extraordinarily quick and everlasting love. All of these are available in ready supply right now, all of them owe at least some part of their current popularity to Twilight.
This is a good thing. People finding new things they like in books and then reading more books about those things? Wonderful.
And one of those things, yes, is “a girl in love with two boys” love triangles.
I have only published one book with that kind of love triangle in it: My first novel, Secret Society Girl, which came out in 2006, right when Meyer was lighting the world on fire with New Moon. Like Bella, my character Amy has to make a choice between two boys she likes who both like her.
However, I have written two books with this supposedly rare “two girls one guy” love triangle: Rites of Spring (Break), in which Amy competes for the affections of a guy, and the upcoming For Darkness Shows the Stars, which is based on Persuasion, and therefore includes the Anne Elliot — Captain Wentworth — Louisa Musgrove triangle so beloved (or beloved-to-behated) by its fans.
So, having published one of these and seen years worth of reader reactions (and read enough reactions to the Persuasion one to know it’s the same), I can tell you right now why the Twilight kind is more popular:
- most of the readers of these types of novels are girls
- These readers are moved by the “tough decision” facing a heroine with two fabulous guys after her.
- Which leads to “team” formation, by individual readers, in fan circles, and by publicity departments.
- Whereas the heroine competing for the affections of a guy against another girl gets one reaction: beat the “other woman.”
 
(Note: this is very typical Louisa Musgrove treatment in Jane Austen fandom.)
If the other woman is a normal woman with faults like the heroine, she is labeled an irredeemable b****. If the other woman is a saint, she is allowed to be pitied, but we still root for the heroine to get the man. Why? Because to do otherwise would mean the reader is rooting against the heroine. And, almost without exception, that ain’t good.
In Rites of Spring (Break), Amy does not win her love triangle. And despite the fact that I very clearly demonstrate that the guy at the center of it is NOT the one for her, and soon after I embroil her in a fabulously delicious romance with a new guy, you would not believe the number of emails I get demonizing both other parties and wishing that Amy had won. Even though, if she HAD won, she would not have going on to her wonderful romance that they also say they love so much.
The way I look at it is like this: even if you know your ex or the guy who would never ask you out in high school was TOTALLY wrong for you now, you still want to look drop-dead gorgeous at your high school reunion, right? Just because you’re better off without them doesn’t mean they shouldn’t still pine for you. It’s not the most enlightened of all feelings, but it’s a fantasy.
(Hello, exes. Yes, this is what I Iook like every single day. No, I do not currently have bags under my eyes because Q was up half the night or applesauce in my hair because, well, see previous.)
And it’s that fantasy — of having multiple people madly in love with us, that is so compelling to so many readers.
But here’s the problem: because it’s so compelling, and because publisher publicity departments (understanding this visceral response readers have to this storyline) have pumped it up, its prevalence in the book on the shelves and, perhaps more importantly, in the marketing material for books on the shelves, has trained readers to expect a love triangle in their novels When people complain “why does there have to be a love triangle in every YA novel” they are often complaining about things that a few years ago would not have been considered a love triangle at all.
How do I know this?
Because there was no love triangle in Twilight.
Bella loved Edward, and Edward loved Bella. There might have been a few other people who were interested in dating Bella, just like there was some lingering resentment on the part of Rosalie that she hadn’t good enough for Edward while Bella was, but neither of those things weighed particularly heavily on either of these characters’ minds (and Rosalie has been long since happily matched up).
But if that book were published today, with the microscope readers have been trained to place on any whiff of something that might be a love triangle, they might see this:
And maybe that’s a compelling story, told from the point of view of Mike or Jacob. Poor guys, they secretly love Bella, but she only has eyes for the vampire. Indeed, as the series progressed, Meyer chose to dwell on this facet of Jacob’s story. But that’s as the series progressed.
 I read reviews of books all the time where they talk about love triangles that range from a stretch to completely non-existent. I have received emails about the “love triangle” in Ascendant. At first, I spent a lot of time scratching my head. Then I realized they were referring to the fact that Astrid is pursued by one boy while dating another.
To me, that was no more a love triangle than the fact that every boy in Forks instantly goes ga-ga over the “new girl” Bella is somehow indicative of a love tetrahedron.You kinda need love to have a love triangle. Or at least the idea of choosing one over another. The love triangles in my friend Carrie Ryan’s books (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, etc.)? LOVE. TRIANGLES. Mary is in love with Travis but betrothed to his brother. Gabry feels enormously guilty over her growing attachment to Elias after her old boyfriend got infected with the zombie plague… for her. Angst galore! What will she choose? Who will she end up with?
If you’ve read Ascendant, you know that’s not Astrid’s problem. And not in the sense of “she has bigger problems” (which she does), because girls on the run from zombies ALSO have bigger problems, but more in the sense that those questions are not on the plate for her.
However, I also agree with Carrie’s point in her own post on love triangles, in which she says:
“To me, that’s the essence of a love triangle — each man is a viable choice for the heroine but each speaks to a different part of who she is. The heroine isn’t choosing between two men, she’s choosing who SHE wants to be and that will dictate who the right match is.”
I first read about this conceptualization of a story’s love triangle in a screenwriting class in 2005, and it really stuck with me. When I looked at the love triangle in my first book through this lens, I realized not only why neither prong would work but who, in fact, it was that was right for my heroine.
(When Meyers claims in interviews that the books are anti-human, this is what it means. If you can swing your vampirism the way the Cullens do — going off and eating venison in the woods — there is absolutely no downside to vampirism. Bella’s choice reflects the fact that, very reasonably, she’d rather be an eternally healthy, beautiful, young, powerful, awesome vampire then get old, get sick, get hurt, and die in a frail human form.)
But of course, all choices a character makes is reflective on who she is. The choices that Astrid makes in Ascendant regarding her love life have very little to do with the boys involved, and everything to do with her depression, isolation, and eventual nihilism. And though you can argue that Giovanni is a reflection of one facet of Astrid’s character, choosing him would not magically make that Astrid manifest, and Astrid knows it.
One of my favorite scenes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes from season five. Buffy and her friends have just overcome a spell that was meant to split Buffy into her component parts: normal girl and vampire slayer. Her boyfriend Riley tells her that he loves all of her — both parts. That to him, she is indivisible.The tragedy comes when later in that same episode, he posits that it is this elemental wholeness of Buffy that makes her unable to love him. (And where he goes from there is truly tragic.)
(I know a lot of people dislike Riley because of the things he did AFTER this revelation, and I used to be right there with you, but upon repeated rewatching, I’ve come to the conclusion that Riley’s mistakes — and he makes plenty — are not so much him having a problem with a strong woman — since he ends up marrying another — as him deciding, maybe or maybe not falsely — that he’s not good enough for Buffy without magical powers. To be discussed in detail later. People often liken Astrid and Giovanni to Buffy and Riley, though I think a more apt corollary would probably be Buffy and Xander, which never happened on the show.)
Buffy may have chosen Riley, but choosing to have a relationship with this nice, normal guy (instead of her occasionally sociopathic vampire ex-boyfriend) doesn’t make Buffy a normal girl. Over and over in the series, Buffy is forced to make a choice between her love life and her job, often explicitly. Save Angel, or save the world, etc.? Again and again, they ask Buffy who she is, and her answer is “slayer.”
Sometimes, the triangle doesn’t even involve another guy. Sometimes it’s about the heroine choosing not to be with someone, full stop.
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Earlier this month, I participated in a large, multi-author fundraising campaign to benefit animal shelters called Authors Against Animal Abuse, and I’m pleased to report that Christine Johnson raised $543.27 with her auctions. (The signed lot of Rampant, Ascendant, and an ARC of Jeri Smith-Ready’s Shine went for over $123 alone!) All the money benefited the Indianapolis Humane Society.
