So today I am writing about love. This has nothing to do
with the fact that it is Valentine’s Day on Friday. It actually has more to do
with Game of Thrones than it does
with the 14th of February.
In August, I read the first book of the A Song of Ice and
Fire series (A Game of Thrones), and
in September, I read half of the second book (A Clash of Kings.) On January 28th, it was my sixteenth
birthday, and I got season one of the TV show Game of Thrones as a birthday present. On Saturday last week, I
started watching said TV show, and yesterday, I watched season 2. All of season
2, might I add.
If you have never experienced a ten-hour TV marathon, let me
inform you of this: it is painful. Your back will hurt, your head will hurt,
and your eyes will hurt, but it will all be worth it. (Implying said TV show is
good. But if you watch it for 10 hours, it will be good, because nobody would
be stupid enough to watch something they hate for ten hours.)
So yesterday, I was about midway through my Game of Thrones marathon, and, what I
think of as Writer’s Brain started to
kick in. Writer’s Brain is where I
can’t just watch a TV show or movie or read a book without thinking about it on
a deeper level, thinking about plot and characterization, rather than just “Oh
my gosh this thing is so awesome!”
The things that Writer’s
Brain was fixated on yesterday were the relationships between characters,
specifically the “romantic” relationships. I mean, Game of Thrones has a lot of characters, and most of them are
either married, betrothed, or sleeping with someone. The relationship that
really triggered this line of thought was that of Robb Stark and Talisa. If I
had had to make a choice between Ned Stark’s sons, I’d have chosen Jon Snow any
day, perhaps because the books (or what I’d read of them) showed more from his
perspective than they did from Robb’s.
But the romance between Robb and Talisa changed the way I
saw him. Watching them fall for each other…I could really see the love between
them, and this made me think about my own stories. When was the last time I had
written a love story that wasn’t completely toxic. I think it must have been
that of Persephone and Drew in CONSEQUENCE. Given the fact that it’s been about
a year and a half since CONSEQUENCE was completed, I began to wonder what the
hell I’d been writing since then.
Basically, the “love” stories I wrote, weren’t all that
loving. There were Melinoe and Blake, who basically tried to destroy each
other, there were some people in TRANSCEND who I can’t talk about because it’s
not published yet, there were some other characters in other books I attempted
to write. And then there was Katerina Kamanev, my current main character. She
is probably the most toxic of them all. I’ve only written about 21,000 words of
that book, so it’s nowhere near done, which means I can’t really start writing
anything new.
But when I do write something new, I don’t want to write
another toxic love story. I want to write something that’s actually about love,
not jealousy and schemes and treachery (it’s rather ironic that Game of Thrones made me realize this,
given the fact that “jealousy, schemes and treachery” are what that series is
about).
I want to write love like Persephone and Drew’s again, love
where the characters don’t have these hidden dark sides or deep commitment
issues, or whatever other problems I create for my characters. I also want to
have a main character that isn’t semi-evil, because I’m getting tired of
writing characters like that.
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I wrote
characters that were actually redeemable, rather than just plain evil like the
ones I write now. What is it inside my mind that is preventing me from writing
something good, rather than something
that makes me wonder if I’m going insane?
Once my current book is finished (so, in a very long time),
I want to write something different to my current stuff. No apocalypses, no
wars, no dictators, no robots (okay, you can write a decent love story with
robots. That is, if CONSEQUENCE is decent, which I’m still not sure of.) I want
to write something that doesn’t make me think I’m a female version of Ben from
Outnumbered (the fact that he mentioned Game
of Thrones in last week’s episode is even more proof that I am like him.)
So that’s my mission: write something…*searches for word to
describe what I mean*. The only word that really comes to mind is “pure”, and
that has connotations of….basically everything I don’t write about. I don’t
mean pure in the sense of milkmaids and virgin brides. What I mean is a love
story that actually makes you believe in love. I remember when I read
Allegiant, and the thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about (other than that
ending that made me sob for a week) was the love between Tris and Tobias, and
how strong and beautiful it was. There was this indescribable quality about it,
and that’s what I want to write. I want to write at least one book that is
beautiful, that makes people believe in good, rather than believe in the bad in
the world.
The other day I was thinking about the end of TRANSCEND, and
I considered changing it. You see, the ending is currently in the vague realm
of “and they all lived happily ever
after, but here’s a fun flashback to show what an evil bastard this character
used to be”. What I wanted to do was change the ending, because I’d had
second thoughts on some of the pairings. There are some characters that belong
together, yet really don’t belong together, and no matter who they end up with
I will have regrets. But I’m glad I’ve kept the ending the same. If I made
those characters get together, I would have completely changed the message of
the entire series.
When it comes to the end of TRANSCEND, all I can really do
to explain my feelings is quote The Book
Thief: ‘I have hated the words, and I have loved them, and I hope I have
made them right.’
*****I Googled Talisa from Game of Thrones to check I'd spelled her name right, and WHAT THE HELL? I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to watch season 3, HOW CAN SUCH THINGS HAPPEN? I think I need to go and cry for a bit now.
