The End of 'The Affair' (a review post)

My wife and I don't watch a lot of TV. In fact, we don't actually watch "TV" at all. Everything we watch is after the fact on DVD. This allows us to vet the shows we're going to watch, at least to some extent. The Affair was one of those shows that was getting a lot of buzz, and my wife wanted to check it out, so we spent a few weeks and watched season one.

I never really took a liking to the show (Well, actually, I just didn't like any of the characters. Any of them.), but I can't say it wasn't interesting. If you don't know anything about it, the first season is told by viewing the same incidents from each of the main two characters points of view. So you would watch everything through Noah's eyes and, then, watch the same events through Alison's eyes. The differences were intriguing and, from a psychological standpoint, I found it interesting enough to engage in.

Plus, there was a murder.

There's no resolution to the murder plot at the end of season one, so we decided to move on to season two. Now, here's where it gets tricky. The characters are pretty well established by the end of season one, but we don't get exactly those characters in season two. In season one, the plot flows out of the characters and their motivations; in season two, the characters are made to flow out of the "needs" of the plot, and that always makes characters behave in unbelievable ways.

It's actually one of the biggest failings of episodic television; at some point some writer will want to do a particular story that requires a character (or characters) to act out-of-character. When it causes the audience to say, "Wait, that character would never do that," you have a problem, because, the truth is, people tend to act in very predictable ways. Which is not to say that there aren't times when people don't act "out of character," but, when they do, it's not sporadic and generally has a pattern all of its own. However, when you are busy bending characters to cause plot points to happen whether those things are appropriate to the characters or not, you end up with an unbelievable show.

So we spent season two feeling out of sorts with the characters and the things they were doing. It's not that I don't understand, especially as a writer, wanting specific things to happen, but, if you can't figure out a way to have those things happen from the character's motivations, you need to find another way around.

Or, you know, be writing a horror story. Because, in a horror story, if you want to make one of your characters start eating spiders, you can totally do that, even if that character had been the most arachnophobic person on the planet. There's always a way to explain erratic behavior in a horror story!

Not that it's not kind of a horror story when your characters start getting all unbelievable on you. Creepy, I would say. And, well, actually, Noah is kind of creepy. But, then, he's a writer, and writers were rated in the top 10 creepiest professions for men. Oh, wait, I'm a writer...

...

...

Um...

So...

Yeah, okay, I don't recommend The Affair. It's obviously one of those shows that was went with the initial idea before they'd thought it all the way through, and, now, they're just making it up as they go along. Plus, it's full of horrible people.
Did I say horrible? I mean horrible.

The Gate To Women's Country (a book review post)

Generally speaking, post-apocalyptic books aren't my thing. Post-apocalyptic stories tend to revolve around one thing: how horrible everything is after the apocalypse. This book is not like that. Refreshingly so.

In fact, I didn't know I was reading something post-apocalyptic at first. Yes, that means I didn't know what the book was about. My wife told me I should read it, and I did, and I did that without reading the back cover blurb or anything. Yeah, I trust my wife that much. Her reading standards are much higher than mine, and mine are already pretty darn high. Basically, if she tells me I'm going to like something, I can believe that that is true.

So, yeah, I started reading it without knowing it was post-apocalyptic, so when I got to the part of the story that revealed it was a future society, not just some alternate or fantasy society, it was really an "oh, wow" moment. And, yes, I do realize I ruined that for any of you who might decide to pick the book up, but, really, how many of you were actually not going to read the back cover? That's what I thought, so get off my case. It's right there on the back, so I'm not spoiling anything!

I'm going to make a comparison, now. Everyone loves Ender's Game because they were caught off guard by the ending. Everyone is always, "Oh, wow! I didn't see that coming!" But not me. Not only did I figure out what was going on before the reveal, I knew what was going on almost as soon as it started happening. I liked the book, but there was nothing surprising about the ending to me, and, what's more, at the time I read it, I didn't know the ending was supposed to be a twist. It just seemed the natural outcome to me. I was surprised to find out that other people were surprised by the ending.

The Gate To Women's Country was more like The Sixth Sense in that regard for me. All of the clues as to what is actually going on in that movie are right there in the movie, but you don't see them for what they are. It makes the movie even more brilliant, because you can go back and watch it again and see how all the pieces are laid out and see how you just missed putting them together because you were too caught up in the story. It's rather like missing the forest for the trees.

There is a thing going on in The Gate To Women's Country that's rather brilliant, but what makes it more brilliant is that Tepper lays it all out in front of you -- she basically tells you what's happening -- but you don't see it. I did manage to work it out before the big reveal in the book, but it was rather late, only a few chapters before the reveal, and a definite "oh my God!" moment.

Considering the secret at the center of the novel, a case could be made that this is a dystopian novel. [When I say that, I mean it in the context of the original definition of the word, not the warped view we have of it currently. So, for your cultural edification: The current popular view of "dystopian" amounts to the same as "anti-utopian" or "the opposite of utopian" (which is anything that is not an actual utopian society (so any society currently on Earth (yes, we are all dystopian))). The actual definition of a dystopian society is a society that looks as if it's utopian but has something wrong or flawed at its core. An example would be the society in Brave New World which looks and acts like a utopia except that the population is largely controlled through the use of drugs.] I suppose that depends upon which side of the morally ambiguous question you fall. It's an interesting question, but not one I can go into without spoiling the entire book. But, trust me, I'd love to go into it.

It's a good book. A very good book. It's well written and will probably keep you wondering what it's actually about for quite a while. In a good way. Because you can probably pick up on it not being about what it appears to be about fairly early on. The characters are really good, too, and many of them are not exactly who they appear to be, too, but also in a good way, in the way of getting to know someone, say, away from work when you have only ever known them as a work acquaintance.

The only warning I would give is that the book has a definite feminist slant and, if you can't go in for that, you should probably skip the book; it will probably make you mad. And that, more than anything, will be quite revelatory. If the book makes you mad, it's probably about you.

Exploring Personality: Part Thirteen -- What It All Means

So let's talk analogy for a moment.
If you could have any car you wanted, any car at all, and you could afford to maintain and drive it, what kind of car would you have? That car, that bright and shiny car with the engine that purrs, that's your plot. But guess what; that car isn't going anywhere without a driver, the driver being your protagonist. And it doesn't matter how cool the car is if your protagonist is a total ass (ass... now that's a word I think I need to use more often; it's so versatile) or completely stupid (remember, stupid is not a personality type). Have you ever been in a car with a stupid driver (and I don't mean a bad driver, although a stupid driver is also a bad driver)? It's not something you ever want to do again.

See, it doesn't matter how good (or great) your plot is if you have a protagonist that doesn't work on some level; however, you can have even a junker if your protagonist is someone your readers want to hang out with. As long as the car isn't going to literally fall apart around your readers (or explode), you can get away with a lot if you have good, engaging characters. Which is not to say that I believe characters are more important than plot... except that they kind of are. People (readers) are going to talk about your characters way more (in a general sense) than they are ever going to talk about how cool your dashboard is. Or your steering wheel. Or the heated, leather seats. Okay, they might talk about that, especially if it's cold out. But, in the end, for most readers, it all boils down to the characters.

Which is why it's so important to understand how people are different from each other and, more importantly, how they are different from you, the author. It's a common thing to ask yourself, "What would I do in this situation?" but you're going to end up with only characters who act just like you if that's all you ever do. That's okay once, maybe twice, but, eventually, your readers will get tired of books filled with just one character: you. What you need is for Bob to act like Bob and Jane to act like Jane and Fred to act like Fred and Gortuka from planet Xenon to not act human at all.

I think the only real way to make characters distinct, to make them individuals as opposed to paper dolls, is to make those characterization decisions before you start writing. You ask yourself the question, "What kind of person is Bob? What kind of person is Jane?" And "What kind of... thing is Gortuka?" If you know that stuff before you go in, you can make informed decisions about how your characters act. That way, if you get to a point in your story where someone needs to push the red button, you can have Bob do it, because you know that Bob is the one that can't resist being told not to do something whereas Jane and Fred do what they're told and it would be breaking character for one them to say, "You know what, I'm going to push the red button even though my boss said not to."

I know I frequently come off as someone who gets nit-picky over the details (plot stuff) but, honestly, that stuff only grabs my attention when the characters aren't engaging. It's like being involved in a conversation with someone at a party. If the conversation is good, your attention will be focused on the character but, if the conversation is inane, your gaze starts to wander, and you start to pick up the details of the plot you're in. If that is also lacking (like all the plants are dead or there's a big crack in the ceiling or there are cockroaches crawling on the furniture), the whole thing falls apart, and you want to go home. Or quit reading. Whatever the case may be.

At any rate, for those of you out there who are authors, I hope this series has given some perspective on how to make characters more "real" and more complex and, yet, an insight into why not every character will make the same stupid mistake you might need to happen to move the plot along. For instance, an Eight (the Boss) is never going to act like a Four (the Individualist) and have that heart-to-heart talk about how special he really is if only you would see it. That's just never going to happen.

And, maybe, all of this will enable some of you to see more of whom you are, so you can separate out yourself from your characters. That, I think, is the biggest trap writers fall into. So don't ask, "What would I do if a ravenous slug were crawling up my leg?" Ask, "What would Bob do if a ravenous slug was crawling up his leg?" Answer: He would scream bloody murder and run to Jane to save him.

Exploring Personality: Part Three -- "What's My Type?" (an IWM post)

"I know there's all this talk about my charisma deficit and I have to admit that I'm not a wild, in-your-face actor. It's not my nature to be flashy or extroverted, and that's why I see it a great challenge to me as an actor to be able to play against type and shake up people's perceptions of me." -- Tobey Maguire

One of the most common ways that writers move the plot forward in their books is to have a character do something that would generally be considered "out of character" for that character. What this usually means is they have an otherwise "smart" character do something stupid. The understood reasoning is that, hey, everyone does something stupid now and then, right? Those things never ring true to me. Do you know why? They're not.

Stupidity is not the same as personality. That is to say, even a stupid action has to fit within the character's personality. That's not always an easy thing to do, especially when we need a character to act in a way that the audience won't expect.

This is where the Enneagram can be very useful as a typing system for your characters.

* * *

And this is where you need to click the link to Indie Writers Monthly. Go find out about personalities, maybe even your own. Do you know what number you are?

A Little Bit of Flash

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a fan of flash fiction, at least, not in its current iteration. It's tricksy and false and, usually, leaves too much out. The reason for that is that it's being crafted to be short, and, generally speaking, authors are too busy trying to be clever when they write flash fiction.

And, too frequently, the author has a 3000 word story he's trying to cut down to 1000 words, and it just doesn't work. I suppose what I'm saying is that if authors would let the story dictate the word length, some of these flash pieces, although they would quit being flash, would be better stories.

I do not, however, have an issue with timed writing exercises. These will, due to their nature, lead to what amounts to flash fiction or, possibly, vignettes.

All of that to say that last week I gave one of my creative writing classes a timed writing assignment. We're dealing with setting in that class, at the moment, so their assignment was to take 30 minutes and describe a setting for me. Characters were optional but there was to be no action unless the action contributed to the description of the scene. "For instance," I said, "if you want to describe how a cliff face is crumbly and dangerous, you could do that by giving me a climber and talk about the rocks sliding under his (or her) feet or a handhold giving way or something." Basically, any action had to be about the setting.

It's amazing just how difficult that idea was for the kids. So difficult that one of the kids gave me a total action scene which involved a kidnapping. One of them gave me what amounted to a list of items in a location. One of them wrote up the example I gave, which, actually, was fine. My (younger) son is in that class, and he knew what I meant and wrote up a very vivid description, if short, of a tidal pool (which I'd share with you if I had it available at this moment (but he's at school and I don't know where it is (probably with him in all actuality), so, maybe, I'll share it some other time)). Rendering settings, I can see, will be something we'll be working on at greater length.

Since I had 30 minutes on my hands, I sat down and did the assignment along with them. It's fun, upon occasion, to sit down and see what you can whip out in a short time. And I don't mean how much you can do from a larger work when you only have, say, an hour to write. I mean just pumping out something completely new in a short space of time. So I'm going to share what I wrote. Under 25 minutes. No changes. You're getting it exactly as I wrote it in class. Don't be surprised, though, if this pops up somewhere in the future, because I already have an idea for where this is going, because, yes, what I ended up with was a piece of flash fiction done in the way the name implies: It was written in a flash.

My currently untitled piece:

Leaves rustled and blew down the hard-packed dirt of the trail in the fading Autumn light. Light that was even more dim due to the arching branches of the trees. There were no shadows; it was all shadow with a few scattered patches of light here and there down the path, speckles of light scattered from the hand of some passing giant. Or, maybe, God. Little pieces He didn't need for the unseen sunset.

Up ahead, the path curved to the left and all was dark, the scant light feeding the darkness. Another gust of wind pushed more of the leaves toward me down the path, the rustling and tumbling of the small forms giving them the illusion of spiders scurrying along the trail, brushing my legs as they went by.

Something blew at my face, a leaf caught on the wind, and, ducking, I brushed it aside with the back of my hand, snagging it on my sweater. Although I couldn't feel it, the wind must have been picking up. The limbs of the trees creaked with it and more and more leaves swirled at me down the path. One caught in my hair; I felt it, and I reached up to comb it out with my fingers...

But it wasn't a leaf. It was a spider. A spider as big as my hand. They were all spiders...

The Spirit Well

The Spirit Well is book three in Stephen Lawhead's Bright Empires series currently scheduled to have five books. I reviewed book one, The Skin Map, here and book two, The Bone House, here. The titles of these books are great, and, as I've said before, I  love a good title. Book four is called The Shadow Lamp. Hmm... shadows... I have this thing for shadows.

As I mentioned in the review for The Skin Map, I started out not really liking the main character, Kit, of this series. He was... well, wishy-washy, at best. He spent a lot of that book whining and complaining and, honestly, by the end of it, I was pretty sick of him. If it hadn't been by Lawhead, I may not have continued on.

But I'm glad that I did, because Kit really grew into himself as a character in the second book, which probably had a lot to do with the tragic ending of the first. In the second book, we see Kit take control of himself and strengthen his will and resolve. He becomes a character that takes action rather than just trailing along behind. Of course, he doesn't really know what he's doing, but he means to do it well.

The third book gives us a Kit that becomes strong in body and mind, too. In many ways, he has no choice in the matter considering he gets trapped in a stone age past (but, remember, this isn't time travel) with a clan of cave men. By the end of his time there, he doesn't want to leave. It's interesting character growth and I really enjoyed those sections of the book.

The book, on the whole, centers on character growth and story growth. The plot doesn't really advance, but we do see it filled out and some of the missing pieces from the first two books filled in. There's also a new character, which seems a little late to me for her to be coming in in book three, but we'll see how that plays out. She seems to be important and much of the book centered on her journey to get her up to the same point as the rest of the characters. She's not the only new character, but the rest are characters related to the Arthur story line, so they weren't like bringing in a whole new plot thread.

So, overall, the book kept me engrossed, and I really want to know where Lawhead is going with all of this. There are hints of a larger "quest," "quest" being used in the sense of (King) Arthur's Quest for the Holy Grail, and, in some ways, this is a parallel type story to that. There are definitely Grail Quest overtones, at any rate, not to mention the use of "Arthur" as one of the character names. And, then, there is that Lawhead has actually written one of the best Arthurian series I've ever read, so, I suppose, it would be difficult to escape those things. To say the least, I am looking forward to the fourth book (as soon as it's out in paperback).

One thing, though, these are not in any way individual books within a larger story line. You can't grab book three and expect to understand what's going on, nor can you read the first book and expect a satisfactory ending. There is just one story, here, being told across multiple books. So far, it's a good story.

The Religion of Writing: Part Five -- Gastromancy and Other Voices

I first talked about gastromancy back in April and how it was the beginning of ventriloquism. It was also the beginning of people using "the voice of god" as a way of manipulating people. "God has told me that you should all give me all of your sheep and do whatever I say!" Okay, well, that part probably went back before gastromancy, but gastromancy made it that much more believable since other people could hear the voice of god rumbling in the prophet's tummy.

The truth is that people throughout history have claimed to have heard "god" and used that as a means of making other people do what they say. "If you don't obey me, god will smite you! I know because god told me so!" And how do you deal with that? I mean, how do you know whether that person is hearing god or not, especially if you're not. And what do you do when different people are saying that god is saying things that conflict with each other? That's simple: more than one god.

That's one of the things I like about the Bible. Very often (more often than not), the people in the Bible demand proof that it is, actually, the voice of God they're hearing. Moses needed a burning bush, then the pharaoh, along with all of the Israelites, needed a bunch of plagues before they were convinced. And, even then, they didn't do such a great job of doing what they were told. Gideon had to play "wet my fleece" with the Lord before he'd do what he was told. And Jonah... well, he just disobeyed. But being puked up on the shore by a giant "fish" was pretty good evidence for the people of Nineveh that God was talking.

Things aren't so dramatic these days, though, and I have to doubt any time anyone ever tells me "well, God told me to do it." Why? Because 99% of the time, "God" just happens to be telling them to do the thing that they already want to do. Even if that thing is wrong. What amuses me most, though, is when, later, they quit doing that thing, or do the other thing that is opposed to the first thing, also because "God" told them so.

Personally, I don't ever want God to show up and actually talk to me. Seriously. Look in the Bible and give me one example where God shows up to tell anyone something good. You know, like the lottery numbers. No. God shows up and says things like, "Build a giant boat," or, "Surprise! You're gonna have a baby!" or, even worse, "Saul [before he was Paul], you've been bad. Stop it! Oh, and I'm gonna make you blind for a while just to prove my point." So, yeah, I've know people my whole life that have said things like, "I wish God would just tell me what to do" [because He's been busy telling other people what to do], but I think I'll pass on that. Usually, whatever it is they're looking for guidance about is already covered in the Bible, anyway, and they're just hoping God will show up and tell them something different.

All of that to say that all those people I have known in churches that are always going on about "hearing the voice of god" and what god is saying to them, or what he's telling them to do, or telling them to tell other people to do, remind me a lot of writers that go around talking about hearing the voices of their characters in their head. I just never know quite what to make of it.

I mean, I get it. I get the whole thinking about your story all of the time, but, me, I never hear my characters talking in my head. And it weirds me out more than a little to hear so many writers talk about that all the time. Am I supposed to be hearing voices in my head? I don't think so. That sounds like crazy talk to me. I mean, like, you need to get help, real help, crazy talk. Or do they just mean they're thinking about their stories all the time?

See, the thing is, not only do those people in church go around talking about how they "hear God," many of them actually believe it. And, yeah, you could say, "Maybe, they are just so much more spiritual than you, and they really are hearing God," and that may be true for some of them, but, with a lot of them, it's just like the whole speaking in tongues thing: they've made themselves believe that it's a really happening when it's not. What? How can I tell? Well, they spend their lives going from one mess to another doing what they "heard" God tell them to do. They wreck other people's lives, destroy friendships, and hurt people, and that just doesn't fit in with the whole "be excellent to each other" thing that Jesus said to do. But, then, maybe these people have some other god that they're not telling anyone about. Or, maybe, they just want to use the responsibility escape clause, "God told me to."

A lot of these writers that talk about hearing the voices of their characters are kind of the same way. I mean that in that they are always talking about the messes their books are in because they've been listening to their characters and they don't know how to fix the steaming pile their manuscripts have become. Well, short of trashing them and starting over. Which always makes me think, "Why are you listening to these voices? It's your story; make them do what you want." Which is not to say that I don't believe in character integrity, because I totally do, but, still, take some control! And, if you can't, if the voices in your head really are that powerful, maybe you really do need some help. Or, maybe, it's just another way of getting around not being able to produce a complete manuscript, "No, really, I am a good and competent writer; it's just that these characters in my head keep telling me to write stupid stuff." It's their fault, not mine.

So, yeah, I know this particular thing may be a sacred cow I don't really want to take a bite of. Everyone has (and should have) their own process, and if yours involves hearing voices in your head, well, I don't want to get in the way of that. But, then, I have known a few people who really did hear voices in their heads, and none of those situations turned out well, so it always leaves me wondering when writers talk about this phenomenon. I guess, if you do hear your characters talking, make sure they stay just characters for your stories. And, well, be the boss of them, too.

The Importance of Liking Your Own Work -- Part Two (an Indie Life post)

A couple or few weeks ago, someone said to me that one of the reasons that she likes my blog is that I know how to take criticism. That, of course, started me to thinking, and the first thing I thought of was the incident that I talked about in part one of this. The point of that is this: when you approach a topic (whatever that topic is, from an idea to a creation) from a stance of confidence, it allows you to take any incoming information (critique) and say one of two things:
1. Well, that's obviously not valid, so I can discard that.
2. Oh, that might be valid; let me look at it and see.
When you lack confidence, when you don't believe in yourself (whether it's an idea or a creation), you only have access to one of those options.

You can either discard everything (because you have to) and cling to whatever belief you have, even when you have nothing to back it up with other than dogma (as I was talking about here (which is not to say that that behavior is only about religion; it's not. It's just as common in politics or science or, even, dieting)). Or you accept everything that challenges you as valid and try to accommodate all of it, which can be rather tumultuous, like being battered by waves at sea.

For an artist, a creator, either of those can be crippling.

You get people, on one end, exploding all over the Internet about anything negative that's said about their work (of which I have firsthand experience) and people on the other end trying to incorporate every critique given to them, even when they conflict with each other. Neither person has any actual confidence in what they've created.

So what is it that allows someone to take criticism well?

When it's an idea or belief, confidence comes from knowledge. From having researched your position, looking at the different perspectives, and coming to the best conclusion you can from the facts at hand. When someone throws something at you that you've already researched, you can disregard it. If it's new data, you can go look at it and see if it changes your perspective. Either way, you're approaching the situation from an area of confidence (that you just wouldn't have if you've accepted your stance on someone else's say so).

When it's about something that you've created, at it's essence, it's the same issue. The key, though, is having created something that you like. If it's the way you want it, it's rather the same kind of thing as having done the research on an issue or a belief. So, if someone comes to you and says, "I don't like the way you had that fart joke in there," if it's something you like (and think is funny), then you can shrug and say, "That's too bad." Or, maybe, someone says, "Hey, what if this thing happened here instead of that other thing?" and, maybe, it's something you never considered, but, then, you can look at it and see if it changes what you've done with your story and see if it really is a good suggestion or not.

If you don't like all of your story or don't know what works or are too busy trying to write a story that other people will like instead of one that you like, you have no way of evaluating what people say to you about what you've written, because you have nothing to judge it against. If you can't say, "I like it," then, well, you have nothing.

Here are two examples:
In one book I was reviewing, I mentioned that it felt like there were two stories going on that didn't fit together well. One of the main characters had absolutely nothing to do in the entire book except that, at one point, he shows up some place and does one thing that has significance to the story. And it's completely accidental on his part as he doesn't go there purposefully to do that thing, he just appears there and his appearance causes the thing to happen. I mentioned that, if that was his only role in the whole book, then, maybe, those two stories should be separate.

The author let me know that originally, it had been two different stories but someone else told him he should combine them, and he'd listened. He'd listened because he had not been satisfied with either story, felt they were both missing something. So, instead of working to make them both into stories that he liked, he started taking suggestions on how to make them better. He wasn't satisfied with the end product, either, but, once he'd put it out there that way, he felt he had to defend it even though he acknowledged the issues, issues he himself had with the novel but couldn't reveal in public. So he had meltdown online over my review and proceeded to call me all sorts of names and, well, it was messy.

But it was because he didn't have a story he actually liked.

For myself, one of the things people mention about The House on the Corner is that it starts slow. I spend too much time on character development. But, as I was just talking about in my review of Doc, it's the character development that's important to me. The action of the story is only there to reveal the characters to us, so I want to know the characters. So, when someone tells me I "take too long" to get to the story, that I don't start with a lot of action, well, I'm okay with  that, because my story is doing what I want it to do. [I want it to be clear that the choices of Tom and Sam and Ruth happen because of whom they are as characters and not because of the arbitrary whims of meeting the needs of the plot.] I'm in a place of confidence, because I like my story. The negative criticism doesn't matter so much.

All of this brings me back to a point that I've made frequently over the course of my blog: as a writer, write the story you like. Don't worry about anything else. If you like it, there's very little chance that there won't be other people out there that like it, too. If, however, you try to write the story that other people like, you won't be able to do it. You'll write a story that some people like, maybe, but will have to deal with the other people that don't like it and, probably, won't like it yourself. And you may end up with something that no one likes. If you write the story that you like, well, at least, you like it. And that's what let's you look at a 1-star review and say, "You know what, that's okay, because I'm happy with what I've written." And, in the end, that's all that's really important.

This post has been brought to you by Indie Life.

Doc: A Review

I grew up on Westerns. My Saturdays, when there was no one available to play with, were full of them: The Lone Ranger (yes, I will go see the new movie, but I'm already thinking they should have called it Tonto), The Rifleman, The Big Valley, Rawhide, Bonanza. I also watched Gunsmoke, The Wild Wild West, and Alias Smith and Jones (which I loved enough to show my kids not too long ago), but those weren't in the Saturday lineup. None of that translated into reading Westerns, though; I don't really know why.

With that in mind, I was quite excited about Mary Doria Russell writing a Western.
And I wasn't disappointed.

As may be obvious from the title, Doc is about Doc Holliday. Well, obvious as long as you know the book is a Western. After all, what other figure is there from the American West who is called Doc? What you may also think is obvious is that the book deals with the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, perhaps even uses that as its climax, but you would be wrong.

So much of the "history" we know about Doc Holliday is centered around that one gunfight, a gunfight that lasted approximately 30 seconds, but it doesn't tell us anything about Doc. About why he was there. It doesn't tell us anything beyond the persistent legend that says that Doc Holliday was a gambler, gunman, and scoundrel. That he was just shy of a villain. Which was the belief for nearly a century after his death (helped in no small part by the sensationalized stories of Bat Masterson who believed in the story more than the truth).

Doc: A Novel does tell us why he was there without bothering to actually deal with the shootout itself. Heck, it's not even set in Tombstone. Doc tells the story of what was probably the only happy time Holliday had once he moved west to fight his tuberculosis. It deals with how he fell in with the Earps and, specifically, Wyatt, because you can't really tell a story about Doc that doesn't include Wyatt. The interesting thing about that is that it wasn't really Wyatt who was Doc's friend. Not that he wasn't, but it was Morgan Earp that Doc was close to. Once you know that, you can understand everything that happened in Tombstone and, more specifically, what happened after.

At its heart, Doc is a character piece. There is a plot, but it's very soft. The book isn't about the plot, so to speak; it's about the characters. Russell excels at characters, and, I have to say, this book is about as close as you'll get to feeling like you were right there with Wyatt and Doc and all the other Earps. I don't think you necessarily care about what's going to happen in a book like this; you just want to know what's going to happen to the characters. And there's a real difference in those two things.

We hear a lot, these days, about starting in the middle of the action and getting on to the story (the action) and keeping things fast-paced (action) and all of that, but, when I think back about my favorite books, I never remember the action; I remember the characters. It's the characters that captivate me. Sure, books that are full of action can be a lot of fun to read, but, if there's no connection with the characters, then those action (plot) oriented books are (for me) like candy. There's just no substance there, and they don't stay with me. Or, even, interest me much anymore.

If you want to walk the dusty streets of Dodge City with Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, listen in the conversations they're having, watch Doc do his dentistry during the only time in his life when he was really able to practice it; this is the book for you. If you just want to get to the gunfights and the shootouts, you should go watch Tombstone.

Note: This is probably the best written of Russell's books, which is a considerable accomplishment considering the books she's written, but I think The Sparrow is still my favorite. In fact, I'm sure it is. However, that may all change when the sequel (currently called Epitaph) to Doc comes out; that one will deal with O.K. Corral.