Suck it up, snowflake! And Alexandra Quick is too heroic

[inverarity]

So, is it the people who say I suck or the people who say I'm awesome who don't know what they're talking about?

I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to read this manuscript. It's been a long time since I was drawn into fiction the way I was with this chapter.

This is one of the most professional stories I’ve read on ________.

This is top notch stuff. I really had nothing to pick at. I can't tell for sure how the novel is going to work from just the opening chapter (plot-arc and such) but so far this looks like it's ready to go. You ought to be working on your query.

I'm so confuuuuuuuuuused!

Okay, indigo_mouse says I should stop obsessing. And half of you said I should finish the SF novel and half said I should start on AQ5. Only one dirty rotten bastard said I suck. Oh wait, that was me.

Well, for the record, I am working on the SF novel. And I'm not really obsessing over the bad critiques. Okay, maybe a little tiny bit. Just a bit. But I've found a few good critiquers, so onward!

Let's leave aside the SF novel for now, and get back to Alexandra Quick. I just got a long, long review from MadYak on fanfiction.net. The kind of long, long review I love that are full of praise and criticism. The last couple of people to go on at length about how much they enjoy the AQ series and all the things I am doing wrong were Miles2Go and tealterror0, and they both wound up as betas. So be careful when eviscerating my writing, I might ask you to read more of it!

Anyway, MadYak's comments went over ff.net's character limits, so he PMed me the rest. I'm going to reproduce some of it here. These are mostly the criticisms, so bear in mind he had a lot of positive things to say beforehand. But there were some specific points I wanted to discuss.

Perhaps more importantly, it's incredibly annoying that she continues to be just as reckless, all the way up and through the fourth book, despite the sometimes brutal consequences that should have taught her caution by now, in spades. You've rehashed enough how she thinks she's in control when she has the slightest grip on a situation and doesn't intend for things to happen differently, but it's starting to get old. Note that she, yet again, somehow comes out alive from two different encounters with John, despite him being a capable and amoral killer.

I have been hearing this a lot, often enough that I'd be taking it seriously even if I hadn't already been moving in that direction. Yes, recklessness is part of Alexandra's nature. ("Troublesome's reckless, ruthless and bold....") But there's a fine line between recklessness and stupidity. Alex will be smarter in book five. Which is not to say she'll stop being reckless. But she's starting to become aware of her limitations. She's had enough painful lessons that she knows being reckless can get people hurt. If not herself, then someone else.

This, however, brings up something of a contradiction. For every reader who grits her teeth when Alex once again pulls some dumb stunt and gets away with it, there's someone who wants to see her continue being indomitable and irrepressible and a little bit dangerous. If Alexandra became really smart and sensible and thought things through before doing them, she'd certainly get in less trouble and danger and she'd probably get more done. But she wouldn't be Alexandra. Also, she wouldn't have succeeded at so many of the things she has accomplished if she'd taken the time to think them through before doing them.

Now, part of MadYak's objection is not just that Alex is reckless, but that she's reckless and then gets away with it, seemingly with the benefit of too much luck. Well, if Alexandra seems to get away with being stupid by virtue of being lucky, that's definitely a failure on my part; writing your heroine out of a corner by fiat is bad writing. I'm not sure I really agree, though. After all, one of the things other readers have pointed out (a common element they like in my AQ stories) is the fact that Alex doesn't get away with everything, and in fact, fails quite often and is severely punished for it. AQATTC is really the last book where she didn't get a hammer dropped on her in the end. At the end of AQATLB, she loses Max. At the end of AQATDR, she sees another girl, a "friend," die, and her own life is forfeit in seven years. And at the end of AQATSA, she was expelled from Charmbridge — which some people said was unfair, but most said was inevitable if not long overdue. So she doesn't exactly get away cleanly.

But, let's talk about heroism.

Also on the menu concerning Alex is her moral attitude. One of the things that I admired most about her in the beginning was that she was surprisingly willing to bulldoze over others objections when she needed to accomplish something. However, it seems more and more that she's destined to become the classic self-sacrificing hero who will commit no moral wrong and find a clever solution where no one but herself is harmed, which I absolutely loathe. I'd absolute prefer a determined protagonist who's willing to make some hard moral choices for something she believes in. I actually wanted to hit my screen in disgust in book 3 when Alex chose to sacrifice herself instead of happily chucking Darla's guilty ass to the Generous Ones. From an adult perspective, Darla is a little girl who makes bad choices in a bad situation while trying to save her sister, and her youth makes us want to spare her. From Alex's perspective though, this is a *peer* who has repeatedly attempted to kill Alex or someone Alex cares about for Darla's own gains. Just because it was all to save Mary does not excuse that. But instead of showing the slightest bit of self-preservation, she decides to be a moral paragon (at 14) because the girl who was trying to kill Alex and her friend doesn't deserve to die. The squeaky clean goodness continues in the fourth book when she steps outside the wards to save Larry Albo, of all people, endangering her own life due to his stupidity and desire to poke his nose where it didn't belong to harass Alex. On the other hand, I thought Alex was right to stand up to Mary and give Mary the chance to curse her, because Alex's reasoning was pretty sound. I don't really mind Alex having some morals - just please give her back some fangs and stop having her be the hero and sacrificial goat for others' problems.

The morality vs practicality issue is probably my biggest problem with the series so far. Abraham and Diana are both good examples of the practical side, both of whom I respect (although I do wonder at the justification behind Abraham's methods, but I'm betting that'll pop up in the future). Alex and her friends are understandably hesitant about causing anyone serious pain due to them being children, but they're leaving the age (mentally) where it fits, in my opinion, since Alex and her friends have been exposed to more than the other students. Alexandra especially has seen the darker side of life and should be realizing that she's not going to accomplish anything big without stepping on some people on the way, sooner or later. Thankfully, you're having her become more capable magically, but she needs some ruthlessness to back that up. To be fair, I'm pretty certain you'll have a lot more reviewers that want to see Alex be that perfect hero than what I'm proposing, but I really just can't stand archtypal hero protagonists.

Okay, so this is probably going to boil down entirely to a matter of taste. While I disagree with you that Alex is a "moral paragon" or "squeaky clean," you are right that she has a heroic nature, with a strong element of self-sacrifice. Underneath the self-centeredness and the recklessness and the arrogance and the occasional fantasies about "Dark Queen Alexandra" in book one, Alex is (right now) basically a good person who loves her friends fiercely, even if she doesn't always treat them well.

This kind of ties back to my SF novel because there are people who will tell you things that are exactly the opposite of each other — and neither of them are necessarily wrong! I gather that MadYak would like to see Alex be more of an anti-hero, or a dark heroine.

I promise, at a later time you will get a hint of what Alex is really capable of if she takes off the gloves and says "The hell with having morals." I definitely would like to show her having fangs. But I won't tell you that you have seen the last of the self-sacrificing hero, because she is self-sacrificing and heroic, as much as she is reckless, ruthless, and bold.

So, about Darla. It certainly would have been ruthless of Alexandra if she had just thrown Darla to the Generous Ones and said, "Take the bitch." And you're right, from a fourteen-year-old's perspective, that might have seemed entirely justifiable. But — while that might have pleased the readers who want to see more of a grimdark heroine, I don't think most people would have liked Alex if she'd done that. I wouldn't have liked her.

I place a heavy weight on moral choices and consequences. I got some flack from rheymus for saying that killing is serious business and that most people balk at it — even killing someone who deserves to die. This is, it seems, a philosophical difference of opinion. If Alex kills, it will be a big deal. If she becomes someone who can just (lethally) drop bad guys without hesitation, she will be an entirely different person.

I think Alexandra is a long way from doing no moral wrong, but the big wrongs, like murdering people, or letting them die because she doesn't like them? If you loathe heroes who consistently look for clever solutions when presented with a choice of evils, you probably aren't going to find Alexandra's future development any more satisfying.

Like I said, though, different people ding me for different things. MadYak admires Abraham Thorn for his practicality; rheymus is always on me about how he's a terrorist more evil than the Confederation, no matter what the Confederation is up to.

I like the debate, and the different viewpoints, and of course I wish everyone liked Alexandra just the way I write her, but evidently different readers want different things and I'm not going to satisfy all of them.

(Which is why I am obsessingpreoccupied with critiques of my SF novel...)

Also, I believe you have a problem with word bloat/filler. While your stories flow very well from scene to scene, it only flows that well because you almost never jump from important scene to important scene, and you tend to add in a lot of extraenous information that isn't always needed, like mentioning a few classes Alex is taking between scenes or something similar. I've already started skimming these bits as a result. I'll admit that it does do a good job of making for a casual pace of school life and it does disguise the important bits and pieces when its something minor that becomes important later. However, it also is sometimes a chore to read. Not sure if you should change it or not, but that's my thoughts on it.

Yeah, guilty as charged. And flow and pacing is a lot more critical when I'm writing something that isn't fan fiction.

Thanks for your comments, MadYak!

[Poll #1864938]


(I assume it goes without saying that poll results will in no way affect what I'm actually going to write...)

Comments

[tealterror0.livejournal.com]

So since this was at least half-addressed to me, I guess I can respond...

Again, as you note, this goal-oriented attitude is something that develops over time, often after moral concerns cause you to fail badly.

I'm going to have to disagree. I think having goals and trying to accomplish them develops first, and empathy develops later.

Children are relatively innocent

Again, since most children haven't developed empathy yet, most children are actually kind of sociopaths.

I would also like to point out that I think everyone should be moral instead of amoral. Partly by definition, partly because I actually think it'll be better for them in the long run, however much an amoral decision might help them in the short-term.

And your last paragraph is just cribbing from my theory. :p

Innocence of children

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Yeah, children are only "innocent" in the most literal sense: they are innocent of morals or ethics or the knowledge that other people are real. They have to learn those things.

[kith-koby.livejournal.com]

I think having goals and trying to accomplish them develops first, and empathy develops later.
Wow. Isn't it amazing that even when we're trying to get to the same point, we disagree? ;) But I don't think so. I believe we're created with Empathy. And man is a social creature. A child has very few goals in life, and is inclined towards empathy. Empathy is developed, yes, but the basic roots of it are in us when we're born. Otherwise, toddlers wouldn't share or do other empathic acts.
Then again, I'm no psychologist... In any case, by the age of 10, I think children have developed more empathy than goals, and don't have enough experience in how morality may prevent them from attaining these goals to be near amorality. I don't think amorality truly becomes part of our important choices until we're in our middle teens, or even later. There are just not enough choices that have it truly clashing.


I would also like to point out that I think everyone should be moral instead of amoral
Yes, but this goes into our previous discussion and is more general rather than specifically relating to the story, so I thought this wasn't the place to go into it.

But, since I mentioned going off topic, and we've made a habit of it anyway.. thoughts on the US Open? In Men, I was not surprised by Federer's loss - he has a weakness against Berdych, and it was clear from the start, especially when he didn't manage to slice his serve as he usually does. My money's on Djokovic, obviously. Meanwhile, the Women's was excellent - I got to see Maria defeating Bartoli in an excellent game, and it was just as good with Azarenka. It really could have gone either way, but Sharapova's serve and return are still somewhat erratic, which is problematic (this could also be seen against Bartoli). Doesn't really matter, in any case - Maria had her chance to be crushed by Serena in the Olympics, now it's Vika's turn.

[tealterror0.livejournal.com]

Wow. Isn't it amazing that even when we're trying to get to the same point, we disagree? ;)

*insert joke about Jews and arguing here*

Anyway. We're certainly created (or born) with the capacity to develop empathy. But I think psychological research has consistently shown that empathy itself is learned over many years. It's a gradual process; an 8-year-old may have some ability to recognize others as having emotions and to feel bad when they do, but her empathic abilities will not be nearly as developed as a 12-year-old's (who in turn will be worse off than a 16-year-old, etc).

Toddlers usually do empathic acts because they've been taught to, and/or to gain a reward, IMO.

Yes, but this goes into our previous discussion and is more general rather than specifically relating to the story, so I thought this wasn't the place to go into it.

Like that's ever stopped us before. :p

[T]houghts on the US Open?

Rafa's loss is really felt, isn't it? Even if we get a Djokovic/Murray final (and if Djokovic keeps playing like crap there's a distinct possibility Ferrer will win), it isn't going to be nearly as exciting as Djokovic/Nadal was last year. Well, almost everything is breaking Murray's way now; honestly, if he can't win now, I'm going back to doubting he'll ever win a Major. He can't count on facing none of the Big 3 to win one. And Fed lost to Berdych in a Major QF once before, so yeah that wasn't super surprising.

(Just imagine if Ferrer manages to win the whole thing? It's not going to happen obviously, but man would that make the whole tournament worthwhile.)

Azarenka has been engaged in some real good matches, hasn't she? Same with Sharapova. Serena has been just crushing her competition of course, and while I expect Vika'll give her a challenge Serena will only lose if she plays at less than 100%. Which is always a risk for her, but I think she really wants this one, almost as much as she wanted the Olympics.

[madyak2.livejournal.com]

Children are sociopaths at an early age, yes. But social conditioning has a pretty massive effect by the time they reach their teens. So if said children live in a society where morality and selflessness are emphasized, then it'll be imprinted on them by their teenage years. Thus, ruthlessness and pursuing self-interest over morality are traits that have to be relearned. In effect, you're both right about children being innocent and sociopathic, depending on which stage of development they're in. First they're sociopathic, then more innocent as they conform to their soceity/parents beliefs on morals, and then (possibly) relearning that ruthlessness and self-interest later. Or at least that's how I view it in this case.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's accurate to say that empathy is purely an artifact of social conditioning. Most people will learn it, even in an environment that doesn't encourage it, because it's natural (I would argue, hardwired) to develop some capacity for empathy. Sociopathy isn't just a different set of morals, it's a mental disability.

[madyak2.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I might would agree that it's natural in the sense that children end up learning it anyway because their interactions with others force them to. If a child wrongs someone else, that someone else is going to snap back somehow, which will cause the child to try to understand why.

But I can't really agree that it's hardwired into our brains. How do you explain spoilt children then? I think it's widely accepted that if you protect a child from the consequences of their actions too fanatically, you end up with a vicious and completely self-centered brat.

As for sociopathy broadly being a mental disability, I couldn't disagree more. I wrote quite a long paragraph on this before I realized it was going to branch us way off-topic. Suffice to say, I consider complete amorality to be perfectly viable in a person. I wouldn't live that way myself, but I can see the benefits and the downsides. I consider it more viable than perfect morality as well. The negative attitude towards sociopaths, psycopaths, or whatever you want to call an amoral person is just a reaction by society towards a state of mind that is a threat to them. It's bad for us as a group, therefore we don't like it.

Sociopaths

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Off-topic? Hah - did you see tealterror0 and kith_koby talking about freakin' tennis?

There's a big difference between a child who's a self-centered brat and one who is completely lacking in empathy. Empathy is not an elaborate set of Pavlovian conditioning. It's not, "If I'm mean to people, they'll be mean to me, and if I'm nice, they'll be nice to me, so I'll figure out how to get people to be nice to me the same way a rat figures out how to make a food pellet drop into its tray..." Self-centered brats can grow up and get better. People who are truly lacking in empathy, for the most part, cannot.

I'm not sure you actually understand what sociopathy is. If you reduce humans to survival machines, then yes, being utterly amoral is arguably viable and advantageous, since enjoying human relationships and appreciating the value of other members of your species would be completely irrelevant to your existence. But you're basically arguing that being a viable and effective human doesn't require humanity.

In a real sense, sociopaths are rather alien. We don't just dislike sociopathy because it's bad for us as a group (though it obviously is) but because it's a disability in the same way that being incapable of love or lacking a sense of taste and smell is a disability. And yes, not just because it would be a bummer not to love anyone, but because amorality really doesn't work out well for most people. Because we are a social species. Sociopaths are generally not at all successful in their professional and social lives. For every "genius sociopath" who's a ruthless CEO or powerful politician who got where he is by being willing to do anything to get there, there are many more who are bitter unemployable losers quietly sitting in their homes, angry at the world. Or they just die young, since sociopaths are often likely to do stupid things before they learn enough control and cunning to avoid consequences.

Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door (http://inverarity.livejournal.com/93942.html) is an interesting read, though it's kind of light, being pop science.

Re: Sociopaths

[madyak2.livejournal.com]

I wasn't talking about the consequences causing the child to pursue behavior to modify others. I was talking about the consequences causing the child to pursue understanding of why it happened. I'll remind you of our PMs on FFN were I pointed out the immorality of moving my comments to a more public sphere without permission and you conceded the point. My reaction made you re-examine your own actions and conclude they were wrong from my perspective. That is how a child learns empathy.

I'm not sure you actually understand what sociopathy is.

Sociopathy is a popular and misused term. I'm certain there's an accepted definition of it in the psycology field. I'm equally certain that the mass public has no idea what that definition is and many would disagree that that's what it means. I consider a sociopath to commonly mean a person with consistent intentions that pursue complete self-interest with an amoral lack of concern for any others. I think even with the small group of people we have posting here, we could have a debate about what the term sociopath means with several different viewpoints.

but because it's a disability in the same way that being incapable of love

You're assuming a sociopath is incapable of understanding empathy. Being judged amoral doesn't mean you don't understand what the moral thing to do is or that you don't feel empathy. Merely that you push it aside, much like you would push aside anger when you feel it's not appropriate or is irrational. Which brings me to my next point.

because amorality really doesn't work out well for most people. Because we are a social species. Sociopaths are generally not at all successful in their professional and social lives.

I really don't think anyone's qualified to make that judgement. First of all, the most successful sociopaths we probably don't even know about. Only the sociopaths who are stupid, made mistakes, or deliberately exposed themselves for fame are the ones we know about. Take H. H. Holmes for example. The man was a genius who neatly avoided incriminating himself for dozens or even hundreds of murders and managed to make himself rather rich in the process. He wasn't caught or even pursued until he left one loose end and got arrested for horse theft, of all things.

Quoting from wikipedia: Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety or depression.

Wikipedia does list a source, which I don't have access to. Even if it is just an author making up something to make it more chilling, it still underlines my point. We can't really know for certain whether Holmes was happy with his life. But it sure as hell doesn't look like he regretted it. Same thing for Ted Bundy, who was caught because he got arrested for a stolen car. Intelligent sociopaths are perfectly capable of blending in with society, having functioning marriages, and raising children. Perhaps it was just a cover. Perhaps they did actually care for them (in some cases). Either way, the broad statement that sociopaths are usually failures and are unhappy is not something you can really prove with any reliability unless you have a way to actually get inside a massive amount of peoples thoughts and feelings. Given that many of them don't stop their amoral actions for decades and only do so once they have no other choice actually implies they're quite happy with themselves.

P.S. Damnit, I keep wanting to leave this discussion and getting sucked right back in.

Re: Sociopaths

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

My reaction made you re-examine your own actions and conclude they were wrong from my perspective. That is how a child learns empathy.

No, I already knew empathy and already agreed with the principle involved. I apologized because I simply acted precipitously without really thinking it through - the equivalent of grabbing something because you're in a hurry, then realizing that you snatched it out from in front of another person, and apologizing. It's not that you didn't know before you did it that grabbing things isn't nice, just that sometimes people act hastily when not fully engaged.

I consider a sociopath to commonly mean a person with consistent intentions that pursue complete self-interest with an amoral lack of concern for any others.

That's reasonably close - the key to the psychological definition is that sociopaths literally possess no capacity for empathy. They couldn't act out of anything other than self-interest even if they wanted to (which, since they possess no capacity for empathy, they wouldn't want to since they perceive those who do have empathy rather the way you do, as chumps who willingly suborn their own self-interest for the greater good).

You're assuming a sociopath is incapable of understanding empathy. Being judged amoral doesn't mean you don't understand what the moral thing to do is or that you don't feel empathy. Merely that you push it aside, much like you would push aside anger when you feel it's not appropriate or is irrational.

This is, I think, the key thing that you're missing. Someone who feels empathy, even if they push it aside when they feel like it, is by definition not a sociopath.

A sociopath might understand what empathy is, intellectually, but in the same way that a person blind from birth might understand what colors are. You can explain it to them, they can figure out how the concept fits into the world, but they will never really experience it. And in the sociopath's case, that means they are pretty much incapable of seeing how empathy is anything other than a voluntary handicap that stupid people put on themselves.

I really don't think anyone's qualified to make that judgement. First of all, the most successful sociopaths we probably don't even know about. Only the sociopaths who are stupid, made mistakes, or deliberately exposed themselves for fame are the ones we know about.

Not entirely true. You're right that we don't have comprehensive census data on all sociopaths, because most sociopaths do not become serial killers, and since obviously it's not actually illegal to be a sociopath, and a sociopath is very unlikely to consider himself in need of "help," we can only infer a lot of sociopathic cases. Nonetheless, psychologists have done a lot of studies and dealt with quite a few sociopaths, even if second or third hand (such as by dealing with their victims), enough to know that there are plenty of sociopaths out there who are not powerful, wealthy, or successful.

You seem to assume that sociopaths tend to be more successful and more pleased with themselves than the average person, because they are unfettered by moral restraints that hold other people back. The problem is, as I said, non-sociopaths are not stupid and can usually perceive when someone is seriously wrong in the head (even if they can't diagnose him as a sociopath), and this tends to lead to problems in interactions with people and society.

Sociopaths also don't necessarily possess any more drive or ambition or talent than anyone else. A sociopath might want to be rich and powerful, but is no more likely to succeed at it than anyone else. So it's not just "clever" sociopaths who remain undetected because they're so smart. It's also the ones who just never really get anywhere, and their sociopathy remains unknown to anyone except those who've had the misfortune of dealing with them and may only know that that person is very unpleasant and bad to be associated with.