Because I Like Stream-of-Consciousness

This post has been inspired by Amy Tucker whose blog (Taste Like Crazy) may be even more demented than mine. I say may! Bugsy Queen of Demented-ness.

So, Stream-of-Consciousness*. I mentioned this months ago in my guest blog post for WattPad on Urban Fantasy Protagonists, that The Demon Girl is written in this way. I had to tame it down (a lot) since it was a YA read, and I didn’t want to baffle the young people too much. But I still get readers feeling confused when they leave their review, unable to put their finger on why it was different. Most seem pleasantly windswept and okay about it, but some get all snarly and use it as a negative. One blog review even mentioned a suspicion that I wrote the book in an opium induced haze. I took that as the highest of compliments since most of the greats were out of their ever-loving-minds and on one form of narcotic or other. I made it to That Place naturally. *haughty face*

Anyway, why, oh why, is there not more of this? S-o-C is awesome to write and read. Simply awesome. The last book I stumbled on was I, Witch by Erin Munday, who I wish I could find elsewhere online because I think she would be fascinating to virtually meet. I highly praise and recommend the book.

Yes, S-o-C can come across peculiar and odd because you’re plunging people into someone’s raw, twisted, convoluted psyche with no filters to remove the fractured and fleeting jumps we experience in everyday thought patterns, which bring us to a conclusion (most writers just write the concluding thought). But that’s what makes it so extraordinary. Get on your hands and knees, get dirty, and get in there. Suck your readers in, bash ‘em about, and make them use their own imaginations. Write the journey to the conclusion and leave them hanging. If they’re truly reading your words they will get there. Get those synapses firing. Don’t spoon feed detail and hand hold through every plot twist ... unless you’re the reincarnation of Tolkien or Jordan, of course.

Fantasy, especially YA fantasy, has become formulaic. Oh yes, people moan and blame it on love triangles, clumsy-but-lovable Mary Sue’s, and really, how many times can you read about a vampire sucking someone off before it just gets old? But maybe the reason why we’re all so bored is because the writers have lost their voice. Their individuality. We’re all too busy trying to emulate the next ‘hottest’ monster. Find your voice and stick to it, scream it, and don’t back down. When I read your funky, bubbly blog why do I then have to suffer through 200 pages of you trying to be S. Meyer or L. Kate? Where is ... You? Think about it. 

* Stream-of-Consciousness fast leaps in syntax that follows actual human thought.