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Busy day! I'm going to have to reply in stages.

 

Jun 20, 2012 -- 1:39PM, dadocollin wrote:

 
The one thing that still nags me about Brin is that he let Havilar be dragged away.  The whole time before Mehen saved her I'm thinking, "I know Havilar isn't going to die, but there's a real chance that she could have been sacrificed before Mehen got to her."  Brin doesn't back down from an erinyes, but he's afraid to take on Yvon, even knowing his one trick is the paralization pendant.  I'm probably making a big deal out of nothing, but to me that just seemed cowardly.  If I'm Havilar, that's going to be something that's going to bother me down the road, especially if she's going to still consider him a potential romantic interest.

That makes sense. But I'm tempted to play devil's advocate here, so ignore me if you want to avoid even a hint of a possible spoiler....



Would you say the same if Brin were the girl and Havilar the boy?

I find when you get down to it, a lot of Brin's arc and interactions mirror and reference the "runaway princess" trope. And Havilar is certainly girlish, but when you break down her traits and tendencies, she looks a lot more like you’d expect a male character in this kind of story to be—brash, cocky, physically skilled, not great with words.  So say Brin were the runaway princess, and Havilar the cocky fighter who’s sweet on her? Would you fault “her” for going to get help?

I'm not going to deny Brin's kind of a coward--that's a big part of his character arc in this series. Or that these shifted gender roles won’t cause trouble for them later. But I have to cut him a little slack: Havilar's a screaming badass whose lead he's followed in every fight that far. She gives him the "OMG don't come over here" look, and so he listens to her. I don't think he feels good about it, but I also think he's smart enough to know he is not going to do better at this than Havilar. Better to find another solution. 

Plus at this point, I think Havilar's looking for a boyfriend who will do two things: tell her how awesome she is and pay loads of attention to her. I don't know that she'd appreciate being shown up by being saved, as if she couldn't do it herself. Even if she couldn't do it herself. 
     

Where is Tennora? And Lorcan would look great in a pair of hydra-skin boots...

BRimstone Angels is set ahead of The God Catcher. At this point, Tennora is still trying to be a wizard and Ferremo is still in possession of his fantastic boots.


But--fun fact--originally the bounty they were after was going to be Nestrix! They would not have caught her obviously.  

Jun 20, 2012 -- 2:40PM, davidgiven wrote:

> 3. This book has a bit of a nontraditional protagonist in a couple of ways.

> I've definitely heard concerns
From Whom? A man needs a name...

> that a non-human character is too much for  readers to get behind,
> and a teenaged girl is off-putting to male readers.
Really?

I  find this suprising on both points...

I would think that this is mostly coming from people who do not read a lot--White Male reliable narrators have been unheard of as far as I can tell since 1930...None of the characters felt 'non-human' to me--I could relate to their emotions, etc. We were not dealing with Miéville's Ariekei.

The teenage [or should that be teenaged] female narrator is a staple in literature--anyone that claimed to be put off by that needs to go re-read Anne Frank, right?

> What do you think of this truism?
I find it baffling & likely false--ideally, I can mock this position until someone here expresses it...At least then we will know if it is true!

Heh. Well it's something I heard off and on while working at Wizards, and I know it's something publishing in general regards as true. Namely, girls and women will read books about boys or men, but boys and men won't read books about girls or women. You see this a lot when people tart talking about boys not reading and the paucity of male YA characters. Certainly that's not true of every individual and certainly not true of every D&D books, but there was definitely a vibe of "boys are our audience" and the implication that making the books too "girly" was a peril to be avoided. 

Now, I think it's hard to make a Realms book truly "girly"--it's fantasy adventure and so whatever visions of princesses and party dresses and magical sparkle ponies that word conjures just won't happen without a lot of drow-killing and treasure-hunting to mellow it out. But I'm also aware that there aren't a tonof D&D books written about teenaged girls who have teenaged girl problems. Or books where you're watching a woman lust after a man. Not that there aren't any, but they're definitely not the prototype, you know? So I wondered if that is just because they weren't being written as often, or if it was because they really weren't meant for this sort of audience.

Similar to non-human characters. I think in general, they're harder to write convincingly, and the more ingrained the race is in the genre, the harder it is. This is why you see so few dwarf-centered books. The truism is that people relate to humans, half-elves, and elves. And one drow. But is that because it's hard to write a non-human character who feels both non-human and relatable or is that because people don't want to read about weird races?

Sounds like your answer is, "Hells, no."  

I should add, I've always agreed with dado's point--why would you not want to read what the opposite sex is thinking? Especially when you're at that age where you're not going to just ask. :p 

Jun 21, 2012 -- 2:27PM, davidgiven wrote:

Proof again that these people are from the 1930's...the same people think eBook's will end reading...or maybe they have access to sales figures or something I do not see...is there a Fantasy Best Seller's list or something that WotC uses--does Publishers Weekly have sales figures by Genre?

There are best-seller lists that do list estimates I believe, but there aren't any to my knowledge that break it down to sub-genres--which it would have to to see the difference between sword & sorcery and paranormal romance, for instance. And as a rule, publishers don't spread that information around. They're a cagey lot.

And I do understand what you are saying in general, my concern is that at this point the perception that this attitude exists is doing more harm then the attitude itself--the fear that it may be true limits creative expression.

I think your book was the most active discussion we have ever seen on this forum. Circle of Skulls had a female narrator, was perhaps even less traditional Fantasy Literature, and it also received over whelming support. I do not think I have seen any concerns that Female [or non-human] characters deminish people's enjoyment of WotC Novels & I have seen a lot of support...

I wonder if Dado can get us someone from Publishing to show us numbers to see if there is evidence of this claim I am not seeing...or maybe Nina can use her weekly blog post to provide more details on what you expereinced while writing your book...

Okay, now I feel like I have to clear some things up!
1.  I have never heard Nina say this in general, and she has never said it to me as an editor. I know you weren't implying that, but I want to draw a big red line under it.
2. This is not a "policy" of some sort. This is people's opinions (or worries) at times. As you said, you can look at the recent novels in particular and see non-human and female protagonists. 
3. No one ever said to me, "No! Don't write that!" In fact this was always supposed to be a "tiefling book." Before Neverwinter was ever a factor, this was supposed to be book four of a series called The Planetouched (the others being Unbroken Chain, Sandstorm, and Dawnbringer). Was there discussion about whether this series ought to happen with all those weird races as main characters? Oh, probably. But it did (and then it broke into four potential series, two of which picked up)
4. While I think it's had its effect on WotC's novels, I think it's had an effect on all novels. When you buy a novel, you have to be able to label the demographic you think will buy it. It gets a bit segregated, and that can make people get a little crazy. 
    
And I'll add one more for good measure: James Wyatt has told me specifically that they (and he) really appreciate my strong female characters as additions to the world. And the fact I wrote tieflings so well (I may have pulled that one out of him. )
  
I think what I'm asking is a little more...subtle. This is the truism. I think it's a lazy assumption, and if it's true, I think it's pretty unfortunate that all those people are missing some great stories. Now, that said, I have seen individual reactions to Brimstone Angels that pretty strongly imply one or both of those factors either prevented the reader from enjoying the book in some way, or made them decide not to purchase the book outright. Often there is some crack about romance novels in there, to which I would say, "I wish. Do you know how many copies those sell?!"

On a milder note, I've had a lot of male readers tell me they liked the book! And specifically they loved Tam. Or Brin. Or Mehen. It's only here that I get guys saying they love Havilar. That doesn't mean more guys don't love Havilar or Farideh, but my sample skews heavily towards the fellas (Except Lorcan). Does that mean that it's harder for male readers to relate to the twins? I hope not, or at least I hope not too much. Does it mean that tieflings are too weird? I hope not too much as well. Does it mean I just write awesome secondary characters? Possibly.  I'm happy they like Tam or Brin or Mehen. I'm just curious about it.

Most of you all are guys (I think LupaCupcake is the only woman this round, but if I'm wrong please pardon the presumption), and I feel like most all of you enjoyed the book. So given this prevailing bull...I mean wisdom, I'm wondering if it truly is the case that you had a harder time getting into the protagonist's head initially because she's a seventeen-year-old girl who sometimes makes you read about checking out an uncomfortably attractive man. Or if it never crossed your mind. Or something in-between.

I'm still going to write what I write, regardless of the results. Much as I appreciate my readers, I don't think you'd like a book I wrote just to answer other people's wishes. I know I wouldn't like it. And I can say for a fact I know that no one at WotC is going to make me write something to appease those readers who didn't buy my book--they like what I write and they trust me to do it, and I wouldn't write for them if it weren't so. So I do hope the answer is "I had no problems, and I loved reading about someone different than me," because even if there's some parallels to Twilight, I'm not rewriting it all from Lorcan's perspective.

But if someone should ever decide to tell me I need to return to the "dude with a sword" trope, I will be pleased to point them to your response. *wicked grin*

So here's a more FUN question: Who was your favorite character? (Truth! If it's Tam, say so!)

A few things:

Erin - I don't think I would have seen the Brin/Havi situation different if roles were reversed.  I think you meant for him to be cowardly overall, but to me, he doesn't turn tail and run from erinyes or Rohini, and so that's no coward.  I just felt an inconsistency there, and again, I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.

David - I'd be tempted to try and get you these stats, but I know from past experience that Wizards is not willing to talk about or release sales statistics.  I think one of the major issues with what we're discussing is that Wizards can't decide who they're writing for - 13-year-old boys or 34-year-old men.  In the end, instead of creating two separate lines, they try and cater to both audiences, which is never going to work out quite right.  I think Wotc has attempted to venture into Young Adult a few times and not been so successful, so I'd expect they're going to keep trying to publish a single line of books for a range of audiences.  At this point, I feel that they're writing to the older audience (who I'd wager is reading the majority of their novels), and just pulling a few punches here and there to make the books more appropriate for younger readers.  Basically, PG-13.

Age aside, I think Wotc is guarding gender statistics even more, especially in light of the "should D&D art be sexy" debate that the current D&D art director so bravely started on the website a month or so ago.  I'd really be curious if female readers make up a big enough demographic (for both novels and game materials) to even be a consideration in marketing/new product.  I'm sure that "boys are our audience" is the (whispered) mantra throughout the building.  It's clear that Wotc would love to bring in more female readers/gamers, but my guess is that every attempt to do this so far has resulted in less-than-stellar results.  What's more interesting to me is the shift to many female authors in the past few years (on the novels side, not on the games side - gods forbid) and, in my humble opinion, the girls are holding their own with the boys in the fiction game.

Who is my favorite charcter?  It's a toss up between Farideh and Havilar.  At the end of the day, I love the dynamic between the two of them.  I think the sisters interplay throughout the book makes the novel for me.  It's the one thing that really stands out from a characterization standpoint and makes this book different from others we've read.  Honestly, Brin, Mehen, and Tam wouldn't even come close in my mind.  Lorcan would certainly be above them on my list.  Brin is an interesting plot device, but I'm not sure I ever get a complete feeling for him.  And Mehen and Tam are so secondary that they are almost just filling roles in the story in my mind.  They both have interesting backstories, but I don't know that they develop much over the course of this particular book.  Actually, if I think about which male characters I'd like to read more about, I think Yvon and his crew (some of which were female).  They might make for an interesting short story that took place before/during this timeframe. 

So if I was forced to pick between sisters, I'm going to go with Havilar because she seems like she's not getting enough love (both in and out of story!). I like her struggle to be as important as her sister.  She's kind of standing around saying, "Farideh is smart and controlled, has super powers, and a dark, handsome patriarch, and all I get is this polearm."  She's reckless, but she's brave also, and she's the one who puts down Rohini at the end.  I think she's much more dangerous than Farideh as well.  I wonder how she's going to develop in the next book, especially if she's tempted by power in the same way that Farideh has been.

Hi, Everyone! Thanks so much for such a great discussion of this book. BRIMSTONE ANGELS has been one of my favorite books to edit at WoTC, and it's been so fun to read everyone's reactions.

I just wanted to weigh in about the topic of female characters and non-human characters. It's definitely something we discuss in the halls of WoTC--in the same way we discuss "what makes a good villain" or "what makes a great book cover." But like Erin said, there're no prescriptions being delivered to authors on the subject. We want stories about interesting three-dimensional characters that the authors are invested in writing about--and if that's a female, non-human, fine. It sounds like THAT is the truism that has resonated with all of you, which is so great to hear.   
  
Ultimately, the thing that dictates all of this is not market research or fan reaction on forums, but cold, hard sales. If you like books with female and/or non-human characters, buy them, get your friends to buy them, review them everywhere you can.  Not that sales directly dictate content, but we do look at books that don't sell well and wonder, was it that we didn't do a good enough job letting people know about the book, was it the setting/character, etc. It's harder to sign up an author for another book without a solid sales history, and the reality of book publishing is that the previous books' sales dictates the support it will receive from a bookseller via the number of copies they are willing to stock. 
 
Someone else made the point that we are talking about adult readers, not kids. We definitely aim to reach an adult audience with these books.

I will end with two things. I like all the characters, but I think Farideh is my fave. I really like Tam too! And, since I am the only person in the room besides Erin who has read Erin's sequel BRIMSTONE ANGELS: LESSER EVILS (nah nah), I will say, he is even more awesome in the next book. And you guys are going to looooove it!