Question

Does anyone else find Joyce Maynard as annoying as I do? She and I are the same age, and I remember being annoyed by her when she spoke for our generation (in the Times Magazine no less) when we were both eighteen. I remain unimpressed. Is it just that I'm a big mean babyhead?

Killing a Character

YG and I are reading klages's new book, The Green Glass Sea. This morning (YG is home sick) we reached a pivotal point where a character died. It's several chapters of the news and the various other characters' reaction, all beautifully and simply drawn. YG cried all through the chapters, then wanted to call Ellen and talk to her about the death. It's a mark of something when someone gets that invested in a character, I guess.

Some years ago I got an email from someone telling me that he would never forgive me for having killed off a character in The Stone War. He thought I'd done a good job of it, but he was really, really mad that I'd killed her off. What could I say? The needs of the story outweighed her non-real rights? That I'm a mean, mean woman? That I'm delighted that he felt that close to the character? So (if memory serves) I didn't say anything at all. Years ago, someone told me that you couldn't be any kinder--or any crueler--to your characters than God would. Maybe, the day I wrote that scene, God was on a tear. I stand by it, though. In the words of Oscar the Grouch, it had to happen.