On forcing The Hobbit, or any story, to be what it's not

This weekend my family saw The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, the third and final of Peter Jackson's Hobbit films. As I watched nearly three hours worth of action and fighting and more action and more fighting — and marveled at how CGI and poor directing can turn epic battles into nothing more than boredom — I realized what was wrong with the entire Hobbit trilogy.

The problem is Peter Jackson tried to force The Hobbit to become a story it is not.

If you've read J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, you likely know what I mean. The novel is fun, lighthearted, fast-paced, and above all centered on Bilbo Baggins, a main character you can't help but love. You can still see flashes of this original story in the film trilogy — you'll be watching Martin Freeman as Bilbo and he'll say or do something which echos back to the original novel, where Bilbo is very much a fish out of water as he takes part in adventures no reasonable person would take part in. And Bilbo knows this. Which makes us love him all the more for going on the adventures and supporting his friends and struggling to do right in Middle Earth.

No, the problem with The Hobbit films isn't Martin Freeman's portrayal of Bilbo Baggins — the problem is that Peter Jackson wanted to force the entire story to be an extension of his Lord of the Rings film trilogy. So Jackson buried all the loveable parts of The Hobbit beneath non-stop action and irrelevant scenes.  The end result: instead of making a new Lord of the Rings series, he turned the Hobbit trilogy into a parody of the very films which made Jackson famous in the first place.

The funny thing is Jackson should have known this would destroy the story. After all, no one else than J. R. R. Tolkien himself learned this very lesson the hard way.

You see, The Hobbit was originally written as children's literature and became a classic in that genre. When Tolkien was asked to write a sequel, he eventually began work on what became The Lord of the Rings. But this trilogy was very different in tone and structure than his original novel.

To fit The Hobbit in with the new series, Tolkien made minor retroactive changes to the novel, such as turning Gollum into a much more disturbing character. For example, in The Hobbit's 1937 edition Gollum willingly gives Bilbo the ring after losing the riddle game. Gollum's anger at Bilbo, and his famed cry of "Thief, Thief, Thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!" was only added to later editions by Tolkien.

But Tolkien wasn't satisfied with these minor changes. By 1960, The Lord of the Rings had become as big a hit, if not bigger, than The Hobbit. So Tolkien sat down to rework his children's novel into something more like his new series.

As Jason Fisher, author of Tolkien and the Study of his Sources, explains:

"What Tolkien was doing in those abandoned 1960 revisions was attempting to bring The Hobbit in line with The Lord of the Rings in terms of its style and its tone and its character. I think that’s very much what Peter Jackson is probably doing. Judging by the material I’ve seen so far, it seems that Peter Jackson is attempting to create a prequel to The Lord of the Rings that will match The Lord of the Rings in terms of style and tone and character."

Fortunately for us, when Tolkien was only 30 pages into this major rewrite he showed the revision to people and everyone basically said it was an abomination and totally destroyed what they loved about the original novel. So he abandoned the urge to rework The Hobbit into something it was not.

It's a shame Peter Jackson didn't learn from Tolkien's experience. There are flashes of the original Hobbit in these films and in Martin Freeman's performance. I'd love to see an entire film based on such a true retelling of The Hobbit. (Note: If anyone wants to creatively "edit" the Hobbit trilogy into a single film which is honest to the original novel, I'd watch it in a heartbeat.)

Sadly, the Hobbit trilogy has been so financially successful that it won't matter to either Jackson or Hollywood that the films are now merely a parody of both Tolkien's original novel and The Lord of the Rings films. But if you care about stories, remember this: When a story works, the worst thing you can do is try to change the story into something it is not.

My Back to the ConFusion schedule

I'm attending the Back to the Confusion convention in Detroit from January 16 to 18. ConFusion is a great convention, melding the literary focus of a smaller con with the fun and perks of a larger convention. This year's guest of honor is Karen Lord. Other attending authors include Ted Chiang, Joe Abercrombie, and Steven Erikson. If that line-up doesn't make you want to embrace the ConFusion, I don't know what will.

Below is my convention schedule. I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Friday 5pm: The Next Big Thing in YA
First, it was vampires. Then, it was dystopian future. What will be the next big topic to flood the YA market?

Friday 9pm: Where Batman Went Wrong
Many popular comic book characters have been with us for 50 or more years. Some have been reinvented multiple times to keep up with fads and changes in society. What makeovers have worked, and which have been deservedly short-lived. What characters are due for make-overs?

Saturday 12pm: Characters we Love to Hate (TEEN FUSION)
What characters have you read or watched that you really don't like but still want to know more about them?

Saturday 4pm: Mass Autograph Session

Sunday 11am: Science or Science Fiction?
Science fiction novels continue to impress with amazing technological advances in so many areas. What's more impressive, though? That some of them are reality! Come talk about some of the things you see on the news today that you first read about years ago in a book.

Sunday 1pm: Post-Binary SF
Non-binary gender exists—it is not new, it is not confined to people in one cultural or linguistic group. Non-binary pronouns are in use by real people. The future, whether it incorporates non-binary gender(s) or goes beyond the binary—and it will do one, or both, of these things, in reflection of the reality of non-binary gender—will see shifts in language. It is absurd for science fiction not to reflect this. It is especially absurd in a genre used to language invented for the story. How can we improve on this?

Sunday 2pm: Reading with Leah Bobet

If short stories are a mistake, I plan to keep mistaking away

It appears that admitting to mistakes in one's writing career resonates with people. Not only is that post my site's most-read item of the year but it proved equally popular when SFWA reprinted it.

But I think I made a new mistake in my post by implying I regret my focus on short fiction.

It wasn't my intention to say that writing short fiction is a mistake. I love short stories. I will always read and write in the short story genre. In fact, I find short stories to be a perfect match for my aspirations and dreams as a writer.

For example, at this moment I have exactly 20 short stories in various stages of completion (along with a young adult novel I'm working on). As a writer I tend to jump back and forth between different stories — when I hit a snag with a story I jump over to the next story. By the time I return to the original tale I've usually cleared my head of enough writer's block that I can keep going.

But even beyond short stories being a good match for my writing style, I also believe the genre is a perfect match for today's hyper-fragmented and disjointed world. The days when a novel could be at the cutting edge of literature is probably passing, but short stories — damn, that's where the action is.

The problem, of course, is that short stories have a much smaller readership than novel-length fiction. I'm optimistic that this will eventually change, especially since current trends in e-publishing are so supportive of short fiction. But until things do change, my advice to new authors is to write short stories if you love the genre. That said, don't expect short stories to carry you to the bestseller lists or (almost never) to literary stardom. For that you'll need to branch out into novel writing. 

When I said focusing on short stories was a writing-career mistake, I was trying to say that if I'd wanted to be a bestselling author, then yes, I didn't pick the easiest path to achieving that goal. That's what I meant by a writing career mistake.

But here's a secret — making the bestseller list is not my writing goal. Instead, I want to write the best stories possible. I want to create stories which readers enjoy and which will live on after I'm gone. I want to write stories which tweak the world in glorious yet subtle ways.

Last week an editor I deeply respect read my post and wrote to me saying short stories are never a writing-career mistake. And that's absolutely true. I shouldn't have been so cavalier with that statement. I shouldn't have even listed that as one of my mistakes.

I love short stories. I'll always write them. And short stories have taken me to where I am today as a writer.

If that's a mistake, I plan to keep on mistaking until I die.

Jeff VanderMeer on the futility of language

"Perhaps so many journals had piled up in the lighthouse because on some level most came, in time, to recognize the futility of language. Not just in Area X but against the rightness of the lived-in moment, the instant of touch, of connection, for which words were such a sorrowful disappointment, so inadequate an expression of both the finite and the infinite."

From Acceptance, book 3 of
Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer

I've made every mistake an author can make in their writing career

Len Peralta's amazing adaptation of a certain superstar raccoon. The path we take to our creativity is totally unlike the path anyone else will ever travel. (Note: Be sure to check out and buy more of Len's artwork.)

This has been a tough writing year for me. I finished my first novel only to learn that at this point in my writing career it's going to be a hard sell. I've struggled with short fiction, publishing only two stories this year. I've even wondered why I'm writing stories in the first place (which probably ties back with the issues I've had with the novel and short fiction).

All of this caused me to step back and reflect on my writing career up to this point. And I've realized I've made just about every mistake an author can make, career-wise.

For example:

• I grew up loving science fiction and fantasy stories, but listened to teachers who told me I shouldn't waste my time writing "that kind" of fiction. It took me years to dig my way out of that writing mistake.
• I focused on short fiction when the market and readership for short fiction is nearly non-existent.
• I avoided going to literary and genre conventions for many years because ... hell, I'm not even sure why. But I avoided them for a long time. After all, why would an author ever want to meet fellow authors and editors and publishers and readers? (Note: This is sarcasm. Career-mistake sarcasm, but sarcasm all the same.)
• I spent far too many years writing the types of stories others expected me to write, instead of the stories I wanted to write.
• I assumed I was such a great writer that I didn't have to plot out my novel-length fiction. (Note to new authors: If you try this yourself, expect pain. Lots and lots of pain, along with a novel you'll likely struggle to publish.)

And those are merely a sample of the mistakes I've made. The list could easily go on and on. If you had to describe how to achieve success as an author, I'd pretty much be an example of what not to do.

Of course, the flip side to this is that the path I've taken, while perhaps not the best for furthering my writing career, has given me a unique voice and approach to storytelling. My love of short fiction has enabled me to experiment with stories and develop my voice in ways novel-length fiction wouldn't have tolerated. I've also been able to both publish my stories and reach new readers thanks to some amazing editors and the support of magazines like Interzone and Asimov's.

And most importantly, every mistake has taught me something.

At a recent convention — yes, I now go to conventions — I met artist Len Peralta and purchased several of his prints. Above is one of Len's prints which really stuck with me because it so perfectly highlights that great line from the blockbuster film Guardians of the Galaxy: “There ain't no thing like me, 'cept me!”

I don't know if I'll ever achieve all I want to achieve with my fiction writing, but I do know the creative path I've traveled has resulted in a writer who produces stories no one else could create. I also know I'll never stop reaching for my writing dreams.

Career wise, I've made just about every mistake an author could make. But writing wise, I wouldn't change a thing. Because my mistakes are part of what have taken me this far and helped me become who I am as a writer.