Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 12:17:36 -0500
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: reading likes and dislikes
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Michael Walsh wrote:
>

> >I can deal with High Tragedy.  What I can't deal with are disposable
> >characters.  Jack Chalker is especially bad with this.  Author
> >introduces Neat Character, character interacts with Protagonist,
> >character gets killed off.  Repeat as necessary.
>
> Hmm. I thought it was change gender of character . . . .

Nah.  The physical transformations are pretty specifically Chalker.
"Kleenex characters" are props of a lot of second- rate authors, very
much the way that a cigarette is a prop for a second- rate actor.  A
cigarette gives an actor something to do with his hands; a Kleenex
character gives an author a chance for some gratuitous emotional chain-
yanking.

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick
in his mouth."