A couple of years ago, I read Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy. You know, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. Well, truthfully, I didn't exactly read the trilogy. I read the first two books and ditched the third after about fifty pages. In this post, let's talk about what Stieg Larsson got wrong in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
Steig Larsson, Author of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Normally, I am the type of reader to see a story through to the end once I've started it. However, there are certain things that I expect of the authors that I read. One of those things is to be entertained by complex characters, and another is to not be hit too much over the head with the author's opinions. It's fine to have an opinion, but no one wants to feel like they're being lectured.
While I enjoyed the first book, and made it through the second, the third frustrated me to no end. Granted, the author died suddenly before the first book was published, so I can't imagine the editing process had gotten that far on the third. Still, you can learn some lessons from my frustrations with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
Give Your Characters Complexity (Even Your Villains)
Sometimes there's a time to make it very clear to your readers that a specific character is a bad guy or a good guy. However, this is where the old adage of “show, don't tell” comes into play.
In the third Millennium book, there is a police character who is clearly not a nice guy, and you can tell from the minute he's introduced that he's going to be a problem. This is fine, but I took issue with how it was presented. The officer uses homophobic language, has a violent streak, and is incredibly misogynistic. Again, these are all fine characteristics to show, but I felt like the point was hammered to death: THIS GUY IS BAD. HE'S A BAD GUY. SEE ALL THE BAD THINGS HE SAYS AND THINKS?
The takeaway here? If the character had been less aggressively terrible, and maybe enjoyed making brownies every once in a while, he would have been a more interesting character. I like my characters to be more nuanced and layered, and beating your readers over the head with the fact that a character is good or evil (this works both ways) will try their patience and potentially lead to them abandoning your work in frustration.
Be Careful with Setting Agendas
Misogynists are crappy people.
That's my main takeaway from the Millennium series. The reason that it's my takeaway? It was a prevalent theme in all three books. This is a fine takeaway to have. However, the presentation of the moral got less and less subtle as the series went on. The first book dabbled in some creepy misogyny early on, but you don't really get the full effect until the climax. The third book hits the ground running, although some of that is residual from the conclusion of the second book. Either way, Larsson's personal experiences and convictions very clearly influence his writing, but the delivery wallops you in the face.
The lesson: morals are fine to have, but temper your enthusiasm for your soapbox issue until the timing of the story makes sense. Larsson does a much better job in his first book of bringing his distaste of violence against women into the storyline by giving it context with his characters and the plot. By the time I hit the third book, I was frustrated with the violence-against-women storylines. (Note: Actual violence against women is bad, always.)
It's unfortunate that Larsson passed away before the first book was published, because I think the next two books would have turned out differently. He would have had the chance to get reviews of his first and would have been able to tweak the next two accordingly. He would have had time to make content edits, and I bet he would have ended up with more rounded and nuanced characters. We can learn from Larsson's work though, and edit with a careful eye.
Stieg Larsson, may you rest in peace. For the rest of us, it's time to get back to writing.
Did you like the three books in Stieg Larsson's Millennium series? Why or why not?
PRACTICE
Since we like contradictory practices here, pick one specific personality trait or adjective, and compose a character with only that trait. They have no other distinguishing personality tics; just the one you've chosen. Write about that character for fifteen minutes, and post your practice in the comments.
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Robert, having hurriedly dressed due to his late rising for a meeting, stepped out of his hotel room into the hall, turned to check his lock and not seeing the elderly lady, bumped
her with his briefcase. It was not enough of a bump to knock her down, but
clearly she was thrown off balance, and Robert just walked off without
apologizing or even acknowledging her presence. He continued walking hastily
down the narrow hall to the elevator and pressed the down button, while looking
impatiently at his watch. When the elevator door opened to reveal a crowd of
people, Robert turned and pushed his way into the crowd with his back and since
he had correctly ascertained the location of the control panel to be on his
side, he pushed the number “1” button and stood facing the door.
Fortunately for everyone, Robert had entered the elevator on the second floor, so when the doors opened, Robert stepped out and dashed to the revolving exit door and began pushing his way out of the building. Entering the building at the same time, were a father, a mother and two children, and his pushing on the door caused the parents to be separated
from the children, who had entered the door with the expectation that one of
the parents would be with them. Robert saw and heard the screams of the
children and the panicked parents, but only continued pushing harder to
counteract the now reverse action of the children, who were trying to get back
to their parents. He thought, I hope this day get better for me, as he tried to
outrun another man to get the attention of an empty cab.
lol
Too funny! So his character trait is that he is totally self-absorbed? It’s funny to read, but it is an accurate depiction of many people I worked with in the corporate world.
Thanks. I am retired from the corporate world and I agree with you. If fact I think that “self-absorbed” has become the very definition of the corporate world. Now that I am gone, I may be too critical.
Very funny. I hope he gets his payback some time soon.
I really like how his thought at the very end instantly puts everything I just read into his perspective. He’s a jerk, of course, but now I realize that he wasn’t intentionally being rude, he just didn’t even see the other people.
She saw a cat coming down the street. She plucked it up and she hugged it, the cat was cutting it’s claws in her arm and pushing against it’s back legs but she continued hugging it. She squeezed and squeezed, then let the cat go. The cat fell with a thud, its body limp. Then she went on looking. Finally she spotted a pet store. Her eyes twinkled with joy. She pressed her hands against the bars, and tried to stick her chubby fingers in through the slots. The employee went up and asked if she needed anything. She asked if she could hold one of the kittens. The lady unlocked the cage and pulled out a fluffy kitten with large baby blue eyes, that let out a little yep sound for a meow. And she took the cat, her eyes full of delight, she pet it. But she could not resist, she needed to hold it tighter. So she started to give it a hug. The cat tried to hop up and down in her arms, but she held it too tightly in its place. The lady told her she needed to put the cat down now, but she continued to squeeze it. The woman ran over there tugging the arm to release. But they had become tight like the locked bars and she only tightened more and more, and the cat couldn’t be seen anymore because it became buried in her thick arms and volumptuous chest.
And then like that, like a kid done with its water, she dropped the cat, which fell with a gentle thud on the ground. The woman looked at her in horror. “Get out.” She tried to say but it came out in a stutter. “I need to hug.” The woman said, her red lips and face rolls all waddled over to the woman. “Please no.” The woman said and ducked under the lady and pushed the door open and started running away, her arms jutting as she went.
The woman started for her and walked toward her like a tremendous giant. “Please come back!” She cried. “I need to give you a hug. I just want to love you. Why does everyone always run away?!” She need out a cry and the tears rolled like the river down her face as she kept going.
Very original, and scary!
Hilarious and terrifying. I especially like the way she loses interest in things once they die. Somehow this reminds me a little of Stephen King’s writing.
It was eight o’clock in the morning, and Janice was awake. She ran to the French doors which opened onto a balcony and shouted down to the man on a rider lawn mower.
“What in the hell are you doing? You’re not supposed to cut the grass this early?”
” Mr. Clark said to do it. Only following orders, Mrs. Clark.”
“Well my orders are to stop.”
“Sorry. Can’t stop. Got to do what the boss says.”
This was intolerable. Jason knew when they married that this was her house and she was in charge. How dare he countermand her orders?
She closed the French doors and pushed her arm into the sleeve of her robe so hard there was a ripping sound. “Damn it.” She reached above the bed and pushed the buzzer which rang down in the kitchen, keeping it here for at least ten seconds, then another ten.
“Well,” she said to the trembling maid who came into the room a minute later. “What took you so long and where’s my breakfast?”
“I’ll …I’ll go back and get it. You…you don’t get breakfast until ten o’clock. It’s…it’s early.”
“Oh, you stupid girl.. Go back and get it. No. Wait. Where’s Mr. Clark?”
“I…I…I don’t know.”
“Oh, stop stuttering, you imbecile. “Janice pushed the girl aside and went flying down the hall and down the stairs. “Jason! Jason! Where the hell are you?”
A tall, nattily dressed man of about fifty years old came out of the dining room. “So happy to see you up early for a change, Janice dear. Did you have a good sleep?”
“How dare you? That gardener isn’t supposed to be working under my bedroom so early.”
Jason turned and helped himself to some scrambled eggs from the buffet. He moved slowly, calmly.
“Good morning, Mother.” The young woman at the breakfast table looked up from her eggs and toast. “Do sit down, Mother.You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing. Why are you in such a bad mood all the time? Anyway, Jason said that it makes no sense for Mr. Hanlon to come back in the afternoon just to mow under your
window.”
“Stay out of this Diane. I’ll handle my husband myself. Well Jason? Answer me. Why is the gardener mowing so early?” She stood with her arms folded across her chest.
“Diane told you. It’s more convenient for Mr. Hanlon to do the whole property at the same time.”
Her attribute is narcissism? Very realistic depiction!
Too realistic. Readers would come to hate her unless she learned something to change her ways.
I liked this, she does sound like a dreadful person!
yes, she is dreadful. I could see Bette Davis in the role. If I were to continue this, I would have to either have her come to some realization that she is not the queen bee or have some ironic twist where she becomes the object of someone’s anger and scorn.
What a terrible person you created! Let’s hope the gardener will start under her window next time. Maybe before sunrise.
Note: Actual violence against PEOPLE is bad, always.
The Millenium trilogy was preachy, all right, but its fatal flaw to me was its flagrant hypocrisy. The bad guys are evil because they’re mean to women, but the heroine is cool because she sets her father on fire, tortures her parole officer, and steals from everyone in sight?
Oh, but it’s okay because she was raped. And her victims are bad, bad sadists, rapists, and pedophiles. And she’s a girl.
Just imagine a graphic scene of a young man sodomizing his bound-and-gagged female abuser with an anal plug, then carving her crimes into her stomach while she screams in pain. Awesome, right?
Yikes. I’d rather not imagine that. Interesting point, though, TK. Thanks!
I can’t really deny your point there. Violence is bad, except when committed against violent people. But then who is committing the violence? Cue the endless cycle.
Heh one sided villains. Thanks I have a villain in my story that I am working on. I right now don’t know just how bad to make her. But I will keep this in mind.
Interesting point Sandra. I agree that there are many situations where archetypes do well. In fact, most characters in popular stories are probably one-sided. I would argue with two of your characters on you list, though. Darth Vader and Medusa weren’t one-sided. Vader proves that he has two sides when he kills the emperor at the end of The Return of the Jedi. And Ovid’s version of Medusa says that she was once beautiful and good, but that Poseidon raped her in Athena’s temple, and Athena punished her by turning her into a terrifying monster. It’s a crazy story. But anyway, there are definitely some edges to both of those characters. You’re right about Sauron though, and I would argue that it made him a boring arch-villain. Saruman was a lot more interesting.
It’s true that some of the most successful stories of all time, such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, make extensive use of archetypal characters yet are still very enjoyable. One interesting thing to note about the Marvel Avengers movies is that the most popular main characters are the conflicted ones: Iron Man is a good guy who struggles with being self-centered, egotistical, and insensitive, while Loki is a bad guy with insecurity issues who still can’t make up his mind whether Thor is his friend or his enemy. They are somewhat unpredictable, which makes them more interesting than, say, Captain America or Thor.
I think one-dimensional bad guys only work when they’re meant to represent something. Sauron is the faceless evil, the darkness that lives in everyone, which is reflected in the ring he made and the effect it has on people. He doesn’t get a lot of screen time, though, and with good reason. He never changes. I might disagree with your inclusion of Darth Vader, because there is some complexity to his character. His relationship to his son, being his only connection to the good side of him, and to the Emperor, who made him lose everything so the only way left to go would be to embrace the darkness, are pretty compelling to me.
Yes I made a mistake with Darth Vadar
Janice came up the steps from the subway, and almost tripped over a homeless woman having a grand mal seizure. The mass of bodies coming up behind her, on their hurried path to work, mostly ignored the woman. The crowd parted around her like water around river rocks, and kept pushing forward. A few stopped to gawk. Janice asked the onlookers several times, “Has anyone called 911?” No one answered her, most didn’t even look at her. Those who did, sneered. Janice took out her cell phone, and called 911. As the crowd thinned, and people moved indoors to start their day, Janice stayed with the homeless lady until the ambulance arrived. The lady was now unconscious, and Janice hovered nearby, making sure the woman was still breathing. When the ambulance crew arrived, Janice thanked them for coming so quickly, and as she walked away, one of the crew asked her, his voice cutting and sarcastic, “Why the hell would you care about this nut?”
Janice continued on to her office, where she was now thirty minutes late. No one noticed her late entrance, because Roberta, the boss, was having another tirade, and was so busy belittling her secretary, Dorsey, that she didn’t see Janice. Roberta was denouncing Dorsey for typing a letter with several grammatical mistakes, and for misfiling two reports. Dorsey was in tears as Roberta continued berating and mocking her. “Here!” Roberta hurled her large, overstuffed Louis Vuitton handbag at Dorsey, hitting her in the chest. “Clean out my bag. You can handle that, can’t you?” Roberta stormed into her office, and slammed the door. Dorsey slumped in her chair, holding the handbag, and was silent.
Janice came out of her office, and approached Dorsey. She could see Dorsey’s eyes overflowing with tears. Janice looked through the glass into Roberta’s office, and met Roberta’s eyes with a steady gaze, until Roberta looked away. “Come on sweetie, let’s get out of here.” Janice put her arm through Dorsey’s, and walked her down to the lobby, to the Starbucks. They had coffee and Janice spoke to Dorsey about her legal rights, and offered to send her to an Assertiveness training class, at company expense. She also said she would speak with their boss, Roberta, and put her on notice that in the future, abusive behavior would be reported to senior management and HR.
Very nice. I like the analogy of “water around river rocks”. I will have to remember that one.
Janice has a heart for the underdog. Well done.
It’s nice that you picked a positive trait. At least she got away with being late!
Janice is a caring person and would be very likable. If she were always this good througout a story I would become a tad bored with her. For an opening, this defines her very well.
I, also, liked the river rock analogy. And the one dimensional characterization you did was so good that it actually applied to everyone. That is, I thought everyone other than Janice was one-dimensionally cold-hearted (other than the two victims).
Thank you Kip 🙂
Stealing furtive glances at the other pedestrians and passing cars, Bart slinked along the sidewalk. Each time he accidentally made eye contact, his heart skipped a beat and he turned his eyes to the pavement until the other person had passed.
“Hey buddy, can you spare some change?”
The strangled cry that burst from Bart’s throat resembled a duck’s mating call as he leapt a foot into the air. A look over his shoulder as he sprinted away revealed a confused transient staring at his retreating back, then flipping him off.
I dodged a bullet there, he thought. Before he could look ahead, he slammed into another person at full speed. Fortunately, he had struck a man of considerable bulk, cushioning the impact and allowing both to keep their feet.
“Watch where you’re going, you runt!” he snarled as Bart as tried to extricate himself from the other man’s voluminous folds.
“I’m so sorry,” Bart whimpered, avoiding eye contact. “Please don’t kill me!”
He freed himself and staggered off on a tide of inventive curses flung his way. After a few feet, he paused and pulled his coat tight around himself, sucking in deep breaths of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke as he tried to bring his breathing under control.
“Are you okay, dude?”
“I want to live!” Bart shrieked at the woman who had materialized at his side, and took off down the sidewalk, destination finally in sight. Cringing against the angry blows he knew would come, he slipped between two exiting customers and stumbled into the bank. He spent his time in line trying to be invisible.
His turn came up and he approached the teller. “I’m sorry. I’d like to make a deposit.”
She took his money and filled out the slip. “Okay, now slide your card and enter your PIN.”
“I’m not looking for trouble.”
The teller’s response was cut off by the doors slamming open as three gun-toting men in ski masks burst into the building. “Everybody get down on the floor!” one shouted. “This is a robbery!”
Bart fainted.
I walk though the rain. The dark bleak sky fell with the fat raindrops as I walked. My hair clung to my head as I pushed my way into the diner which as almost empty with only me and a random coustumer. “What can I get you?” The waitress asked. Her helmet shaped hair and heavily make upped face smiled at me politely as she popped her gum. “Black coffee please.” I said quietly. “I’ll have it for you in just a moment.”
She hurried back into the kitchen. I tapped my foot on the floor as I waited. The diner bell rang letting it know there was a costumer. “Crow.”
A scratchy high pitched voice called out. I sighed heavily and buried my head into my arms. The voice shook me by my shoulders as I looked up. “Hey Billy.” I said tiredly hoping he would leave me alone.
He smirked back in responds. “I was wondering where you’ve been hiding .” I rolled my eyes. The only wondering Billy’s ever done is how to make a quick buck off of street fighters like me. “Nowhere just been keeping quiet.”
Billy smoothed his greasy brown hair that flopped limply over his fave his beady eyes looked me up and down crooked teeth filled his mouth yellow from years of smoking and his beer gut pushed against his shirt. “Here you go sweetie.”
The waitress handed me my coffee. “Thank you very much.” I sipped it and let the bitter taste of the coffee slide down my throat giving me some warmth from the rain. “I’ll take a burger and fries with a coke and hurry.” Billy told the waitress. She wrinkled her nose. “Yes sir I’ll have it soon for you.”
I swirled my coffee hoping Billy would stop his endless babbling. “I’ve got a fight with this guy named Lance set up for you.” I chuckled. “I don’t know why since I don’t work for you.” “Come on Crow your one of the best fighter’s in this town just because your old man died doesn’t mean you should stoop working for me.” “I don’t work for you anymore.” “I swear to god your father ruined you that lazy man he was too kind that’s why he got shot right though the head and he left behind his daughter.”
I grabbed Billy by his shirt collar. “Don’t you ever say anything mean about him!” I punched him in the nose. Blood trickled down from it and it already started swelling. “Let go of me Crow!” Billy’s faces was turning a nasty shade of purple before I let go of him. I grabbed his hand and slammed it on the table. “You try and say anything mean again and I’ll make sure you never see the light of day.” The waitress put herself between me and Billy. “You two break it up kid go outside and you sit down or leave!”
I threw my change on the counter and walked out side my face bent low to the ground as my cheeks grew red from anger. I looked at myself in the reflection of a dumpster. Tall and lean with wiry black hair and big blue eyes and pale skin. This is why they call me Crow. I threw a rock at it which bounced harmlessly off of it.
I looked at my knuckles that I realized were bleeding. I walked into the rain seething in anger over Billy. “Why did you leave me?” I looked up at the sky.