All the Right Notes: The Hunger Games trilogy, Part 2

In Part 1 of my review of The Hunger Games trilogy, I talked generally about the idea of Reader Expectation vs. Character Reality, the idea that many readers nowadays get frustrated with some stories because the characters are not "likable" or act contrary to how we would like them to act.

In this part of my review, I'm going to delve specifically into the character of Katniss and why Catching Fire and Mockingjay suffer unfairly from Reader Expectation vs. Character Reality.

When I began reading Catching Fire, I found myself becoming frustrated.  The Hunger Games has the potential to be a high-politics war epic, full of intrigue and leaders who step up to urge the citizens of Panem to victory.

And yet, and yet, Susan Collins has cornered herself into writing this story from a first-person perspective.

Readers do not get to see the battles in the other districts or fully understand the motives of the leaders of the rebellion or the Capital.  Because of the first-person writing style, we only experience events Katniss experiences, and more than that, we only get to understand these events from Katniss's point of view.

Katniss's POV is one of--if not the most--inappropriate means to narrate the war between the districts and the Capital.  Katniss know nothing about war, but instead of exploring District 13 and its war efforts, Katniss instead rejects becoming involved at all, thus disabling the reader from doing the same.

I was frustrated because I wanted more details about the war.  I was tired of putting up with Katniss's inner demons: her distrust of everyone, her mental instability, her callous and unfeeling remarks.  I wanted Katniss to "get over it" and become involved in the war effort.

In short, I was falling victim to Reader Expectation vs. Character Reality.

And when I realized that, I had another realization: The Hunger Games is not about the war or who is victorious in the end.

What is it about?  Check out the rest of the review after the break.

Fighting art exhaustion during the school year

As I have mentioned many times in my various pockets of the internet, the school year is always very difficult for me because it takes away all my time draw.  Opportunities to work on my graphic novel, Everdusk, are few and far between, let alone any other projects.

Unfortunately, being forced kicking and screaming away from my art has some pretty hard consequences.  I have found that not drawing for days on end leads without fail to miserable art block.

I've found ways to help combat this.  Carrying around a small notebook to doodle and sketch life drawings in (which is just good practice anyway) helps a lot.  It keeps my eye and my hand in good practice when I don't have time to pull out the ol' tablet.

Even when I do have time to bring out my tablet, however, I have found that college completely sucks my artistic drive dry.  Between classes, schoolwork, and theater, I am exhausted in my free time, and feel like doing little more than scrolling around on the internet when I could/should be working on my art.

So how can I fight against this art exhaustion and still be productive, even if I'm not working on my larger projects?

Break out of your normal art and experiment a bit.

Whenever I DO draw during the school year, I've found that it's often on quick side projects with styles and experiments that 1) do not take much time (maybe about an hour or so) and 2) are very different from my normal fare.

Just in the past two weeks, I produced three pieces of art in my spare time with some different techniques.

This is a wallpaper I put together for an anime promo that was released recently.  It's a French anime that's due to be released in 2013 that's already gathered a decent fanbase.  More info and credit for the images can be found on the deviantART page here.

A drawing of Merida from Pixar's Brave.  I actually drew this in permanent marker on a large piece of paper in my dorm hallway and was pleased enough to take a picture of it; I then colored it in Photoshop.  Credit for the textures found on deviantART here.

Both of these are very different from my typical style.  They weren't terribly time-consuming.  But they WERE fun to make and let me stretch my "art muscles" a bit!

So if you're feeling stuck or don't have much time for art, don't be afraid to try something different.  You just might find that it'll open you to new techniques and ideas and keep you from falling into the frustration of art block!