4 Lessons From Keeper Of The Lost Cities

Keeper of the Lost Cities is a MG fantasy series by Shannon Messenger. It's currently 8.5 books long and it gets so much hype. With one more book on the way, what can we look forward to?

Despite all its hype, there's a lot that has been complained about. And most of it is justified.

I've been with this series since the release of Neverseen, Book 4. While I enjoyed it at first, the more I read it, the less I enjoy it. I feel like the series began with so much potential, but missed the mark by a long shot.

Here's the four biggest problems we can take away from this series.

Let's get to!

1. Special snowflake and cardboard cutouts

Our main character, Sophie Foster, is a special snowflake. She's the specialest of special snowflakes. First, what does it mean?

To be a special snowflake means that the character is treated differently, generally worshipped, because of their supposedly amazing qualities. Here's a few common traits:

The world revolves around them.

Everyone either loves them or are treated as bad guys.
The plot, conflict, everything, is directed at their specialness.
Secondary characters are important only because of their connection to the MC.

They are overpowered.

They are often called freaks and are treated badly. (see point 1.4)
They have special powers, powers no one else has and/or more powers than other people.

They are treated as perfect and their "flaws" (if any) are material surface flaws.

They don't think they're attractive, but have multiple love interests. *coughloveshapescough*

Things come easy to them.

They win, even when they fail.

It's not an exhaustive list, and not all special snowflakes tick all the boxes. But Sophie does. In Unlocked, Book 8.5, it seems like Keefe is starting to be one too.

This trope sucks because characters are given too many traits that make them likeable without any negative ones to balance it out. Sometimes, special snowflakes are given traits that aren't good ones, but are treated as such. Other times, they may be said to have a certain good quality, but don't have it. We go more into why these traits don't work in a future post!

Sophie is the Chosen One, whose genetics were changed before birth, giving her a unique appearance she considers boring, and powers that are rare or just to serve plot points. Of course, she's the best at all of them.

Because she's the Chosen One, the antagonists try to use her. They hurt those around Sophie, but only on account of their connection to her. Sophie takes centre stage. Secondary characters only matter if they have a strong relationship to Sophie.

Every character immediately likes her, except those who are supposed to generate conflict. There's loads of petty situations that could have been left out. One instance is when Sophie is interacting with a family who don't like her because of Sophie's habits to cause chaos. Sophie herself says she doesn't like the family because they don't like her, and wished she could harm them.

Sophie is said to be spunky, caring, perfect. All she is shown to do is whiny, self centred and far from perfect. Characters should have flaws, but they aren't flaws if they aren't treated like flaws.

In contrast, every other character is simply a cardboard cutout. They are built upon the barest archetypes, but are nothing more. More important characters will have a defining trait, but that's it. No life outside Sophie, no arc, no story.

The secondary characters seem to change in their plot relevance as the author falls in and out of love with their character. Not being the author, I can't say for sure, but there are obvious differences in how characters are treated as the series goes on.

For example, Dex and Fitz started with more important roles. As Keefe gained more popularity, Dex faded into just being the tech guy and Fitz suddenly became a jerk. Did I mention that Keefe has become quite the special snowflake himself?

One cause of this character underdevelopment problem is the sheer amount of characters we have to remember in the series. From the start, we're introduced to over two dozen characters. And it does. Not. Stop. With every new installment, new characters are introduced. They play a role in a couple of plot points, if at all, before being replaced by another character.

It would have been more effective to streamline the cast. Merge the ones who are similar and play similar roles, delete the unnecessary ones, and for everyone's sake, develop them.

2. Absence of plot, formulaic structures and inconsistent pacing

What's the plot of KotLC? Well, Sophie gets introduced to the elfy world. She gets kidnapped and rescued. Then she fights the same organisation of villains for the rest of the series and always wins the battle, but never the war.

In between, watch Sophie and co talk about brushing teeth, their plans and having romantic dramas. You'll enjoy their constant chatter because they never do anything until the last five chapters. And they do it for nine books straight.

I love story structure. It's something I've been studying and practicing for years. Still learning, actually. I love it because it gives a direction for the plot to go in and is a reflection of real life character journeys. The structure helps keep the plot moving so readers stay invested throughout the book.

There's no structure to Keeper books. Okay, it has a new type of structure. Here it is:

Pick up on the cliffhanger from the last book. This will last for the first few chapters.
Spend the next 90% of the book doing nothing. They'll talk and talk and talk about the questions and mysteries they're trying to solve, but never solve it. They will also engage in contrived conflicts that don't matter. They may talk and talk and talk about how they keep getting defeated by the villains.
For the last few chapters, the plot will zoom through a final, climactic battle. They win, but lose.
End with a cliffhanger.

Each book raises questions upon questions. There's not enough satisfying reveals to continue being invested in the story. The books don't build to anything. It's the same cheesy speeches, the same fights, the same outcome.

KotLC books aren't thin. For reference, they're around the same thickness as Wheel of Time books, but with a bigger font. You'd expect big things to happen, wouldn't you? Too bad nothing does.

The 90% of nothing can be condensed by over half. Instead of talking about the same thing for chapters, take action. Stop talking about plans, do the plans.

One book spends around 40% of the story in one room, describing every single detail no one cares about. Mostly, the characters engage in extreme self pity. In that same book, Sophie is given the opportunity she was whining about the past 5+ books. She then has a twenty page discussion whether or not she still wants to do it.

Over books 4-5, Keefe goes through a minuscule character arc. He briefly goes back to the dark side, then back to Team Good. The exact same thing happens to another character. It's true that the circumstances were different, but it does not make a difference to the plot. Besides, no other character is important except Sophie.

The only exciting thing that happens is the epic battle. It races through the action scenes, and it's the only part I enjoy to any degree. But the only reason I get to the end is because of my stubbornness to not DNF a book. (It's a personal choice. Not finishing a book is totally fine.)

Why? The pacing. Because nothing happens, there's nothing to keep propelling the reader to the next part of the story. I talk about pacing in the Whisper duology analysis, so check that out for more!

The fix is easy. Cut out the scenes that don't move the plot forward or develop character. Have the characters do meaningful things. Sure, it will shorten the book. But quality is better than quantity.

3. Implications of real world problem and failing social justice

Real life is a mess. But we are working to make it better. Fiction especially has to be intentional about its content.

KotLC references our human problems. There's concerns against racism, slavery and a couple other things. We are beaten over the head at how the elves don't worry about people's skin colours or social status. The thing is, every elf is given enough money to last their immortal lifespan from birth. Hyperinflation, anyone?

On racism, it's said over and over again about how there's no racism in the elfy world. There's nothing wrong with saying it. But it would be way more effective if the main cast was diverse. Every main character was white. The racially diverse characters were introduced in later books, but pushed to the side. (Sophie is the centre of the universe problem.)

Here's a paraphrased quote from the first book: "Sophie was the only slender blonde in her chubby brunette family." Then Sophie feels a lot of pity for herself. As if it's the greatest tragedy that could befall her. The elves are flat-out said to be gorgeous. The least handsome elf would still beat a movie star by kilometres. And they all have blue eyes. With that in mind, plus all the human hate and elf snobbery, it gives a strong implication that having a chubby body shape isn't good.

I believe that we shouldn't promote unhealthy habits that lead to chubbiness. But if someone is born chubby, that's just what they look like. They can't control it. They don't deserve any hate. It just is.

This statement also discriminates against people who aren't traditionally attractive. Again, we can't control what we look like. The cast would be so much more diverse and inclusive with both traditionally attractive and traditionally unattractive characters. Even if every character has to be hot, don't, for the love of all things good, talk down on people who aren't.

Another issue in this series? Slavery. Elves and gnomes have a close connection. By that, I mean elves get to do important things while the gnomes work. The excuse is that the gnomes like all the work they do. Plus, they get a home. It's a MG book, so this whole slave thing was reduced to "are they servants?"

I'm not a cultural expert. But even I know that there's no way an entire race will like working. It's more likely for everyone to dislike it. The gnomes don't get anything in return. They may have joined the elves after a tragedy that happened to their home. Keeper starts long after that. The gnome territory is fine. Giving gnomes a home isn't a good enough reward. Especially considering the infinite amount of money elves have.

You have to be so careful of the messages you're writing. You don't want to be unintentionally promoting negative behaviours. You might not catch all of them, so get beta readers and editors to help you. Take a step back and analyse what's happening in your story.

4. Easy writing style...but repetitive

The biggest praise I can give KotLC is that the author's writing style is easy to read. It's written in a modern style that is very up to date on 21st century language. Because it's so easy to read, we don't have to struggle to understand what the language means, particularly as this is targeted to 8-12 year olds. I still find it engaging, even though I'm not the TA.

It's not without fault. Messenger seems to have a default set of words she uses too many times over this approximate 900k word series. Characters are always "whispering", "murmuring", telling someone else. Sophie always shudders or shivers when something creepy happens.

The repetitiveness is frustrating for many readers. I, personally, am not too bothered by this. For most, it's a turnoff.

It's such an easy thing to fix. Crank up a thesaurus and boom. Words at your command. Use them as you see fit.

Disclaimer: some words, like "said", are so common readers won't process them. Use this to your advantage.

~

Is KotLC a series I would recommend? No. Besides what I've already mentioned, there's moral issues that are particularly concerning, considering that it's a middle grade series. One of them may or may not include rage-driven murder that was not brought up again. This was done by a love interest, by the way.

I find many of the behaviours immature. That's fine if done well, but it's not. The characters are portrayed as role models. I don't think it's right to be reading content like that without awareness.

But ranting aside, here's the key takeaways from this list.

Develop any character that plays an important or recurring role in the story.
Plan before you write OR rewrite your drafts to make sure there's a plot, consistent pacing and uniqueness to each story.
Be aware of the messages in your story.
Mix up your prose and descriptions.

Back to you, dear authors. Have you read the series before? What did you think about it? What aspects did you like and dislike? Leave a comment below!

Until next time, happy authoring!

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