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Kawalimus posted:I think what someone else told me on here once is the most likely scenario--that he knows exactly where he wants to go with it, just that writing it all out is a major slog so he doesn't do it at a very fast pace. I'd consider it plausible that writing the short-stories is a tool he uses to flesh out the world of Westeros in his mind while thinking about the next book.
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Mar 13, 2014 11:01
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Alchenar posted:I'd consider it plausible that writing the short-stories is a tool he uses to flesh out the world of Westeros in his mind while thinking about the next book. Totally and he shouldn't be faulted for jumping from story to story. Tons of authors do it; it's a way to keep your writing style fresh or to innovate new ideas for your main magnum opus. I pump out a short story for about every 40 pages that I write in my novel, so that's about two chapters for a story that's completely different from what I'm writing about. I'm not published and I'm pretty sure I suck, I'm just saying this from all the tips people gave me for writing techniques. Sometimes you just gotta mix it up to keep yourself fresh. I don't even fault him for having to consult outside help to keep the details of his story straight with timelines and such. I'd kill to have some dedicated lunatic doing that for me.
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Mar 13, 2014 15:10
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I think that is only normal, fans have a tendency to care, or better obsess, much more about a story than the author does. Hence why so much fan fiction sucks.
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Mar 13, 2014 15:16
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I haven't read any fanfiction ever, but I'm assuming the reason most of it sucks is because there's no barrier to entry. Any idiot can write fan fiction, whereas you have to have at least a base level of competence to be published professionally*. *not really
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Mar 13, 2014 15:21
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A lot of fan fiction sucks because it's clearly an author insert into the world (e.g., "American exchange student to Hogwarts!"). Another issue is that characters just aren't written consistently. You might have a guy who looks like (e.g.) Harry Potter, and has Harry Potter's name, but he doesn't reference anything about the character of Harry Potter. But yeah, a lot of it is probably just that people can't write, or can't do basic writing tools (like pacing).
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Mar 13, 2014 15:28
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Jedit posted:Why, because he doesn't have a dick? That's literally the only thing Theon has in common with Varys. He doesn't have the skill to create a spy network or the sophistication to devise plots. I always got the feeling Theon is actually pretty smart but for most of the story he either has his head in his rear end and is loving things up because he wants his family to like him or he is a completely broken human being. I think now that he has been humbled he could end up being a player at someone's court, but yeah I don't see him becoming another Varys either.
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Mar 13, 2014 15:41
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As you all said, they also like to place themselves in the story and they rarely know about literary devices like pacing. Their stories will be nothing but short sentences or nothing but long sentences broken up by a myriad of commas. Fan fictions usually suck because they never find the voice of the author. computer parts posted:A lot of fan fiction sucks because it's clearly an author insert into the world (e.g., "American exchange student to Hogwarts!"). Another issue is that characters just aren't written consistently. You might have a guy who looks like (e.g.) Harry Potter, and has Harry Potter's name, but he doesn't reference anything about the character of Harry Potter. Exactly. It'll be a Harry Potter clone that's devoid of anything that makes him Harry Potter. It's like someone writing a fanfic of Dany burning everyone on top of her dragon, but that Dany will be acting like some sort of mythological lunatic instead of the Dany that we saw grow up over the last five books.
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Mar 13, 2014 15:42
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I've always thought fanfiction sucked because it's the literary equivalent of tracing over someone else's art.
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Mar 13, 2014 22:10
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Zamboni Jesus posted:The show handles this by just blatantly not giving a gently caress about geography (hi Melissandre going to pick up Gendry) But this is not a good thing. Here's a POV from someone who watched the show before reading from the books: The show's biggest weakness so far was that it rushed through / glossed over too much. I found the first few episodes to be a confusing mess going in with no knowledge of the backstory. I almost gave up on the show at the fourth episode but eventually, after watching the backstory summary on the season one bluray, it clicked with me and I watched it all over again enjoying it much more. Still there were problems that had to do with HBO glossing over important plot points as the story progressed. For example, Bran's story arc suffered the most from this, and the Reeds seemingly just showed up out of nowhere with no backstory or development. This is why I'm not too confident in HBO's ability to merge books 4 and 5 into one season without losing too many non-book readers. They will try to rush through it all, and a lot of the plots and characters will suffer from a lack of depth as a result. A lot of the realism is lost too: characters teleport across the world like it's nothing, or make really rash decisions without a logical explanation (whereas in the book it makes perfect sense and/or is explained). All of these problems stem from the fact that the show never has enough breathing room for exposition. Book 3 is the second longest in the series and it's getting almost 2 full seasons, yet still feels quite rushed. Book 5 is the longest book in the series and it has to share a season with another book. It's going to be a real mess after season 4. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 13, 2014 23:51
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Gianthogweed posted:Book 3 is the second longest in the series and it's getting almost 2 full seasons, yet still feels quite rushed. Book 5 is the longest book in the series and it has to share a season with another book. It's going to be a real mess after season 4. "The Hobbit is 300 pages long and was made into three movies. The Lord of the Rings was 1000 pages and therefore should have been made into ten movies." The problem with counting pages is that tv shows and movies based on books are adaptations, not transcripts. Regardless of whatever nerd math you come up with, a 700 page book can be turned into a good 3 hour movie or an equally good trilogy of 3 hour movies if the writing and production supports it. As for the Reeds, its unfortunate that they appeared out of nowhere, but that had nothing to do with writing and everything to do with the practicalities of producing a tv show.
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Mar 14, 2014 00:29
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Yea people confuse size=always important content. When you strip away description, which is handled differently on screen, internal monologues, which are folded into other things, and other types of content like that you'll find it's not unreasonable to merge book five.
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Mar 14, 2014 00:57
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computer parts posted:A lot of fan fiction sucks because it's clearly an author insert into the world (e.g., "American exchange student to Hogwarts!"). Another issue is that characters just aren't written consistently. You might have a guy who looks like (e.g.) Harry Potter, and has Harry Potter's name, but he doesn't reference anything about the character of Harry Potter. I wonder what has a worse track record. Fan Fiction or 3rd party "new content" mods for story driven video games. "Hey guys, I came up with a totally new plot line in this mod, complete with new fully fleshed out NPC's and even a brand new romance subplot!!" - Has this ever been done before and not sucked total and complete rear end? I assume fan fiction is the same way.
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Mar 14, 2014 01:06
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GuyDudeBroMan posted:"Hey guys, I came up with a totally new plot line in this mod, complete with new fully fleshed out NPC's and even a brand new romance subplot!!" - Has this ever been done before and not sucked total and complete rear end?
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Mar 14, 2014 01:54
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We can take this beyond fan fiction and crappy mods and point to the overarching issue of "authority" in fiction, which is a cool topic. It comes up a lot in any cooperative writing environment, like a television show, and particularly coming from an environment of such absolute authority like novel-writing. Most books are written by one author as a single, self-contained thing. There's very little question as to what's "canon" or "actually happens" in the story, because it springs from one person. They have absolute authority over that story. Sometimes, though, another writer will take over. Maybe it's a franchise and the IP-holder commissions a different writer, or the original writer dies/retires and the project passes to someone else. Maybe the project had multiple writers from the beginning, with writers coming and going. Maybe the story has no known writer at all, like folklore passed down the generations with lots of variations. In all of these cases, the authority of the writer has a huge impact on how we understand the legitimacy of their story, which in turn impacts our enjoyment. A certain writer on a TV show might write a character differently than the others, so when a character acts that way the viewer attributes it to that one writer rather than to the character. Some people might see any continuation of a story after the original author as no better than official fan fiction. When a series must be finished without the original author, whoever follows will almost always claim they're working from the author's notes. You can even end up with the child of the author finishing the story, which somehow feels more natural to some people than some other writer. Fan fiction gets the worst of this because it's almost always a poorly-written vanity project for some fan, with no legitimacy or authorization from the original source at all. It makes bad writing even worse for being an unwanted limpet on the actual product. This can even happen with just one author. Sometimes a sequel or prequel will be badly-received and effectively ignored by fans, perhaps even being officially ignored by the writer or the IP-holder in future works, explaining it away as an alternate universe or just straight-up ignoring it. You can see echoes of all these problems with Game of Thrones. Some people will describe Stannis's portrayal in the show as "out of character", some make a big deal about differences in the adaptation and put them on the same level as fan fiction. Certainly, Martin's continued endorsement of the show is important to a lot of people, and if he were to pass people would question adaptation decisions even more. If the show finishes Game of Thrones and the final books are never finished, will that be the "true" ending? What if the books are finished by another author, but follow notes and outlines written by Martin? Does following his notes even make a difference? Sorry to blather about this, this is just a topic I like.
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Mar 14, 2014 02:49
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Doltos posted:As you all said, they also like to place themselves in the story and they rarely know about literary devices like pacing. Their stories will be nothing but short sentences or nothing but long sentences broken up by a myriad of commas. New Doctor Who is pretty much Fan Fiction. Terrence Dicks and Robert Holmes made it the original great. But then some of the kids who grew up watching it brought it back just so they could have the Doctor making out with everyone and find at least one gay person in EVERY situation no matter where in space and time they are. They also seem no not understand much about space or time, or how the sonic screwdriver works.
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Mar 14, 2014 03:07
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hellbastard posted:how the sonic screwdriver works. Isn't it just a magic multi-tool for every situation?
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Mar 14, 2014 03:08
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Maarak posted:Isn't it just a magic multi-tool for every situation? It's a tool that basically emits sonic vibrations at various frequencies. It used to be used for unlocking electronic locks and maybe setting off landmines at a stretch. The writers in the 1980s got rid of it because they thought it was too much of a "magic wand" for writers to get out of situations. Now it's literally a magic wand. It raises massive stone doors (after you go for a motorbike ride in space without even any breathing apparatus.
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Mar 14, 2014 04:20
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Trying to get anything approaching 'realistic' science fiction out of Doctor Who is a fool's endeavor. It's been good old fashioned John Carter of Mars style of pulp since its inception (or very close to that at least) and it's not going to be anything but that.
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Mar 14, 2014 04:25
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Doctor Who is literally a space-wizard. He's immortal, he has unfathomable knowledge, he can appear when and where he desires (mostly) and yeah, he has a magic wand which lets him do drat near anything. Doctor Who is not scifi, it is fantasy with a technological gloss.
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Mar 14, 2014 04:35
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Um, excuse me, his name is The Doctor, god 
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Mar 14, 2014 04:46
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Doctor Who is literally a space-wizard. He's immortal, he has unfathomable knowledge, he can appear when and where he desires (mostly) and yeah, he has a magic wand which lets him do drat near anything. Doctor Who is not scifi, it is fantasy with a technological gloss. It's definitely nothing more than fairy tale grade fantasy now. But, it used to be sci fi. They used to explore actual scientific theories and concepts, consulting actual scientists and researchers all the time. Sure they may have glossed over a few details here and there but the new guys don't even consult primary school books for the areas the wonder into. It's riding bikes in space, and spirits living in suns, and solving problems by thinking happy thoughts. The original run on DVD is full of cool documentaries about the fields they explored.
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Mar 14, 2014 04:53
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hellbastard posted:New Doctor Who is pretty much Fan Fiction. Terrence Dicks and Robert Holmes made it the original great. But then some of the kids who grew up watching it brought it back just so they could have the Doctor making out with everyone and find at least one gay person in EVERY situation no matter where in space and time they are. I hope you realise that sexuality is a spectrum and homosexuality a common biological occurrence in many animals, let alone humans, and within humans it's present anywhere, in practically every social stratum and geographical location and point throughout history, and there's probably gay people in every profession known to man and you probably don't realise half the time when you're in a situation with gay people in fact there's probably a gay person in the room with you right now it's you, you're gay
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Mar 14, 2014 04:57
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Let's not pretend they were even close with regards to the Aztecs. Doctor Who was pulp from the start.
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Mar 14, 2014 04:57
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Hedrigall posted:I hope you realise that sexuality is a spectrum and homosexuality a common biological occurrence in many animals, let alone humans, and within humans it's present anywhere, in practically every social stratum and geographical location and point throughout history, and there's probably gay people in every profession known to man and you probably don't realise half the time when you're in a situation with gay people in fact there's probably a gay person in the room with you right now it's you, you're gay I have no problem with that. What I'm saying is that there is not a gay person at every single thing I go to or in every group I end up in for a night. And that's hanging around the gay capital of the world and home of the Gay and lesbian Mardi-Gras. Apparently 3.8% of Americans are gay and 1.8% of Australians are. Pretty much every episode of New Doctor who over the last few season has made sure to mention a gay wedding or relationship of some character in every story. Traveling anywhen through space and time this seems like an occurrence so frequent that it bends probability to the point of pulling you out of this fantasy world and being reminded that someone is beating you over the head with acceptance for something you're probably cool with if Captain Jack didn't already scare the homophobes off. If you're still watching the show by this point you're probably not a homophobe. I just mentioned it because it sticks out like a sore thumb and like someone trying way too hard to push a point that doesn't need to be made to the crowd it's being projected at. EDIT: If they really want to represent it would make more sense to just have a gay companion. hellbastard fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 05:25
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Friendly Factory posted:Let's not pretend they were even close with regards to the Aztecs. Doctor Who was pulp from the start. Some failings in historical research from England of all countries in a story about time travel to a historical period and drawing people into another dimension with a crayon are two very different levels of failing a sci fi premise.
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Mar 14, 2014 05:30
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Estimations on the number of homosexual people range at ~10% of the population at the moment, and it's likely even higher because of understandable lack of reporting. You are in the presence of homosexuals every single day and don't know it. But what baffles me is that it somehow annoys you that gay people are prevalent in a show. It's a real "why is there no straight pride parade?" kind of argument.
Friendly Factory fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 05:44
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who gives a poo poo
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Mar 14, 2014 05:47
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When I watch children's tv shows I for one
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Mar 14, 2014 05:53
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I'm just glad there's no homos on GoT, boy would that be silly because let me tell you about dark ages sexuality and verisimilitude *loudly shits into a bucket*.
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Mar 14, 2014 06:17
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Loras Tyrell does not blow Renly Baratheon. That’s not something that ever happened. Even if GRRM decides, 15 enlightened clap-happy politically-correct and fashionable years later, that those two were gay lovers, it’ll be a piss-poor and incredulous new arc. Such an awesome series. Such an awesome adaptation. Such an awesome episode, even, until that. I can see Loras Tyrell ending up being gay. It would explain a few things, actually. I don’t like it, but it makes sense. A gay Renly Baratheon does not make sense, at least not in the books. But Renly Baratheon isn’t a feminine little pussy in the books, either. He’s Robert Baratheon’s brother and he’s an asskicker just like him. HBO’s Renly is an androgynous coward who gets sick at the sight of blood, displays not a trace of leadership or manliness at any point, lets another guy shave his chest in a bathtub, and then gets blown by that same guy. Maybe HBO’s Renly story-arc will be the first major divergence from the book that we see. If so, there’d better be a drat good reason. Otherwise, it’ll be just another gay subplot shoehorned into a television show where it doesn’t belong. I can almost hear the producers sitting around: BENIOFF: There’s some woman-on-woman sexuality in the books, but no man-on-man! WEISS: I say! I, too, thought it rather barbarous! BENIOFF: What does that do to our Emmy chances?” WEISS: My dear Benioff, what does it do to our professed homoplurality? Honestly, who do these fantasy geeks think they are? If they can get excited about the ladies they can drat well choke down a glass of metaphorical mansauce! BENIOFF: Fine, but what character (or characters) can we gay-i-fy? I’m somewhat relieved, actually, because I was on the fence about my new HBO subscription and this makes it easy to cancel. Stupid, stupid, stupid decision. ________/ 
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 06:22
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Westeros.com?
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Mar 14, 2014 06:24
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That person needs help.
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Mar 14, 2014 06:26
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Friendly Factory posted:Estimations on the number of homosexual people range at ~10% of the population at the moment, and it's likely even higher because of understandable lack of reporting. You are in the presence of homosexuals every single day and don't know it. But what baffles me is that it somehow annoys you that gay people are prevalent in a show. It's a real "why is there no straight pride parade?" kind of argument. It doesn't annoy me that they are prevalent, I'm saying that the show went out of it's way to include it so often it would be like having someone turn around every episode and saying "you should totally recycle" or some other message of positive social conscious on a regular basis. You have a message you want to weave into your show, that's fine, but the Doctor Who crowd are usually a pretty enlightened group on that front. You don't need to push so hard. As I said, homophobes would have long been scared off by the time it got to that. It's nothing like a straight pride argument. I'm just saying it makes the show feel like it's not concentrating on the task at hand. Your turning this into something it's not. EDIT: I think it's a nice gesture to put gay characters in there but they've turned it into a weekly quota. Which, in turn, makes it feel less like platform to continue something and more like fanfiction because it makes it obvious that someone sat down as a kid and thought there weren't enough gay people in it, and once they got the chance to be a part of the creative process, they felt they had to correct the thing they felt was missing from someone else's world. Only at every available opportunity. Hedrigall posted:Loras Tyrell does not blow Renly Baratheon. That’s not something that ever happened. Even if GRRM decides, 15 enlightened clap-happy politically-correct and fashionable years later, that those two were gay lovers, it’ll be a piss-poor and incredulous new arc. Such an awesome series. Such an awesome adaptation. Such an awesome episode, even, until that. What the hell? Renly and Loras were totally and obviously lovers in the book. I was actually surprised at how many people (who had read the books) were shocked by the blowjob scene. hellbastard fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 06:45
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Indeed, book Renly was definitely gay.Friendly Factory posted:Estimations on the number of homosexual people range at ~10% of the population at the moment, and it's likely even higher because of understandable lack of reporting. You are in the presence of homosexuals every single day and don't know it. But what baffles me is that it somehow annoys you that gay people are prevalent in a show. It's a real "why is there no straight pride parade?" kind of argument. But doesn't the fact that we're all in the presence of not straight people every day without realizing it make his original point even more valid? Why are various strangers sexual preferences coming up at all? Disclaimer: I have never watched an episode of Doctor Who. Mostly because he's just a space wizard and the sci-fi nerd in me can't deal with that.
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Mar 14, 2014 07:24
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Some dude in the spoiler thread did flip poo poo because the show "made" Renly and Loras gay, that did happen. He got a bunch of other really obvious poo poo wrong too, as I recall.
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Mar 14, 2014 08:13
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Mar 14, 2014 08:22
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TOOT BOOT posted:I've always thought fanfiction sucked because it's the literary equivalent of tracing over someone else's art. In this case basically 90% of comics suck, as do most television shows (including Game of Thrones), and any adaptation of anything like Sherlock Holmes or Austen or whatever sucks, because all of these are cases of writers working in pre-established worlds with existing characters. So, no. The actual reason is because writing is really really hard. There are two hundred things you can screw up, but if you do them all just right, the effect is invisible. Most fanfics suck in the exact same way most original works suck, except you have less opportunity to see the later. If you ever read slush submitted to a publisher, you will quickly be disabused of the notion that original work is inherently better. Derivative work (and how people define it) is a fascinating subject, but probably not something to go into at length here. vvv I don't disagree with you, but the problem does not stem from working in existing worlds. (But for real, most TV shows are essentially a group of writers swapping fanfic with each other on a rotating basis.) Crisco Kid fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 08:23
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Crisco Kid posted:In this case basically 90% of comics suck, as do most television shows You're not wrong.
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Mar 14, 2014 08:27
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Irish Joe posted:"The Hobbit is 300 pages long and was made into three movies. The Lord of the Rings was 1000 pages and therefore should have been made into ten movies." Except it's actually "Lord of the Rings was 1000 pages and was made into three movies; The Hobbit was 300 pages and therefore should have been made into one movie".
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Mar 14, 2014 10:18
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hellbastard posted:You have a message you want to weave into your show, that's fine, but the Doctor Who crowd are usually a pretty enlightened group on that front. Having had some experience with various DW forums and online discussions - no, they're really not. Every other post is usually some guy whining about how they got their GAY AGENDA all up in what used to be a ~CLASSIC SCI-FI ADVENTURE~. Personally, I'm glad the show has progressed beyond weekly instances of hilariously dressed middle-aged men making quips at a rubber-suited monster of the week.
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