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HIJK posted:If Rothfuss stopped firing people for correcting his bad grammar he would have a writer's group to brainstorm options with. I've been trying to form a writer's group period where I live. It's hard.
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Nov 2, 2016 02:06
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Kingkiller's diverse array of female characters: Let's not forget the Old Crone Who Knows Medicine Better Than Anyone in the village Kvothe's rescued rape victims (including one he caresses after drugging) are from. Benson Cunningham posted:For the rest of us who are dissatisfied, we have specific grievances. Such as: Didn't Rothfuss at some point mention he has zero music background? Or am I just projecting that because of the fact he knows gently caress-all about music? Like his tortured description of Kvothe hearing a song and hating that he couldn't join in (or whatever) and was upset because that's how musicians are when that isn't how anyone other than a loving prima donna acts. I played instruments up through college and Rothfuss writes about music like someone who wants to believe they know what they're talking about and thinks they can convince others that they're right. Benson Cunningham posted:Edit: Finally, I think Rothfuss himself has grown older and wiser, and recognizes a number of his own flaws. This more than anything, and this is just a guess, is what's causing the delay in the third book. I don't think he sees a way to chisel out the story he wants to tell from the one he actually did. He hasn't. He's only gotten worse over time because now he has two best sellers and a totally not up his own rear end novella. And his garbage story was picked up by Lionsgate(?) to make a movie and/or TV show.
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Nov 2, 2016 02:30
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I want Zack Snyder to direct that movie. Since nerds get pissed off at him because he's apparently the worst director in the history of forever for going against the grain with superhero films or whatever and because Kvothe would actually be an interesting character. Probably would deconstruct modern fantasy tropes and look at the consequences of having adventurers meddling in things they don't understand. It'll be utterly perfect. Oh and he'd totally make Bast gay.
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Nov 2, 2016 02:50
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Evil Fluffy posted:Let's not forget the Old Crone Who Knows Medicine Better Than Anyone in the village Kvothe's rescued rape victims (including one he caresses after drugging) are from. Someone mentioned upthread that one of his blog posts bemoans his lack of musical background or something. I just know he's a loving jackass that doesn't understand the connection between music and poetry and that he's an insufferable idiot that can't do research. I bet he didn't even talk to any musicians to get a feel for the topic.
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Nov 2, 2016 02:57
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Maybe the guy who only played a bard in his high school D&D campaign shouldn't have made his hero a bard.
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Nov 2, 2016 02:59
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Jimbot posted:I want Zack Snyder to direct that movie. Since nerds get pissed off at him because he's apparently the worst director in the history of forever for going against the grain with superhero films or whatever and because Kvothe would actually be an interesting character. Probably would deconstruct modern fantasy tropes and look at the consequences of having adventurers meddling in things they don't understand. Please, let's not summon the BvS thread's circlejerk here.
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Nov 2, 2016 04:12
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Once again nerds tremble at the mention of Snyder.
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Nov 2, 2016 09:50
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Once again nerds tremble at the mention of Snyder. Never said which bits of us were trembling 
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Nov 2, 2016 13:50
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jivjov posted:but overall, I'm pleased that Kingkiller has plenty of female characters in all manners of professions and social standings and the like. I realize people have responded to this bit already but I would really like to see more on this. Can you elaborate on why you feel he has done a good job representing a diverse array of women? It would help if you could cite specific examples from his texts of the women you feel represent a variety of social standings and professions. It would be even better if you could do this while contrasting it with how men in the text are depicted and addressing the observation that women in Rothfuss' setting are vastly outnumbered by men.
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Nov 2, 2016 14:02
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From the Rothfuss blog:quote:Heya Everybody, I really can't make this up.
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Nov 2, 2016 15:38
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ulmont posted:From the Rothfuss blog: I think at this point it's kind of like Penelope unweaving her shroud every night.
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Nov 2, 2016 16:02
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nikitakhrushchev posted:I think at this point it's kind of like Penelope unweaving her shroud every night. I had to look this up, and so now I can add this to my list of how this thread has enriched my life more than Rothfuss himself has.
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Nov 2, 2016 16:26
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I had to look this up, and so now I can add this to my list of how this thread has enriched my life more than Rothfuss himself has. Every day, more beautiful women came up to Kvothe asking for him to have sex with them, and he told them all, "Only when I have completed writing the most beautiful song." And every night, when the women were gone, he wrote more of the song that would never end, for beauty cannot be confined to a concept so stifling as 'completeness', as only a true musician would know.
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Nov 2, 2016 20:02
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Well, I bought 2 books and after completing them, I still think I didn't even get one full book. This sucked.
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Nov 5, 2016 09:35
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Malpais Legate posted:Well, I bought 2 books and after completing them, I still think I didn't even get one full book. Hey know, that's just your subjective opinion, admit that it's nothing more so you don't hurt the feelings of "adult" people who are honest-to-god offended by claims of objectivity. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Nov 5, 2016 |
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Nov 5, 2016 09:42
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Patrick Rothfuss sucks.
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Nov 5, 2016 09:45
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Hey know, that's just your subjective opinion, admit that it's nothing more so you don't hurt the feelings of "adult" people who are honest-to-god offended by claims of objectivity. Interesting question there, what really makes the difference between books in a series having a sense of being an actual story versus something that just sort of spins its wheels and goes nowhere? Cliff hangers/mysteries are a pretty common staple of the series genre but at a certain point when things keep getting thrown up in the air and newer and newer "mysteries" are brought up before the old stuff is even referred to again when does it become poor writing. loving Chandrian and mystical band of killers who kill anyone mentioning their name get dropped as the entire reason this story exists and 2k pages later not a single loving mention aside from a few brief sentences.
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Nov 5, 2016 18:42
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pentyne posted:loving Chandrian and mystical band of killers who kill anyone mentioning their name get dropped as the entire reason this story exists and 2k pages later not a single loving mention aside from a few brief sentences. When your book is comprised of disconnected vignettes written years apart, it's not surprising that Kvothe seems to forget about the Chandrian for hundreds of pages at a time. God forbid Rothfuss rewrite his grad school short stories to include the protagonist's supposed central motivation.
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Nov 5, 2016 18:58
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Aquarium Gravel posted:When your book is comprised of disconnected vignettes written years apart, it's not surprising that Kvothe seems to forget about the Chandrian for hundreds of pages at a time. God forbid Rothfuss rewrite his grad school short stories to include the protagonist's supposed central motivation. Wait these were written in grad school? Holy poo poo that's depressing.
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Nov 5, 2016 19:14
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pentyne posted:Interesting question there, what really makes the difference between books in a series having a sense of being an actual story versus something that just sort of spins its wheels and goes nowhere? Cliff hangers/mysteries are a pretty common staple of the series genre but at a certain point when things keep getting thrown up in the air and newer and newer "mysteries" are brought up before the old stuff is even referred to again when does it become poor writing. It's also dependent on whether you think the mysteries actually matter to the story, which generally means the characters themselves have to care about it. If there's some ancient prophecy that just exists to be coy foreshadowing and the characters don't care about it in the slightest, it sticks out a lot more than when people in the story at least try to figure out what it means (even if it's still obvious coy foreshadowing, at least it matters). Mysteries that feel like artificial speculation fodder are the sorts of things that turned people off from shows like LOST. There isn't enough about the Chandrian to really care about them, and the fact that Kvothe randomly seems not to care about them either is probably what loses you. It's entirely possible to have a three book series where there's a crucial mystery not revealed until the third book, but you have to have bought in and stayed in from the first two.
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Nov 5, 2016 21:22
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PJOmega posted:Wait these were written in grad school? It gets worse: He's an English professor at the University of Wisconsin.
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Nov 5, 2016 22:15
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Got a photo of one of his students going to class right here:
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Nov 6, 2016 00:56
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Evil Fluffy posted:It gets worse: He's an English professor at the University of Wisconsin. Scott Walker has done terrible things to our state. But seriously when I was an undergrad my creative writing TA strictly forbid genre fiction but then I saw he attended Stevens Point and I was like, "Ohhhh".
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Nov 6, 2016 05:18
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Atlas Hugged posted:Scott Walker has done terrible things to our state. TBF, while I (sorta) enjoy genre fiction for what it is, anyone looking to major in Creative Writing should avoid it like the plague. The fact that Rothfuss is a professor boggles my loving mind.
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Nov 6, 2016 08:43
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PJOmega posted:TBF, while I (sorta) enjoy genre fiction for what it is, anyone looking to major in Creative Writing should avoid it like the plague. Oh I totally agree.
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Nov 6, 2016 10:46
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PJOmega posted:TBF, while I (sorta) enjoy genre fiction for what it is, anyone looking to major in Creative Writing should avoid it like the plague. I'm getting a masters in Genre Fiction and it is awesome. There's a teaching aspect to it as well. Typical creative writing stuff. I just gave someone a D minus for starting three sentences in a row with dependent clauses and for ending their flash piece with the old "it was all a dream" twist.
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Nov 6, 2016 11:14
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BananaNutkins posted:I'm getting a masters in Genre Fiction and it is awesome. There's a teaching aspect to it as well. Typical creative writing stuff. I just gave someone a D minus for starting three sentences in a row with dependent clauses and for ending their flash piece with the old "it was all a dream" twist. You can give someone a D- for those? I'm not an english teacher, granted, but I always figured Ds were for stories that were aggressively poorly written (assuming Fs are for 'didnt do the assignment/turned in Mein Kampf''). A lack of variation in sentence style and reliance on old tropes is bad, yeah, but D- seems kind of harsh for what amounts to two common mistakes most writers make when they're starting out.
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Nov 6, 2016 18:45
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At Undergrad level, D- often means "turned something in, failed to follow any instructions." Have to imagine at graduate level D- is "you hosed up and made easy to avoid mistakes." Which makes sense. It shouldn't be the end of the world but it should be a strong indicator to fix your poo poo.
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Nov 6, 2016 19:06
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I like genre fiction as much as the next guy but it's bad for you when you're learning to write because it's too easy to let genre conventions make your story choices for you. The point of creative writing classes is to build your skills, not produce publishable work. When you ask yourself, okay, what should I write here, what direction should I take, what am I trying to get across with this, it doesn't do your development any good to be able to snap-decide because that's just what everyone does in Genre X. It's like lifting with free weights versus using a machine with a rigid track. Rothfuss has a similar problem in that instead of really asking himself what would make for a good story, he recognizes the conventional approach and then makes a big show of doing the opposite even if it's boring and makes no story sense. That said, it would be pretty dope if you could do a creative writing class on genre fiction where you have to use a genre style but you're only allowed to work with genres you're unfamilliar with or actively dislike to force you to break the conventions down and see how they function and then try to harness them to your own ends(assuming students would do it in good faith which seems unlikely)
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Nov 6, 2016 20:11
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:Rothfuss has a similar problem in that instead of really asking himself what would make for a good story, he recognizes the conventional approach and then makes a big show of doing the opposite even if it's boring and makes no story sense. for every deliberate fuckup like omitting the pirate thing, you get a bog-standard fantasy trope - dragon, magic school, parents-killed-by-bad-guy, 100% true and literal legends. About the only convention he fully subverts is actually having a plot.
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Nov 6, 2016 20:41
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I think he subverts the "being a feminist" thing by writing all of his female characters as some sort of sex bomb. Also the whole having a penis thing.
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Nov 6, 2016 21:03
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 I enjoy one writer who doesn't write liking a tweet about another writer who doesn't write
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Nov 6, 2016 23:34
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Solice Kirsk posted:Also the whole having a penis thing. Wait...are you implying that men can't be feminists?
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Nov 7, 2016 03:19
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jivjov posted:Wait...are you implying that men can't be feminists? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 7, 2016 03:39
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jivjov posted:Wait...are you implying that men can't be feminists? Honestly I'm not sure. I know men can sympathize and advocate for feminism, but I don't think they should claim to be one. Honestly I think it comes off as crass and a bit elitist. Like when a suburban white dude claims "I may be white, but my soul is black."
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Nov 7, 2016 04:18
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There's nothing wrong with men being feminists. It's gratifying when men stand with us. The problem with guys like Rothfuss is that they raise the wrong profile especially when they don't demonstrate a good understanding of women's issues. And then everyone looking at Rothfuss isn't looking at the feminists who are actually saying the worthwhile things. And then it snowballs and people think being a feminist means endorsing writers who put out rapey stories where male heroes grope child sex slaves. My point is that being a guy feminist is great. It's just that Rothfuss destroys everything he touches and is terrible. If you want to be a feminist just do everything opposite of Rothfuss.
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Nov 7, 2016 04:44
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Solice Kirsk posted:I know men can sympathize and advocate for feminism," I think that's the definition for being a feminist. Though then again I'm a dude so edit: though not understanding what feminism is is another thing. Flattened Spoon fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Nov 7, 2016 |
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Nov 7, 2016 04:53
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PJOmega posted:At Undergrad level, D- often means "turned something in, failed to follow any instructions." Oh man, you don't even know...those were just the first things that popped into my head. Rothfuss is Hemingway compared to undergrad submissions. No, you don't give D- for minor errors or bad twists, I was just being flippant.
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Nov 7, 2016 06:03
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CerealCrunch posted:Jesus Christ, you are retarded. Are ableist slurs really necessary? Solice Kirsk posted:Honestly I'm not sure. I know men can sympathize and advocate for feminism, but I don't think they should claim to be one. Honestly I think it comes off as crass and a bit elitist. Like when a suburban white dude claims "I may be white, but my soul is black." What prevents a man from believing that women should have equal rights and treatment? That's all feminism is.
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Nov 7, 2016 06:23
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There is a very lively and long-lived debate within the broader sphere of social justice and feminist philosophy about whether men should call themselves feminists or just "feminist allies." I doubt it's going to get solved in this thread. What would be cool and relevant is if jivjov would reply to my questions regarding Rothfuss' depictions of women. He seems to have forgotten about me. 
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Nov 7, 2016 08:02
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