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Atlas Hugged posted:It just makes me wonder how one guy can be so absurdly prolific but others can barely manage more than blog posts. It's kind of weird that you don't understand that different people write at different rates. Like, there's not some factory making GBS threads out writers that are carbon copies of each other, except one gets the "urban fantasy" program card while another gets the "epic fantasy" program card and so on, such that different speeds should be looked at as bugs. Some dudes take a while to write things. Some guys that are usually pretty quick with the turnaround can get slowed down by life, for both good and ill. And some guys decide they like being a famous writer more than actually writing, so they effectively just stop writing and instead make playing cards based on their IP.
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Aug 20, 2017 03:44
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Atlas Hugged posted:Thinking about these fantasy writers who just can't seem to finish their work, it got me thinking about MZD and his planned 27 volume series, The Familiar. He's written 5 so far, each at 880 pages, and he's been publishing about 2 a year. I haven't read them myself so I can't say if they're garbage, but I did read House of Leaves which is a goon favorite I think so I doubt they're awful. It just makes me wonder how one guy can be so absurdly prolific but others can barely manage more than blog posts. Look at Sanderson. He's basically the anti-Rothfuss/GRRM. Aside from being a printing press wrapped in human skin, the amount of interaction and information he gives people about his progress on everything he's writing is pretty great.
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Aug 20, 2017 04:02
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Ornamented Death posted:It's kind of weird that you don't understand that different people write at different rates. Like, there's not some factory making GBS threads out writers that are carbon copies of each other, except one gets the "urban fantasy" program card while another gets the "epic fantasy" program card and so on, such that different speeds should be looked at as bugs. Perhaps if you're not good at writing you shouldn't be a writer.
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Aug 20, 2017 04:07
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Evil Fluffy posted:Look at Sanderson. He's basically the anti-Rothfuss/GRRM. Aside from being a printing press wrapped in human skin, the amount of interaction and information he gives people about his progress on everything he's writing is pretty great. That's what I wish GRRM and Rothfuss did. I understand it gets tiring being asked constantly what his progress is but it would be refreshing if they were as open as Sanderson about updates. Even if it's saying he's stuck on a plot point or something. Just some sort of acknowledgement.
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Aug 20, 2017 04:10
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Atlas Hugged posted:Perhaps if you're not good at writing you shouldn't be a writer. I mean, yeah that's probably true, but the rate at which you release books generally has very little bearing on the quality of those books. Again, some writers can release good books on an annual basis, and some need several years to write a good book.
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Aug 20, 2017 04:10
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Confer posted:That's what I wish GRRM and Rothfuss did. I understand it gets tiring being asked constantly what his progress is but it would be refreshing if they were as open as Sanderson about updates. Even if it's saying he's stuck on a plot point or something. Just some sort of acknowledgement. GRRM doesn't have a progress bar like Sanderson, but he was fairly open about his problems in writing Dance and why it took so long. He's mentioned that he originally wanted a time jump of some years because he hosed up early on and made the Stark children too young, but the time jump never worked out so he basically had to rewrite the book. He also took a long time arriving at the Barristan solution to his POV problem in Mereen itself. But once he had that figured out, the book was wrapped up quickly I feel. You got the impression from reading the blog that it was right around the corner and then suddenly it was released. With Winds of Winter he's been a lot quieter these 6 years. All we know is that he keeps missing his estimated finishing dates and it gets dragged out. Ornamented Death posted:I mean, yeah that's probably true, but the rate at which you release books generally has very little bearing on the quality of those books. Again, some writers can release good books on an annual basis, and some need several years to write a good book. If the writing is really good, then waiting isn't a big deal. The problem is that often the writing is bad to mediocre and nothing gets resolved. This is basically what happened with Wheel of Time before he went into crunch mode at the end to try and finish before dying (and still had to hand the incomplete final book(s) to Brandon Sanderson). It would probably be better for someone like Rothfuss to publish a handful of standalone novels before diving into a multi volume epic. But GRRM did that and he stills takes for loving ever to write ASoIaF and he has all the same structure and pacing problems that you'd expect out of a novice writer. Just how many of these guys started out by saying, "I'm going to write a trilogy (because that's what Tolkien did)," and then realized that there's no way for them to fit all of their contrived plots into three succinct novels and then they completely lose control of the series? I think Sanderson is the only guy who is actually going to pull it off, but I get the feeling he meticulously outlines and very mechanically details his plots before he starts writing. GRRM for instance has come out saying he doesn't really work off an outline. He just writes and sees what happens. And welp.
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Aug 20, 2017 06:04
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Atlas Hugged posted:I think Sanderson is the only guy who is actually going to pull it off, but I get the feeling he meticulously outlines and very mechanically details his plots before he starts writing. GRRM for instance has come out saying he doesn't really work off an outline. He just writes and sees what happens. I wonder if this is one of the reasons that his initial plans of the time gap didn't work out like he wanted. He didn't leave his characters in a position that allowed the time gap to take place without having a lot of backtracking via flashbacks. I wonder if it was entirely due to not planning correctly or just an oversight on how challenging / clunky it would be.
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Aug 20, 2017 06:10
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Confer posted:I wonder if this is one of the reasons that his initial plans of the time gap didn't work out like he wanted. He didn't leave his characters in a position that allowed the time gap to take place without having a lot of backtracking via flashbacks. I wonder if it was entirely due to not planning correctly or just an oversight on how challenging / clunky it would be. He has said that the original version of what became Feast/Dance really was just a bunch of flashbacks and that was super unsatisfying. The TV show has used flashbacks on occasion, but the books really don't. The closest we get is Bran and the Three-eyed Raven looking through trees. I wonder if that's what the original manuscript was going to be like? A whole lot of Bran watching other people do things? In any case, I think it's certainly because he didn't plan or realize how the story was going to play out before he got halfway through it. You'll notice in the show, the Stark children are all just a few years older than their book counterparts.
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Aug 20, 2017 06:19
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Please pump out a solid stream of books with no regard for their quality please it's what the literary world, especially the SF/F part of that world needs
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Aug 20, 2017 06:46
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Lightning Lord posted:Please pump out a solid stream of books with no regard for their quality please it's what the literary world, especially the SF/F part of that world needs I mean, if the stuff they were releasing at 1 book every never was a masterpiece you might have a point, but as it stands this stuff is all garbage anyway. They might as well just crank out the endings so the narrative can be concluded.
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Aug 20, 2017 07:17
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Atlas Hugged posted:Perhaps if you're not good at writing you shouldn't be a writer.
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Aug 20, 2017 14:07
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anilEhilated posted:Thing is, GRRM used to write good stuff. It's just that no one remembers because of ASoIaF. What are some of his good books besides ASoIaF then? I could use something to read while I wait on all these other books
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Aug 20, 2017 16:15
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Confer posted:What are some of his good books besides ASoIaF then? I could use something to read while I wait on all these other books 
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Aug 20, 2017 16:36
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Basically pick up any of his short story collections. The quality isn't consistent but there should be something pretty good in every one. My personal favorite are the Haviland Tuf stories; if you only know his later work you'll find it hard to believe GRRM wrote something that chill.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:56
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anilEhilated posted:Basically pick up any of his short story collections. The quality isn't consistent but there should be something pretty good in every one. Those are my favorites too, you'll usually find them as a collection named "Tuf Voyaging". Other than that, I remember really liking Nightflyers and Sandkings.
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Aug 20, 2017 23:53
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I'll check them out! I'm always down for a good short story.
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Aug 21, 2017 00:47
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I wish he'd go back to writing classics like Wildcards.
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Aug 21, 2017 01:57
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Khizan posted:Those are my favorites too, you'll usually find them as a collection named "Tuf Voyaging". Other than that, I remember really liking Nightflyers and Sandkings. Sandkings no-poo poo scarred me. I read it when I was like 7 or 8 in my folks' Omni magazine short story collection and it made me afraid to sleep by myself for something like 4 years. It blew my mind when I reread it as an adult and noticed it was written by GRRM himself.
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Aug 22, 2017 00:28
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Atlas Hugged posted:Just how many of these guys started out by saying, "I'm going to write a trilogy (because that's what Tolkien did)," and then realized that there's no way for them to fit all of their contrived plots into three succinct novels and then they completely lose control of the series? I think Sanderson is the only guy who is actually going to pull it off, but I get the feeling he meticulously outlines and very mechanically details his plots before he starts writing. GRRM for instance has come out saying he doesn't really work off an outline. He just writes and sees what happens. This might also partly be an industry issue. Genre publishers want sequels. I bet a lot more half decent genre first parters get published than standalone novels. I always felt that anything China Miéville has written could be stand alone, he maybe only wrote two more Bas Lag books because he was asked to. I have nothing to back this up.
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Aug 22, 2017 19:26
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Maybe Robert Howard got it right. Every book set in the same world, no story connecting them.
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Aug 23, 2017 00:23
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Which is more infuriating/stupid, Harry Potter magic or this stuff? Harry Potter is more like a cosmic power they never use to alleviate human suffering. Patty's has the concept of energy conservation, but the most useful items for export we encounter are an elevator and a pager.
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Aug 23, 2017 09:48
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my fantasy novel is called elfkind's lament and it's about a man with a double-bladed penis that he uses to slay critics of his sensitive brother's poetry
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Aug 23, 2017 11:53
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Does it matter? Rowling uses it to tell entertaining stories, Rothfuss uses it to write... this. Nitpicking over the magic system feels kinda pointless when there are so many more obvious flaws.
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Aug 23, 2017 11:56
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Rothfart made magic boring, though, by continually lecturing us about the laws of thermodynamics. We get the same loving explanation of sympathy like three different times in each book.
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Aug 23, 2017 13:12
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anilEhilated posted:Does it matter? Rowling uses it to tell entertaining stories, Rothfuss uses it to write... this. Nitpicking over the magic system feels kinda pointless when there are so many more obvious flaws. Now, now. Rothfuss's stories are also entertaining. His work is just devoid of literary merit.
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Aug 23, 2017 13:14
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ChickenWing posted:Now, now. Rothfuss's stories are also entertaining. They're very much not. Notice that despite having so much time, no fan of the books has managed to state why the books are entertaining. People like them because they're bad, like with Rowling's stories.
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Aug 23, 2017 14:10
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Malpais Legate posted:Rothfart made magic boring, though, by continually lecturing us about the laws of thermodynamics. We get the same loving explanation of sympathy like three different times in each book. I personally love the way sympathy is explained. Maybe I'm slow and enjoy "terrible" literature but having a 'magic' system explained so thoroughly was nice
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Aug 23, 2017 14:26
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Malpais Legate posted:Rothfart made magic boring, though, by continually lecturing us about the laws of thermodynamics. We get the same loving explanation of sympathy like three different times in each book. I actually like sympathy as it is, but yeah, he goes out of his way to over-explain it. Kvhote, despite being a quick learner and functional master of sympathy, is somehow fascinated at a bell that rings another bell in another room. Then, like a weird nerd, explains how it works to the girl that he likes, even though she isn't interested in sympathy. I think him over-explaining Kvothe's sympathy is some weird attempt to get out in front of hyper-nerds who will try to call out certain examples as done wrong or something.
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Aug 23, 2017 14:26
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:They're very much not. Notice that despite having so much time, no fan of the books has managed to state why the books are entertaining. I don't know, I feel like they are entertaining... until you stop and think about them. Kinda like the second Star Trek reboot movie. You are like, that was a fun action movie... then you think for 2 minutes and are like, wait... Klingon and Earth are way to close together... and then its just to the races with wow they really gently caress that up things.
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Aug 23, 2017 14:33
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SpacePig posted:I actually like sympathy as it is, but yeah, he goes out of his way to over-explain it. Kvhote, despite being a quick learner and functional master of sympathy, is somehow fascinated at a bell that rings another bell in another room. Then, like a weird nerd, explains how it works to the girl that he likes, even though she isn't interested in sympathy. Denna is interested in sympathy though...there's a whole sequence in the Eolian of her asking Kvothe, Wil, and Sim to explain sympathy in more detail. And the bit with the bell has her specifically saying "I have no idea how it works", prompting Kvothe to explain it. jivjov fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Aug 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2017 14:36
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The bell was siguldry or whatever.
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Aug 23, 2017 14:41
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Pash posted:I don't know, I feel like they are entertaining... until you stop and think about them. Kinda like the second Star Trek reboot movie. You are like, that was a fun action movie... then you think for 2 minutes and are like, wait... Klingon and Earth are way to close together... and then its just to the races with wow they really gently caress that up things. The 2nd Star Trek reboot movie opens with an enormous spaceship rising from the water and breaking out of the orbit of an ostensibly Earth-sized planet by using its thrusters, so luckily it didn't give me the time to try and view it as a real science fiction movie. Just an action movie using Star Trek as a dressing. jivjov posted:Denna is interested in sympathy though...there's a whole sequence in the Eolian of her asking Kvothe, Wil, and Sim to explain sympathy in more detail. And the but with the bell has her specifically saying "I have no idea how it works", prompting Kvothe to explain it. I really don't remember a lot about this book, then, because I don't remember her asking about any specifics about sympathy. My bad.
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Aug 23, 2017 14:44
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I like how dumb and incredulous the trio was at the Eolian when she asked about writing magic. We know that he knows that he was an idiot and it probably relates to her search for the chandrian.
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Aug 23, 2017 14:52
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:They're very much not. Notice that despite having so much time, no fan of the books has managed to state why the books are entertaining. A bad thing can be entertaining. I didn't watch all three Expendables movies because they were the height of film expression. Also, we've definitely described why we find NotW entertaining. Your ask iirc was to describe what made them good, and to find examples of good writing.
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Aug 23, 2017 15:04
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ChickenWing posted:Also, we've definitely described why we find NotW entertaining. Yes that was indeed your failure.
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Aug 23, 2017 15:14
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Yes that was indeed your failure. sure
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Aug 23, 2017 15:23
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A: Yeah, this book is really fun! B: It seems bad. What parts do you mean? A: Well there are fun parts. B: LIke what? A There are parts that I find fun! B: Which ones? A: They're fun books!
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Aug 23, 2017 15:33
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Confer posted:I personally love the way sympathy is explained. Maybe I'm slow and enjoy "terrible" literature but having a 'magic' system explained so thoroughly was nice I have a difficult time both writing and reading fantasy because of this. Reading-wise, I don't like super-explained magic systems. I don't want the magic taken out of the magic, y'know? I sort of make an exception for books like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell--it does spend tons of time on the intricacies of the magic the characters perform, but it does so without ever actually explaining anything (in that case, because it's often unexplainable and/or the characters themselves have no idea what they're really doing). It's why I'm not really interested in reading any of the Brandon Sanderson novels people recommend, because one of their selling points are the detailed, thoroughly-explored systems he designs for magic. That's not what I want in "magic." But when I write? I can't loving help myself. For some reason, I feel like I can't write magic without establishing all sort of ground rules or it won't be narratively satisfying. I've pulled it off a few times, mostly by keeping the magic out of the hands of any point-of-view character, so it's just something mysterious they see other people do, but if I'm writing from the point-of-view of someone who can do magic, I can't stop thinking about how it works. I take the magic out of it for myself. Weirdly, that works fine for games--when I'm writing tabletop games or settings, well-explained magic systems actually help ground the rules, so that particular weakness becomes a strength. With fiction, though, I'm trying now to stick to science fiction if I write speculative fiction at all, because with science fiction, having a super-clear vision of the mechanics of things (and explaining it effectively) is sort of a key part of the genre.
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Aug 23, 2017 15:38
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Harrow posted:I have a difficult time both writing and reading fantasy because of this. lol Please tell us all about your D&D novel.
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Aug 23, 2017 15:41
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SpacePig posted:I actually like sympathy as it is, but yeah, he goes out of his way to over-explain it. Kvhote, despite being a quick learner and functional master of sympathy, is somehow fascinated at a bell that rings another bell in another room. Then, like a weird nerd, explains how it works to the girl that he likes, even though she isn't interested in sympathy. The bit where Kvothe almost freezes all his blood to light a candle is pretty cool. Mostly for the idea of wizards literally drawing off the energy in their bodies to drive their magic. When Le Guin has her hero engage in reckless magic to prove his superiority, it costs a man his life, and overcoming that childlike selfihsness is a huge part of what drives him for the rest of the novel. Kvothe just needs a mug of tea and a blanket.
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Aug 23, 2017 15:45
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