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Mel Mudkiper posted:I mean, its not the labor that I am caught up on, its the narrative. I keep wanting to agree with you but then I remember I'm 2/3 through Terra Nostra (because of your recommendation, even) and this whole idea of "narrative" seems to have gone right out the window. Not that I'm complaining, mind. But I think I need a reader's guide.
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Nov 12, 2018 16:46
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:I have seen the light. they’re not 100% wrong. i don’t mind genre fiction. i’m sure it’s hard to stand out in the infinite ocean of fantasy novels. but the refusal to recognize flaws in the genre, to the point where literary criticism is rejected, that’s uhhhh kinda weird and troubling.
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Nov 12, 2018 16:46
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mdemone posted:I keep wanting to agree with you but then I remember I'm 2/3 through Terra Nostra (because of your recommendation, even) and this whole idea of "narrative" seems to have gone right out the window. Thats part of my point! Terra Nostra breaks down as a narrative after about 500 pages and that is 5% the length of The Wheel of Time It also helps to have a good breakdown in Spanish history so you recognize the characters
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Nov 12, 2018 16:47
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I mean I assume it's not a 10 000 page story, it's a 10 000 page framework where placeholdername goes to placeholderplace and defeats placeholdemonster and the story-story moves at a sub-glacial pace. Or maybe it's like say Rougon-Macquart which also ostensibly has a story
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Nov 12, 2018 16:48
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Serious answer: It's all fluff and padding. The Wheel of Time series wouldn't be even half as long without the multi-page descriptions of hair and trenchers and meadows; A Song of Ice and Fire would have been over ten years ago if A Feast for Crows hadn't blown hundreds of pages on people running around by themselves toward no resolution; The Kingkiller Chronicle is two novels deep into gently caress-all... there isn't exactly a mystery here. This is stuff that fantasy fans themselves bitch about. Hell, even the guy with the Super Mario Bros. 3 avatar flat-out said that Sanderson bulks his books up with worldbuilding detours away from the plot. I'm not sure of what else you're looking for here, Mel.
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Nov 12, 2018 16:49
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Ras Het posted:I mean I assume it's not a 10 000 page story, it's a 10 000 page framework where placeholdername goes to placeholderplace and defeats placeholdemonster and the story-story moves at a sub-glacial pace. Or maybe it's like say Rougon-Macquart which also ostensibly has a story I mean I feel like even then you would run out of substories around pg 3000 Sham bam bamina! posted:I'm not sure of what else you're looking for here, Mel. I guess its one of those things where I can conceive of a book being written that way but I cannot conceive how anyone would enjoy it or how an entire reader base could come from it if your narrative is drowned by a surge of empty text why read that book, and not say, something shorter and more meaningful
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Nov 12, 2018 16:53
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like, oh boy the new 800 page book full of tedious overlong descriptions and hundreds of pages of irrelevant fluff I can't wait
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Nov 12, 2018 16:56
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I guess its one of those things where I can conceive of a book being written that way but I cannot conceive how anyone would enjoy it or how an entire reader base could come from it Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 16:57
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Mel Mudkiper posted:like, oh boy the new 800 page book full of tedious overlong descriptions and hundreds of pages of irrelevant fluff i don't know if you've ever read Michael Chabon's The Wonder Boys but one of its few memorable bits consists of examining how a novel can bloat beyond the point of all reason if you whittle away at it long enough
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Nov 12, 2018 16:58
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Sham bam bamina! posted:It's not about meaning. It's specifically about wasting as much time as you can on as much "immersion" as possible. The one guy's example of the chair that you can just describe indefinitely because it makes the world more detailed wasn't exaggerating. it just seems so contrary to how I perceive of art in general that its like looking at a museum of alien works
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Nov 12, 2018 16:58
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More like Mel Gatekeeper.
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Nov 12, 2018 16:59
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Mel have you ever watched a TV show
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Nov 12, 2018 17:02
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Oxxidation posted:i don't know if you've ever read Michael Chabon's The Wonder Boys but one of its few memorable bits consists of examining how a novel can bloat beyond the point of all reason if you whittle away at it long enough Funny use of whittle
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Nov 12, 2018 17:03
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Lex Neville posted:Funny use of whittle i'm subversive that way, he said, cursing his phone's weird autocorrect of "while"
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Nov 12, 2018 17:03
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Ras Het posted:Mel have you ever watched a TV show Only when its complete and remained critically praised for its entire run I find serialized fiction to be deeply unpleasant
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Nov 12, 2018 17:03
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Only when its complete and remained critically praised for its entire run Well obviously soap operas don't exist in your leafy New England university world where jokes about library catalogue indexes are funny, but, well, they do exist elsewhere
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Nov 12, 2018 17:05
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Ras Het posted:Well obviously soap operas don't exist in your leafy New England university world where jokes about library catalogue indexes are funny, but, well, they do exist elsewhere Soap Operas aren't really a "narrative" though. I mean, they are a narrative in the sense that they are showing things happen, but they patently exist not to guide a story from beginning to end but to simply preserve their own existence
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Nov 12, 2018 17:09
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Soap Operas aren't really a "narrative" though.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:12
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Well, there you have it
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Nov 12, 2018 17:13
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Soap Operas aren't really a "narrative" though. True but the viewer-reader isn't expecting a "narrative" but whether he gets her or whether he gets to kill the dragon prince
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Nov 12, 2018 17:15
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Only when its complete and remained critically praised for its entire run that’s kinda weird too tbh
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Nov 12, 2018 17:15
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Sham bam bamina! posted:I swear you're actively playing dumb about this. not so much dumb as stubborn I am basically pointing at stories and stomping my foot demanding someone justify to me why these should count as stories Foul Fowl posted:that’s kinda weird too tbh Serialized stories don't exist for the journey but simply for the moment and I find that mentality to be counter to meaningful narrative
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Nov 12, 2018 17:16
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Like, I know a fantasy fan who dislikes books under 400 pages, because he thinks it's lazy not to come up with more stuff to keep up that price/hours of entertainment ratio. It's not about the most artful way of telling a story, it's about entertaining the reader in the ways that fantasy fans appreciate (which includes worldbuilding and descriptions of meadows).
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Nov 12, 2018 17:19
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Burning Rain posted:Like, I know a fantasy fan who dislikes books under 400 pages, because he thinks it's lazy not to come up with more stuff to keep up that price/hours of entertainment ratio. It's not about the most artful way of telling a story, it's about entertaining the reader in the ways that fantasy fans appreciate (which includes worldbuilding and descriptions of meadows). Yeah there is a real sort of content/cost ratio in some of the responses that seems insane to me I couldn't imagine relating the length of a piece of art to its cost
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Nov 12, 2018 17:21
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Serialized stories don't exist for the journey but simply for the moment and I find that mentality to be counter to meaningful narrative tons of novels were serialized initially, including most of joyce, faulkner, dickens, etc
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Nov 12, 2018 17:21
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Look at the word. Fantasy. It's about escapism, not actually saying anything. The ideal fantasy novel is indefinite pages of procedurally generated content with enough incident to keep the reader occupied indefinitely with the content.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:22
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Foul Fowl posted:tons of novels were serialized initially, including most of joyce, faulkner, dickens, etc I mean that was a different sort of serialization than the modern form, and even then I only read them as a completed work anyways Sham bam bamina! posted:Look at the word. Fantasy. It's about escapism, not actually saying anything. The ideal fantasy novel is indefinite pages of procedurally generated content with enough incident to keep the reader occupied indefinitely with the content. ew
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Nov 12, 2018 17:23
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How was it different? (genuinely)
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Nov 12, 2018 17:26
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Burning Rain posted:Like, I know a fantasy fan who dislikes books under 400 pages, because he thinks it's lazy not to come up with more stuff to keep up that price/hours of entertainment ratio. The concept of public library must be foreign to these people. Millions and millions of pages for close to no money.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:28
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Lex Neville posted:How was it different? (genuinely) from what I understood, the serialization of old fiction was done with the understanding that we were seeing a story in progress working its way to a conclusion. Sure, things may change and the writer may come up with new ideas, but the narrative vision of the story remained intact. For example, Great Expectations had two different endings and all, but Dickens earlier notes about the work showed that he had a firm idea of what his story would become even before he began to serialize it. In that case, we are seeing a coherent vision become complete step by step. I am ok with that. Modern serialization, like most tv shows, comics, etc. is more about the continuation of the narrative at all costs. It is not working to an end because an end is seen as death. Instead it works so that it might simply continue to exist. Like think about The Walking Dead tv show. What is the narrative of that show? There isn't one. It is simply events happening in the hope enough people watch the events happen so that they can make more episodes where more events happen. Like, imagine if Dickens got to the house burning down in Great Expectations but then decided that now Miss Havisham didn't die but instead faked her death so he could write another 800 pages Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 17:32
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Fair enough. I was going to say that there definitely were cases of publishers pushing writers to puff up a serialized work here and there in order to add an extra installment - or writers doing so of their own volition - to make more money. But yours is a valid distinction
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Nov 12, 2018 17:37
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Sham bam bamina! posted:I swear you're actively playing dumb about this. Playing
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Nov 12, 2018 17:37
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That's part of what makes TV a distinct narrative medium, though, and one where great failures are in some ways more interesting than great successes. Not necessarily artistically, but people who watch TV for art are bigger idiots than the normal person who hasn't fallen for the Prestige scam yet
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Nov 12, 2018 17:37
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Mystery Science Theater 3000 is the truest art, actually.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:40
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Ras Het posted:That's part of what makes TV a distinct narrative medium, though, and one where great failures are in some ways more interesting than great successes. Not necessarily artistically, but people who watch TV for art are bigger idiots than the normal person who hasn't fallen for the Prestige scam yet well sure but thats why i only watch tv shows when they are complete and critically praised. I learned my lesson from Dexter when I realized at the end of season 4 that the show was doomed.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:40
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Oh man the serial killer who kills other serial killers had you fooled
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Nov 12, 2018 17:41
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Excuse me friends but the chair was only brought up a little over a page ago and i'm not quite ready to move on to tv shows yet
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Nov 12, 2018 17:42
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Mel Mudkiper posted:from what I understood, the serialization of old fiction was done with the understanding that we were seeing a story in progress working its way to a conclusion. Sure, things may change and the writer may come up with new ideas, but the narrative vision of the story remained intact. i realize that there is a distinction of course, but broadly speaking trying to determine what is or isn't a story or a narrative is basically impossible. i mean i don't watch serialized tv so it's not like i disagree, but at the same time i don't think there's any intellectual high ground to be gained by comparing how much of a narrative something is, or isn't.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:57
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Foul Fowl posted:i don't think there's any intellectual high ground to be gained by comparing how much of a narrative something is, or isn't. its not so much intellectual high ground as artistic high ground tbh
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Nov 12, 2018 18:00
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Mel in bad ideas about literary merit shocker
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Nov 12, 2018 18:02
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