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Brainworm posted:But there's a non-obvious reason that these books might get worse: a well-told story relies on highly-technical but natural-feeling relationships between characters and what most people call "setting." It's hard to overstate how important, and how deliberate, those relationships are. You can't just take a set of characters, set them up with a new adventure, and expect to write a story worth reading. Hi, Brainworm! I've been thinking on and re-reading your earlier post quoted above, and it resonated with what I felt about some sequels I've read. Specifically, The Lies of Locke Lamora, a beautiful novel, was followed by rather disappointing sequels. Though they inherited the same main character, they did not inherit any of the setting, which was a major part of the first novel's charm, and made the main character tick - he was defined by his relationship to the setting, and taken out, became a generic con man rather than a living being. But what about stories which are intended to be serialised? I suppose in modern day, such storytelling happens in episodic TV shows, e.g. "House MD" has to be formulaic, because in hospital, the main character is a brilliant curmudgeon doctor ultimately saving lives, but in any other situation he's just a generic rear end in a top hat. Historically, some novels were also written in a serialised manner. I'm thinking perhaps Three Musketeers, or Dickens' Pickwick Papers, or Rabelais' Gargantua / Pantagruel cycle, perhaps? How do authors create characters and situations for such storytelling? Are these characters doomed to be static or have to live out a Groundhog Day scenario, where each story's circumstances are the same as the last?
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Nov 26, 2020 17:28
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 19:57 |
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My son took part in his school class's production of Tempest, and played the role of Stephano with gusto. I've not watched or read this play previously (just picked up some quotes by cultural osmosis), so was quite surprised to see that whilst the rest of the class were pretending to be fighting against the storm, my son was waving his water bottle around, and stumbling like Captain Jack Sparrow. This led me to wonder - did Shakespeare do anything interesting with "comic relief" characters in otherwise serious plays? Was he just following the standards of the time, or was he doing something clever or ground-breaking with them?
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Aug 10, 2023 16:32
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