Author: JennyDetroit (Page 47 of 51)

Television and the Art of Plot: Why TV’s Game of Thrones is now better than the books

April 28, 2015 / / 0 Comments

I feel like George R.R. Martin should know better. He used to write for television, after all. And yet his A Song of Ice and Fire books have gotten more bloated, more meandering, and more convoluted as the series has progressed. He’s added dozens of new characters (that detract from the old characters that we are already invested in), created new plot threads even as old ones haven’t been resolved, and succumbed to the ever-bloated “world building” of riverboat rides, turtles, and copious amounts of dysentery. It’s like he’s completely forgotten the lessons learned from writing for television.

Here’s the thing: television writers (and movie writers too) know how to plot (even if they don’t always write the most original of plots). In the classes and workshops I’ve attended for TV writing, one of the biggest lessons we learned was how to plot out an episode of a television show. Before one line of dialogue or description is written, the entire episode is planned out — from A story to B, C, and D story. Act breaks are planned, even if the show doesn’t air with commercials. And the basic structure of three or four or five act storytelling is employed. We build the individual beats of the story before we even begin writing the script. And we move beats around, add beats, take out beats, revise beats — all in an effort to build a scaffold before filling it in with the “guts” (i.e.: character, description, dialogue, theme). It’s not that character takes a backseat in TV writing — on the contrary, television is actually ideal for telling a character-based story — but TV writers know that they only have 60 minutes (or 48, or 22, or whatever) to tell the story, and they have to make sure that the storylines are balanced, that the episode will have dramatic moments balanced out with smaller character moments, that the storylines will all have some kind of thematic or plot-driven cohesion. To see all of this illustrated, look no further than Game of Thrones season 5.

I’ve enjoyed the Game of Thrones TV show since it debuted, but it wasn’t until season 4 that I really felt the show began to surpass the books. Not to beat up on Martin too much (he did, after all, create this amazing world and these endlessly fascinating characters), but I think somewhere around A Feast for Crows, he lost the threads of his narrative. I’ve read all five books, and I’m sure I will continue to read the other books as they come out, but I’m not as heavily invested in the novels as I once was. The TV show, on the other hand, is pretty much “can’t miss” TV for me at this point. With The Americans done for the season, Game of Thrones is my “IT” show. And I am LOVING season 5 and the new developments in the stories of some of its characters.

In the books, Sansa and Littlefinger are in the Vale, awaiting Sansa’s marriage to Harry the Heir. In the books, Arya is being trained by some priest of the faceless men. In the books, Tyrion is traveling all over Essos and *almost* running into Dany… but not quite. In the books, minor character Jeyne Poole is betrothed to Ramsay Bolton. In the books, Jaime is hanging out in the Riverlands, being Jaime. And Brienne? She’s having a run-in with Lady Stoneheart. Meanwhile, we’ve got a slew of new characters — from the smelly Greyjoy brothers and their smelly, stupid drowned god, to useless Quentyn Martell, to Jon Connington and Griff and who the hell else I don’t even know or care — and there are, like, a million more minor and side and supporting characters and everything is getting huge and complicated and very sprawling.

But the show has wisely decided to cut storylines like Lady Stoneheart, the Greyjoy bros, and Quentyn Martell. They’ve wisely decided to start bringing storylines TOGETHER as opposed to expanding them in a never-ending spider’s web of convoluted red herrings (and new characters we have no connection to). Instead, the show has decided to bring its already-huge cast of characters together in new and interesting ways. And not surprisingly, when these characters, whom we’ve watched develop over four seasons, are brought together in situations wrought with conflict, very compelling drama ensues. For example, it makes so much sense to have Jaqen be the one to train Arya. After all, she already has a connection to him, they have a history, so now her scenes are filled with great interplay between two characters who have a history together. Same with Tyrion traveling with Varys. We already know and love these characters, so now we get to see them as they encounter new conflicts and obstacles. And we have a connection to both of them.

Of course, the biggest change in the show this season has been the Sansa storyline, and it is perhaps the most dramatic and compelling storyline as well. Instead of Sansa and Littlefinger interacting with a slew of new characters we have no history with, they are thrust right in the middle of a crazy situation involving characters we already love and hate. Sansa is in the North again. She IS Lady Stark. “The North remembers.” Theon is there. Will he rescue her? Will Ramsay treat her with the same sadistic violence he has used on others? Will Littlefinger use this marriage to overthrow the Boltons and claim the North for himself (through Sansa)? Will Stannis attack and “rescue” Sansa? Or will Brienne? Or will Brienne pretend to join Stannis’s army in order to get close to him and exact her revenge?

By putting all of these characters in intersecting storylines, we’re getting the most drama from the situation. The TV writers are pulling the characters and stories together, as opposed to Martin’s method of pulling everything further and further apart. And it’s because TV writers know that part of the reason we enjoy stories is so we can follow our favorite characters through their trials and tribulations. From a storytelling standpoint, it makes sense to have these character interact WITH EACH OTHER as opposed to strangers. And it’s economical storytelling too. It keeps things from getting out of hand and the plot getting too bloated. And of course, from a practical standpoint, it saves the show from hiring new actors to play new characters. Game of Thrones already has a huge cast for a TV show; there’s no way they could continue to have all the new characters Martin introduces every book. And yet, this practicality is precisely why the show’s plot has transformed into a better story than the one in the books. At a certain point, the story needs to contract, it needs to reach climaxes, it needs to explode with drama. The TV show is doing this. And my guess is it’s doing this because the show writers sat down before the season and plotted out how they could tell the story in the limited time and episodes they had. They figured out the best, most economical way to get all these characters together, interacting, having conflict, and moving the story forward. In other words, figuring out the plot. Writing the beats.

Martin is famously (or infamously, depending on your point of view) a “gardener.” He doesn’t plan, he simply writes. He tends his garden of words and characters and plot lines, but doesn’t have a detailed outline or master-plan. His method is the exact opposite of how most TV shows are written. Television can’t afford to just make it up as they go along; they must have a plan before shooting starts, and that means writing beats and outlining the story. Actors have to be hired; sets have to be constructed and locations chosen. All these very real, very practical concerns are a boon to the TV writer because now she must plan ahead. And that’s why everyone is converging on Winterfell this season on Game of Thrones. They already have the set. They already have the actors. Why not put them together in an explosive, dramatic situation and watch the story unfold? And frankly, it’s a better story than the one Martin is currently writing.

I am a firm believer in not turning novels and stories into imitations of TV and movie scripts. I don’t want every book to read like it’s the treatment for a future movie deal. But when it comes to plotting, to story structure, to the core elements that make a story work, TV and film writers often have that stuff in their bones. They marinate in that stuff. They are *trained* to analyze how plot works and how stories can be told in a sufficient amount of time.

Novels and short stories don’t have to worry about the time constraints of TV and film (and theatre!), but I still think fiction writers can learn something from their dramatist cousins. New cities and new locations and new characters may contribute to the “world building” in a novel, but at a certain point, I as the reader do not want never-ending world building. I want drama. I want conflict. And I want it with the characters I care about, the characters I’ve already established a bond with, the characters I’m invested in. Those who write for the dramatic arts (TV, film, theatre) understand this. Novelists should understand this too.

Writing and Revision: Have I Been Following (and giving) the Wrong Advice?

April 18, 2015 / / 0 Comments

I teach high school English, so of course, I give a lot of writing advice to my students. It’s my job, after all, to teach young people how to write. And for years, I’ve passed on the two “golden rules” of writing, the same essential words of wisdom that I learned from my own mentors: 1. All rough drafts suck, and 2.) Writing is rewriting.

And yet… When I think of some of my best writing — the stuff that soared and sang from my pen and felt true from the first word — much of it came fully formed on the first draft, with only a few minor touches and polishes coming afterward in the editing phase. If I’m totally honest with myself, my rough drafts didn’t suck at all. In fact, they were usually right on the mark. The only revision I really needed to do was clean up some prose, fix a few grammar issues, maybe add a line or two here or there, and cut out a few extraneous bits. But the works themselves — whether essay, poem, story, or article — were anything but sucky. And those times when the first draft truly was bad, even in revision, I couldn’t fix it all that much. There is one time — and only one time — when I remember revising an essay multiple times and making it really good.

So I’m not saying revision or editing are bad things. I have had to polish and do minor edits on most everything I’ve written. But the whole “first draft is crappy” thing? I’m kinda not buying it (at least not in my case). In my case, if the first draft is bad, it’s a sign I need to write a new draft, not try to revise the bad one. It’s a sign that something was off about that first try, and that the way to go is to give it ANOTHER try, not try to polish something that’s no good.

What’s got me thinking about all of this is my decision to start the Thirteen Treasures of Britain over from scratch. There were too many things in the first draft that I didn’t like, that didn’t work. Instead of trying to patch the first draft into a Frankenstein’s monster of a story, I decided to simply start over, to write the whole thing new from the beginning. Perhaps this IS a form of revision, but for me, it doesn’t feel like revision; it feels like a new start, a new story. And this story, this new creation, is already much better than the old one. Yes, I will still need to edit and polish, but this time, I won’t be working with a sucky draft. I’ll be working with a draft that soared and sang and felt true from the first word.

Realigning my thinking when it comes to drafts and revisions means that I’m not forcing myself to write everyday. I check in with my draft nearly everyday — reading bits here and there, adding or changing things as needed, keeping my enthusiasm and imagination charged — but I don’t feel required to plop down 250 words at the end of the night after the baby’s in bed and I’m tired from the day’s work. Because those 250 dead-eyed, zonked-out words are usually crap, and when I read them the next day, I end up deleting them all. What good are 250 words if they’re totally irredeemable?

So I don’t write everyday. I write when I feel fresh. When I have a good chunk of time to devote to thinking. When the story is clicking. And if the story isn’t clicking, if the effort feels strained, if I’m writing garbage, I stop. And I come back to it another day. I try a different chapter or a different type of writing. I don’t force things, because when I force things, I end up with a lot of splintered and broken things. And there’s no way for me to fix something once it’s splintered.

If this seems like I’m breaking the number one rule of writers (i.e.: write everyday), then yes, I’m breaking that rule. What can I say? I’m a rebel. I always have been, so why change now? I tried the conventional “write everyday,” “first drafts suck,” “don’t get it right, get it written,” and frankly, those conventional ways don’t work for me. And perhaps that’s the point of this post. When it comes to writing, there is no ONE way of doing anything.

The Continuing Adventures of a Writer (and mom)

March 18, 2015 / / 0 Comments

I thought my initial goals were realistic. 1,000 words a day. No big. Totally doable. My work as a high school teacher is only part-time, so finding a way to write 1,000 words a day should be easy, right? I only have one child (currently), and she can’t even walk yet, so 1,000 words should be no problem, am I right? I’ve written 1,000 words in an hour before, so finding the time to do it over the course of eight hours should be easy-peasy, shouldn’t it?

In one word: No.

No, apparently I can’t have nice things. Apparently, there are days when I simply cannot get the time to sit down and crank out 1,000 words. Either the essays I have to grade are piling up, the yearbook pages have to be approved and submitted to the publisher (before our ever-approaching deadline), there’s school paperwork I need to file and complete, there’s food I need to make for the baby, there’s laundry to do, or cleaning to do, or I need to shop for the baby’s Easter dress, or we’re running out of food and I need to go to the grocery store, or… I do have an hour of peace when the Noodle finally takes a nap, but by the time I pee, make a cup of coffee, read what I wrote yesterday, start to get ideas for what to write today, and then start writing a few halting, awkward words, the baby is up again. On a GOOD day, I can manage maybe 400 or 500 words. On a middling day, I can hit 300. But on most days, I manage zero.

There’s too much life piling up around me to find that elusive creature known as Regular Writing Time. I struggle to write well when I’m writing in fits and starts throughout the day, sneaking in a word or two while the sweet little Noodle is occupied for five minutes by her Winnie the Pooh toy. But trying to set aside a nice, two-hour chunk of time is pretty much impossible.

I’ve read about moms who have three or more kids running around (all under 5 years old), and they somehow manage to feed their kids organic gourmet meals, play educational games with them all day (and never plop them in front of the television), and yet somehow still manage to make a living as working writers. I think these women are liars. There’s no way. I only have one child and I can barely manage it. I can’t imagine it gets any easier with more (and I do plan to have more).

What about this blog post? you ask. Didn’t I somehow magically find the time to write this blog post? Yes, yes I did. But I don’t really care about this blog post. It’s just a tossed-off rant that requires very little brain power to compose; it doesn’t have a complex structure or dialogue or characters or imagery or any of the other more difficult skills that need to be utilized when writing fiction. I can do a blog post like this in fifteen minutes, tops. And I can do it without thinking. So if the Noodle is clawing at my knee while I’m doing it, it’s no big deal.

But if I’m trying to write the next chapter of my novel and I need to actually THINK about what I’m doing, then the Noodle’s claws and boops and bips and bops are much more distracting. And I can’t write 1,000 words in 15 minutes.

What this all means is that stay-at-home moms who write have to scale back their expectations. At least this stay-at-home mom does. (Also, I technically work part-time, and it’s a job — teaching — that requires a lot of extra work at home, i.e.: grading.)

So there are moments in my life when “Write every day” is just not happening. It’s not because I’m not disciplined. It’s not because I don’t love to write. It’s not because I have writer’s block. It’s simply because there are a lot more needs that need to be addressed before my writing.

I have to admit, it’s disappointing. I wish I could just wake up and write for two hours before work and then the rest of my days can be spent goofing around and going to the library or the zoo with my baby (and occasionally cleaning the house). But since I already have to get up at 6 a.m. for work, getting up at 4 a.m. is an impossibility. Seriously. It is never going to happen.

So my expectations are being lowered. Instead of writing and publishing two books this year and writing the rough draft of a third, along with a pilot script for a T.V. show, maybe I’ll just write one book (and maybe the rough draft of another). And maybe I’ll just outline that pilot script (and write the actual script next year). Maybe I’ll just have to be slow and (slightly) steady.

It’s not how I planned but maybe there’s something cool in flying by the seat of my pants. I’ve decided to be more of a plotter when it comes to planning and writing my novel, but maybe when it comes to my writing life, I can be more of a pantser. I’ll write when I can, flying by the seat of my pants and hoping that, eventually, I’ll land.

Bucket List Authors

March 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments

My husband and I were discussing the concept of “bucket lists” the other day, and I have to confess, I don’t really have a bucket list of grand things I’d like to do before I die. I’m lucky enough to have traveled to Europe twice, and I’ve been to a bunch of U.S. states, and other than going to the British Isles, there’s nowhere I’d regret not seeing. I have no desire to sky dive, or run a marathon, or get a tattoo. I’ve eaten pasta in Italy, ridden in a gondola in Venice, been to Times Square, and I already play the guitar. So the popular bucket list items don’t cast any spell over me.

But in reading this interview with Neil Gaiman over at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog, I realized that I do have a “bucket list” of sorts. It’s not a list of things I’d like to do before I die; it’s a list of authors I want to read before I die. These are authors that I’ve always been intrigued by — that I’ve always planned to read — but for one reason or another, I’ve never gotten around to them.

Such as Diana Wynne Jones (who was mentioned in the Gaiman interview). She’s just the sort of novelist that I would want to read and it still amazes me that I never have. The titles alone are alluring: Witch Week, Howl’s Moving Castle, Dark Lord of Derkholm, The Ogre Downstairs, A Tale of Time City. Why haven’t I read any of her stuff??? She’s on the bucket list.

Next is Agatha Christie. I was a huge fan of mysteries as a kid — so much so that my parents got me a subscription to the Alfred Hitchcock Magazine when I was ten-years-old — but the grand dame of mystery fiction somehow never ended up in the reading pile. She’s definitely on the bucket list (and I just downloaded one of her books to my kindle).

Graham Greene is another bucket lister due to several reasons:

1. He was Catholic and wrote about Catholic themes (though in an awesome way, not in some lame, preachy, bad-art kind of way). I am also Catholic, so I’m keen to read him.

2. He wrote screenplays for The Fallen Idol and The Third Man, two of my favorite British films from the 1940s.

3. He also wrote film reviews, so I feel an affinity for him as a cinephile.

4. I need to read more non-fantasy/sci-fi fiction and his books all sound interesting.

Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books are also on my list. Mostly because my husband loved them as a teenager, and they meant a lot to him and I want to share that with him. But also because I once had an old copy of McCaffrey’s Dragonsinger that my aunt gave to me but that I never read. I started to read it once, but then I put it down (for whatever reason). And then I lost the book. And yet the cover art has always haunted me and seeing it takes me back to cold November days at my grandmother’s house (which is where my family lived for awhile) when I was only nine or ten, and I lived and breathed fantasy adventures, role-playing games, King Arthur, and Tolkien, and my aunt and uncle would come over and we’d order Chinese food and play the Dark Tower board game.

I wish I still had that copy of Dragonsinger. And I plan to one day read Anne McCaffrey. She’s on the bucket list.

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Finally, I feel like I really need to read some Tolstoy. Anna Karenina sounds more appealing, but I’m down with reading War and Peace too. I’ve often heard he’s one of the greatest novelists, so I’d like to see for myself. Plus, I like Russian stuff.

I’m sure I’ll think of more bucket list authors, but for now, if I died tomorrow, these are the ones I would regret not reading.

The Rough Draft Is Done!

February 2, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Finished my Thirteen Treasures of Britain rough draft the other day. Whew!

Now comes the long march of revisions. I might just totally, utterly, and completely revamp my entire story. So that should be fun.

What’s weird is that I used to outline my stories in the past — lots of note cards, lots of outlines, etc. — and I found it made the process of actually writing to be a bit of a slog. I found that my inspiration kinda died if I did too much outlining and planning ahead of time.

So with Thirteen Treasures of Britain, I totally wrote by the seat of my pants (“pantsers” as they say in NaNo-realm). It was fun to write (until the end, where I had no idea how to finish the story in a non-lame way), but now I’m afraid what I have is a hodgepodge mess of a story that ends in a boring, predictable way. My endings always suck. But this one was particularly sucky because I didn’t have a plan going in.

Does this mean I really need to be a “planner”? Do I have to do a full outline beforehand? Do I need all kinds of character profiles and maps and background-y stuff?

It’s looking more and more like I do. And yet, I’m afraid that I’ll plan everything out and then be completely uninspired when I sit down to write. It’s happened to me before. Will it happen again?

Interestingly, when I was in college learning about screenwriting, it was pretty much hammered into our brains that we had to write treatments (basically, outlines in story-form), beat sheets, and scene summaries. And I never found these kinds of pre-writing tools to be soul-deadening or inspiration-crushing.

My plan for revising The Thirteen Treasures of Britain will include the following:

  • Rereading my rough draft and marking up sections (basic categories: keep it, toss it, needs work)
  • Creating a “BORG outline” (trademark: James Scott Bell in Plot & Structure) for a new version of the story
  • Seeing where I can combine material from my rough draft with my new story outline
  • Writing a second draft (using the new outline)

For now, I’m letting the draft settle and I’m working on pre-writing for an entirely different story (tentatively titled The Red Tower). I will return to the Thirteen Treasures of Britain rough draft in a week and go from there.

I’m kinda excited. Revision is one of my favorite parts of writing.

The Americans: Possibly the Best Show on T.V.

January 28, 2015 / / 0 Comments

A new season of The Americans starts tonight and I couldn’t be more excited. Despite the fact that no one seems to watch it (probably because F/X decided to stream the show with Amazon Prime instead of the much more ubiquitous Netflix), The Americans is quite possibly the best show on T.V. I like to think of it as being a mix between Alias (it’s a spy show with amazingly bad wigs), a period show with great attention to details (a la Mad Men, though The Americans is set in the 1980s), and a straight up action/drama (think: 24, Homeland, etc.). The acting is always good. The story lines are complicated, filled with tension, and almost always emotional. And the concept is fascinating: Two Soviet agents are groomed to pose as an American married couple in order to go deep undercover in the suburbs of Washington, D.C…. and they have two American children who know nothing about mom and dad’s spy games. It’s a brilliant set up!

I think the comparison to Alias highlights what’s best about The Americans. It’s got all the crazy undercover, wig-wearing, secret-identities-in-the-suburbs kinda thing that Alias did so well, but it’s also much more serious, more grounded, and ultimately more political than Alias ever was or ever tried to be. The Americans is as much a show about loyalty, patriotism, marriage, family, country, violence, and government as it is about spies spying. And even though it’s set in the 80s, it’s still dealing with relevant political and moral issues.

Also, did I mention the bad wigs? They’re hilarious.

Season three starts tonight, and I can’t wait.

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