So, I (evidently) haven't had a lot of things to say in here for a while now. Life is busy, which is why not a lot of writing has been happening over the past couple of months. This, among other things, is why I've decided to do something new here, namely blog about TV shows that I watch. (It's not entirely new in that I've had a post or two about TV things before, but I want to do it on more of a regular basis.) It's what I do a lot of the time anyway, and there isn't really a reason why I should bother only people close to me with my ramblings.
Obviously, this means there will be spoilers. If it's anything huge, I'll put a special note there, but if it isn't, I'll expect that anyone looking at posts about TV shows is aware of the possibility of spoilers.
So here are a couple of brief notes. I'm not all up to date with this week's episodes yet, so I'll post more as I watch more.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
How Not to Write a Novel (Recommendation)
Here's a book recommendation for anyone who wants to write stories:
How Not To Write A Novel by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark.
I found this book when I finished reading Moon Over Soho, and browsed through the author's (Ben Aaronovitch) website, where he recommends it. And I have to say, it's brilliant. It's very much to the point, and the advice really makes sense. I got this book in March, read it over the course of three days, and highlighted the crap out of it, tbh. 80% of my Kindle Clippings come from this book, and every single one is worth it. I'm just rereading it now, as I'm starting with a new writing project, and there's still advice that I'm only discovering now, that I hadn't even noticed before.
Some of it feels like old news, like, don't write about your character doing nothing, or don't repeat scenes. But a lot of it is a real eye opener, and even that trivial-seeming advice is worded so cleverly that a) it's a delight reading it, and b) you feel like it was a good thing they reminded you again.
They have advice on all the various steps and aspects of writing – from plotting to characters to the final scene.
It's not super cheap, especially not for an ebook (the paperback costs the same), but it's definitely worth it. I've read a bunch of books on writing, and often found them fairly forgettable – even if they had good advice, I just can't remember it afterwards. But this sticks with you. If you're only going to buy a single book on writing, I'd seriously consider making it this one.
How Not To Write A Novel by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark.
I found this book when I finished reading Moon Over Soho, and browsed through the author's (Ben Aaronovitch) website, where he recommends it. And I have to say, it's brilliant. It's very much to the point, and the advice really makes sense. I got this book in March, read it over the course of three days, and highlighted the crap out of it, tbh. 80% of my Kindle Clippings come from this book, and every single one is worth it. I'm just rereading it now, as I'm starting with a new writing project, and there's still advice that I'm only discovering now, that I hadn't even noticed before.
Some of it feels like old news, like, don't write about your character doing nothing, or don't repeat scenes. But a lot of it is a real eye opener, and even that trivial-seeming advice is worded so cleverly that a) it's a delight reading it, and b) you feel like it was a good thing they reminded you again.
They have advice on all the various steps and aspects of writing – from plotting to characters to the final scene.
It's not super cheap, especially not for an ebook (the paperback costs the same), but it's definitely worth it. I've read a bunch of books on writing, and often found them fairly forgettable – even if they had good advice, I just can't remember it afterwards. But this sticks with you. If you're only going to buy a single book on writing, I'd seriously consider making it this one.
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Fanfiction, Publishing, and Marketing
Long time no post... I got lost in RL a bit. We went on a weekend trip, and then lots of uni stuff came up during the past week. I've tackled all there was to tackle for the moment though, so I've got some time to lurk around here.
As I said the other day, I have some thoughts on the subject of fanfiction and publishing. They're not very organised thoughts, so I hope you can make it through the muddle.
I write fanfiction myself occasionally. I'm not a very prolific author, but a lot of my friends on there are -- and they're also damned good writers. They write stories that create emotions within people, that move them, excite them, distract them. They write stories that really should be read.
Now, the problem here is clear – it's not right to cash in on someone else's success. You can't publish your fanfiction as fanfiction, and that's that. It wouldn't be fair to anyone. Clearly, you like the author of the original stuff, otherwise you wouldn't be writing fanfiction about their work. So I think it's a fair assumption that you respect them and don't want to screw them over.
Here's a dilemma: There are stories that are wonderful and should be told and heard and absorbed. Currently, these stories exist on a fanfiction archive where they are publicly available, but only a small fraction of potential readers will actually access them. A lot of these stories are geared to a different audience than the original books – more mature, more gritty, perhaps, or just a different genre. The stories can be "fixed". You change the names and take the magic out, or the vampires, or set it in a different time. No one would ever know that they were fanfiction originally, especially if they were about minor characters – a lot of good fanfiction is. And with minor characters, the only things that often tie it to the original universe are character and place names.
Would you rather you missed the perfect story, because it's fanfiction in a fandom that you don't particularly connect with? Or would you rather read a book, like it, and later find out that it was originally written as fanfiction?
Personally, I think that the story, and the ideas in it, and the writing – all that comes from the author who typed the words, even if another author's work served as inspiration. Without reading and drawing from other people's work, a lot of ideas would never happen. And if that story is good, it deserves to be told. In my opinion, it's the author's fair right to "originalise" his or her piece of fanfiction and publish it and, yes, take money for it.
There's one thing though that I just can't really agree with, and this is where 50 Shades has committed a huge ethical fault, imo. Once you make it public that you originally wrote your novel as fanfiction, and get publicity and sales through that, you are making money off another author's success. The cover design even is somewhat similar to those of the Twilight Saga:
Of course, one has colour and one doesn't, but that doesn't change the fact that they're both large individual images set against a dark, quiet background, with the title (in white writing) on the top and the author name near the bottom. The thing is just – they wouldn't look out of place in a bookshelf next to each other. The 50 Shades covers are the Twilight Saga covers grown up – probably a lot like the readers are.
Or compare these two (other books from both series):
As I said the other day, I have some thoughts on the subject of fanfiction and publishing. They're not very organised thoughts, so I hope you can make it through the muddle.
I write fanfiction myself occasionally. I'm not a very prolific author, but a lot of my friends on there are -- and they're also damned good writers. They write stories that create emotions within people, that move them, excite them, distract them. They write stories that really should be read.
Now, the problem here is clear – it's not right to cash in on someone else's success. You can't publish your fanfiction as fanfiction, and that's that. It wouldn't be fair to anyone. Clearly, you like the author of the original stuff, otherwise you wouldn't be writing fanfiction about their work. So I think it's a fair assumption that you respect them and don't want to screw them over.
Here's a dilemma: There are stories that are wonderful and should be told and heard and absorbed. Currently, these stories exist on a fanfiction archive where they are publicly available, but only a small fraction of potential readers will actually access them. A lot of these stories are geared to a different audience than the original books – more mature, more gritty, perhaps, or just a different genre. The stories can be "fixed". You change the names and take the magic out, or the vampires, or set it in a different time. No one would ever know that they were fanfiction originally, especially if they were about minor characters – a lot of good fanfiction is. And with minor characters, the only things that often tie it to the original universe are character and place names.
Would you rather you missed the perfect story, because it's fanfiction in a fandom that you don't particularly connect with? Or would you rather read a book, like it, and later find out that it was originally written as fanfiction?
Personally, I think that the story, and the ideas in it, and the writing – all that comes from the author who typed the words, even if another author's work served as inspiration. Without reading and drawing from other people's work, a lot of ideas would never happen. And if that story is good, it deserves to be told. In my opinion, it's the author's fair right to "originalise" his or her piece of fanfiction and publish it and, yes, take money for it.
There's one thing though that I just can't really agree with, and this is where 50 Shades has committed a huge ethical fault, imo. Once you make it public that you originally wrote your novel as fanfiction, and get publicity and sales through that, you are making money off another author's success. The cover design even is somewhat similar to those of the Twilight Saga:
Of course, one has colour and one doesn't, but that doesn't change the fact that they're both large individual images set against a dark, quiet background, with the title (in white writing) on the top and the author name near the bottom. The thing is just – they wouldn't look out of place in a bookshelf next to each other. The 50 Shades covers are the Twilight Saga covers grown up – probably a lot like the readers are.
Or compare these two (other books from both series):
Shiny fabric travelling from upper left to lower right corner in some sort of wavy motion. Title in upper right corner, author name at the bottom, in white writing.
Now, I'm not saying that the author had any say in this, or that it is her intention to cash in through the Twilight fame. Clearly, the cover etc are decisions that the publishing house made, and obviously people are leaping at them. Do I find this unfair? Of course I do. If the way these books are marketed didn't scream "Twilight for all of you who grew up since New Moon", they'd probably sell a lot less. And other books that deserve to sell more might do better because they'd fill the gap.
So, to sum this up – generally, I'm all for making your fanfiction stories original stories and earning money with them. You've put time into writing, you've edited, you've made them excellent stories. And they are excellent, and people deserve to read them as much as your stories deserve to be read. But if you don't want to make money with fanfiction, don't make money by marketing your books as fanfiction. That's where, for me, it gets unethical.
But clearly this is a total grey area that needs to be explored ethically and legally etc. Copyrights have never been as big an issue as they are right now, and it has never been as easy to share things like fanfiction as it is right now. There's an obvious clash of interests and all sorts of things here, and it's all developing. Obviously my opinion is just that, and I'd be happy to discuss if someone thinks differently.
Monday, 11 June 2012
Shades of Something
I don't get the Fifty Shades of Grey craze. I'll be honest - I haven't read it, I won't read it, and I won't go to see the movie(s). It's not exactly my genre, and the excerpts I've read were enough to make me see that it's not my style either. I can't really switch off while reading, and I think that's what you have to do for these books.
What's undeniable though, obviously, is that they're very successful. I don't know why people read them, but they do. The amazon comments are mostly extreme praise, and not all of them are carelessly written either. So, yeah, people read them, and at least a couple of them are clever people as well.
Now, why I'm writing about this is - I was on amazon earlier looking at stuff and somehow came across a book titled
This is the description:
This sounds like it could be a very interesting psychological essay on the type of people who enjoy reading both YA fantasy literature and erotic fiction. People like those twimoms, for example. I think this is a topic that seriously needs to be approached from a neutral angle. It's no secret that YA fiction is about growing up, the confusion of puberty and being introduced into a completely new world with responsibilities etc etc. So why do grown ups read YA? Because it's in the perfect niche between excitement and freedom, and those responsibilities are still larger than ours and so make us feel good? I don't really know, but it's very fascinating. And then if you're part of the people who read YA even though they're not all that Y anymore and more A, what draws you to BDSM erotica? Is it really just the excitement of the taboo? I wish there were a good book on that topic.
A Million Shades of Green doesn't seem to be that, sadly. The cover is made up to resemble those of the Fifty Shades ... books, only with a lightbulb full of green dollar bills on it as well. To keep it short, it looks like someone is grumpy about these books making money. The description in combination with the part of the foreword that is available in the preview makes it clear that the author is also grumpy about this rising from a fanfiction story. I think I'll need another post to say how I feel about that particular issue.
Of course the author is fully entitled to his opinion on the matter.
Only don't talk about people making money with other people's work as a basis (i.e. write fanfic, change the names and sell) if you're selling your essay on someone else's work (with the title and the cover clearly leaning on the source's) at £1.53 - for 29 pages. Just as a comparison, Fifty Shades of Grey is £2.69 at 530 pages (those are all Kindle ebook prices btw). It just makes the whole argument a moot point. Maybe it's wrong to take money for original fiction that used to be fanfiction. I'm not saying that it's badly written or spiteful or that the author doesn't have a point. It's definitely something that needs to be discussed. But not at that money-per-page ratio - especially not if you can find all that info on it being a Twilight fanfic originally and the debate about that on the internet for free.
It just seems unethical. But that's just my opinion.
What's undeniable though, obviously, is that they're very successful. I don't know why people read them, but they do. The amazon comments are mostly extreme praise, and not all of them are carelessly written either. So, yeah, people read them, and at least a couple of them are clever people as well.
Now, why I'm writing about this is - I was on amazon earlier looking at stuff and somehow came across a book titled
"A Million Shades of Green: The Real Story Behind Fifty Shades of Grey"
This is the description:
A Million Shades of Green tells the story of how a novel-length piece of BDSM (Bondage, Domination, Sadism, Masochism) porn fan fiction called Master of the Universe (featuring Twilight characters Edward Cullen and Bella Swan) was secretly transformed into the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Fifty Shades of Grey, before being sold on for millions of dollars to one of America's most esteemed publishing imprints and a major movie studio.-------------------------------------------------From bestselling thriller writer Sean Black, the author of the Ryan Lock books, comes the real story behind the #1 transatlantic 'mommy porn' bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey.The tale of a spectacular literary heist, A Million Shades of Green, will take you on a journey into the hidden world of porn fan fiction, where books originally written for, and aggressively marketed towards children and teenagers by writers such as J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer are given a violently pornographic twist before having their 'serial numbers filed off' and being sold on as original fiction.
This sounds like it could be a very interesting psychological essay on the type of people who enjoy reading both YA fantasy literature and erotic fiction. People like those twimoms, for example. I think this is a topic that seriously needs to be approached from a neutral angle. It's no secret that YA fiction is about growing up, the confusion of puberty and being introduced into a completely new world with responsibilities etc etc. So why do grown ups read YA? Because it's in the perfect niche between excitement and freedom, and those responsibilities are still larger than ours and so make us feel good? I don't really know, but it's very fascinating. And then if you're part of the people who read YA even though they're not all that Y anymore and more A, what draws you to BDSM erotica? Is it really just the excitement of the taboo? I wish there were a good book on that topic.
A Million Shades of Green doesn't seem to be that, sadly. The cover is made up to resemble those of the Fifty Shades ... books, only with a lightbulb full of green dollar bills on it as well. To keep it short, it looks like someone is grumpy about these books making money. The description in combination with the part of the foreword that is available in the preview makes it clear that the author is also grumpy about this rising from a fanfiction story. I think I'll need another post to say how I feel about that particular issue.
Of course the author is fully entitled to his opinion on the matter.
Only don't talk about people making money with other people's work as a basis (i.e. write fanfic, change the names and sell) if you're selling your essay on someone else's work (with the title and the cover clearly leaning on the source's) at £1.53 - for 29 pages. Just as a comparison, Fifty Shades of Grey is £2.69 at 530 pages (those are all Kindle ebook prices btw). It just makes the whole argument a moot point. Maybe it's wrong to take money for original fiction that used to be fanfiction. I'm not saying that it's badly written or spiteful or that the author doesn't have a point. It's definitely something that needs to be discussed. But not at that money-per-page ratio - especially not if you can find all that info on it being a Twilight fanfic originally and the debate about that on the internet for free.
It just seems unethical. But that's just my opinion.
Monday, 4 June 2012
Fictional Names
So here are some character names
Cherry, William, Victor, Evie, Henry, Aidan.
I'm scrivenering up my notes right now and talking things through with a friend. I see a lot of problems I didn't see before, but I've also realised that I have a lot more plot than I thought before, so yay!
Cherry, William, Victor, Evie, Henry, Aidan.
I'm scrivenering up my notes right now and talking things through with a friend. I see a lot of problems I didn't see before, but I've also realised that I have a lot more plot than I thought before, so yay!
Game of Thrones Finale
Beware, there will be spoilers.
This concerns the 03rd June 2012 ep of GoT (S02E10).
First off, some people got very excited beforehand that this episode would be longer than they normally are. And it makes sense, too - it's the finale, and no storyline is really close to being finished, except the King's Landing one, which was finished last week.
But then... Uhm, it's like 65 minutes instead of the previous week's 56 minutes, so that's like 9 generous minutes extra, woot. But seriously, it takes like four minutes before the episode even starts after the 'previously on...' and the intro, which has this incredibly brilliant music, but is also getting annoyingly long, really.
There'll be a rather detailed blow by blow after the jump break, so longish post is longish.
This concerns the 03rd June 2012 ep of GoT (S02E10).
First off, some people got very excited beforehand that this episode would be longer than they normally are. And it makes sense, too - it's the finale, and no storyline is really close to being finished, except the King's Landing one, which was finished last week.
But then... Uhm, it's like 65 minutes instead of the previous week's 56 minutes, so that's like 9 generous minutes extra, woot. But seriously, it takes like four minutes before the episode even starts after the 'previously on...' and the intro, which has this incredibly brilliant music, but is also getting annoyingly long, really.
There'll be a rather detailed blow by blow after the jump break, so longish post is longish.
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