Showing posts with label Game of Thrones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Game of Thrones. Show all posts

Friday, March 21, 2025

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Part 2 by Karen S. Wiesner


{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's

A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,

Part 2

by Karen S. Wiesner 


 

As I said last week in this two-part review, I feel bad for Martin. He went head-first into A Song of Ice and Fire and there was no stopping the epic as it grew larger and larger in many different ways, not simply from a writing standpoint but also in the market for the series as it crossed boundaries into TV and other media and merchandising. 

With series that have overarching plots like A Song of Ice and Fire does, finishing in a doable amount of time becomes a nightmare if the entire series isn't written in toto, in advance of publication. Now, obviously, even when he wasn’t as famous as he now is, Martin had a much, much larger audience than I'll ever have as an author, so I've had several luxuries in my writing he's never had. As authors, both of us realize only too well that an overarching series (as opposed to the kind of series with standalone story installments) can't be put off or set aside for too long without becoming off-track and distracted, momentum derailed, and mindset potentially being upset irrevocably to the point of feeling that, as a writer, you're trying to pound an enormous square peg into a very small round hole. In Martin's case, he's spoken of feeling like his books are delayed because he's trying to untangle "the Meereenese knot" (a reference from his own series concerning a nearly impossible act of contortion, and named after the city of Meereen in Slaver's Bay), perhaps in regard to chronology synching up with all the various plot threads. 

Authors who are in the middle of a long, popular series that has left readers dangling for countless years between installments have a tremendous amount of pressure put on them. Who's to blame for that is a combination of many influences, predominately the author's own, the publisher's, and the fans. In this case, Martin had the HBO series aspects added to his stress. However, that pinnacle of outright terror they--Martin in particular--must feel could very definitely impact the quality of writing. I would absolutely hate feeling like practically the whole world was waiting on me to deliver something. Nothing about the scenario appeals to me, though authors who have gone through this situation may have all the money and fame a writer could possibly ever wish for. Does that make the torment worthwhile? Depends on who you ask. Added to Martin's already ponderous burden is this question I imagine he faces each and every day: What if readers are disappointed when he finally provides series arc resolutions with second-to-the-last and final volumes? If there are special types of hell for writers, that's one right there, for sure.              

I've also often wondered how he deals with the fact that the HBO series is finished and he still hasn't finished the book series. The producers were forced to continue on with the conclusion without him, though he reportedly did provide input. Keep in mind, though, that, 1) The writers and developers of films and television have different audiences and opinions on viewer satisfaction than book authors do, and 2) I can't imagine a writer wanting to give away key details about an unfinished book series that may incite readers to feel they have no reason to continue following the series in literary form when he finally finishes writing it. Because the TV show supposedly screwed up the end of the series (according to critics anyway), this gives Martin a unique opportunity to offer the end of the series the way it was meant to be, especially if his rendering is mind-blowingly fantastic. Martin is just too polished and concerned with quality to provide any less than that. But it must be a concern that bugs him even when he's not aware it's there lurking like the harbinger of doom. I also wonder if he's actually watched the portions of the TV series past the point where his published book series ended. As an author, I absolutely would not have watched it or read anything about it. He's said that he doesn't read message boards anymore to prevent his writing from being influenced, so I wonder if that means he avoided watching the final seasons of the TV series, too. I'm not on social media enough to really know whether he did or not watch it or stop after a certain point. 

How a writer ties up the end of a series can either lead readers to becoming lifelong fans or dire enemies, banning that author forever. Like I said, I don't envy authors in this position, regardless of their money and fame. Maybe the challenge is part of the fun for many writers. Nevertheless, those are risks I simply never want to take as a writer because they could so easily blow up in my face. As they say, fame and infamy are two sides of a coin. 

As a writer, I tend to be adamant about being certain even before I begin work on a project that I can actually finish the series in a satisfactory way…or at all. That's for my own peace of mind as well as for my readers. With both of my overarching series writing projects, I made a point of working on the installments one right after the other. For Arrow of Time Chronicles, I completed all four volumes over the course of about 2 1/2 years. They were only published after I finished writing them. They came out one a month from January to April 2020. The three novel parts of Bridge of Fire, Book 10: Woodcutter's Grim Series were written back-to-back and published within days of each other in September 2021. A series with overarching plots absolutely requires successful release dates to keep fans invested and, let's face it, given these days of social menacing, less vicious. While, as I said, Martin probably didn't have the option or maybe even the desire to hold back this series until he'd finished writing all of them, he wouldn't have had to face the monumental pressures he is now if he'd only completed writing the series before editors, publishers, TV networks and producers, and fans got involved. I suspect a fair portion of the delay in finishing Books 6 and 7 is due to wanting to make them both absolutely perfect, far beyond what fans of the TV series are expecting or even hoping for. 

While I wait as patiently as I possibly can for further installments, I'm reading what else the author has to offer apart from A Song of Ice and Fire, mostly enjoying it, and also looking for other "Game of Thrones" connected fiction, like House of the Dragon and the Egg and Dunk adventures, which I'll review below and hopefully provide something to tide you over for The Winds of Winter. 


 

I first read "The Hedge Knight" in the Robert Silverberg edited Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy collection (1998). This story is associated with George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, set in that world 90 years before the events that take place in the novels. 

It's hard to find a definitive title for the series "The Hedge Knight" is part of because, I suppose, this story was the first and therefore not well-defined at the time it was published. I saw it called Tales of Dunk and Egg, Dunk and Egg Adventures, A Knight of the Seven Kingdom, as well as simply Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The three currently available short novels in the A Knight of the Seven Kingdom series (which is what it was called in the trilogy compilation published in 2015 as well as what it will be called for the forthcoming HBO series) are touted as being part of the A Song of Ice and Fire, or even as a prequel. I don't think either are good descriptions. The storylines are completely different. I would call A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms an off-shoot of that series, at most. 

"The Hedge Knight" takes place while the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and it does include characters from A Song of Ice and Fire--Aegon Targaryen (known here as Egg, the future King Aegon V) and Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk, the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard). In case you're wondering, as I was when I first started reading this, a hedge knight is one without a master that travels the kingdom searching for employment (and sleeping in the hedges). Hoping to gain the interest of a lord as a knight for hire by participating in a tourney, Dunk instead finds himself fighting for his life when he crosses the wrong Targaryen in order to save a young, pretty puppeteer artist. 

The first time I read "The Hedge Knight", I'd just started getting into the "Game of Thrones" world and its massive cast of characters. I didn't really know that series as well as I do now, having both read the books and watched the HBO series countless times since. I had no idea how these characters fit into that world and series. Additionally, the Dunk and Egg (as in, "dunk an egg") aspect seemed silly to me. Beyond that, I have an even stronger opinion of tourneys than Ned Stark--what a waste of time, money, energy, and blood. So I can't say I appreciated the story the first time I read it. However, when I reread it recently in connection with my review of the two Legends short novel collections, it was with a much clearer comprehension of the primary series. I really liked and rooted for Dunk and Egg. As soon as I finished this story, I ordered the trilogy of novellas, published together in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. In large part, I suppose I gave this story more of a chance the second time around because I'm ravenous--more like absolutely famished--for more Ice and Fire world stories. 

"The Sworn Sword", the second story in the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms series was originally featured in the Legends II collection (2003). I started reading "The Sworn Sword" within that anthology but my copy of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms came, so I jumped over to that collection of the three stories the author has written thus far in the series. I read this short novel in almost no time, and I was unable to keep myself from going on to the third story instead of returning to Legends II. I absolutely loved "The Sworn Sword" in which, a year or so after the events of "The Hedge Knight", Dunk and Egg find themselves sworn to the service of an aging, has-been lord with secrets the old man hasn't bothered to reveal to his "employees". When the water on the land of this lord is stolen with a dam built by a neighboring house, Dunk and Egg go to the thief who's been painted as black as night by their lord. But things aren't at all what they initially seemed. 

In the third short novel, "The Mystery Knight" (published in 2010 in the Martin and Gardner Dozois edited anthology Warriors), Dunk and Egg are on the road, staying out of sight after prior events in the other two stories but longing for a soft bed instead of the hard ground, and good food instead of the hardtack that takes away the will to chew, let alone live. When they hear about a wedding taking place nearby, complete with a feast and mini tourney, Dunk decides maybe winning the tilt will provide the means for him and his squire Egg to make their way to Winterfell to see about serving one the lord there. They quickly become embroiled in another deadly conspiracy, this one involving a dragon egg. This series is absolute must-read, as is the one it's set in is. 

The compilation of all three short novels was a joy to read alongside illustrations by the fabulous Gary Gianni. Prior to the frequently placed, amazingly detailed black and white sketches, I'd pictured Dunk as a much older knight (I was inadvertently thinking about the actor Liam Cunningham who played Davos Seaworth in the HBO Game of Thrones series). I also imagined Egg as being older and much larger. The illustrations show a much younger man for Dunk, and small Egg is adorable with his bald head in Gianni's artwork.

In 2011, it was reported that Martin was working on a fourth novella for A Knight of the Seven Kingdom (The She-Wolves of Winterfell) but he was forced to stop writing it with the demand for the next title in A Song of Ice and Fire. In 2014, Martin said he'd roughed out another Dunk and Egg story, The Village Hero, set in the Riverlands. Which will be written/published first remains up in the air. He also has notes and "fairly specific ideas" for a number of other installments with potentially revealing plot titles: The Sellsword, The Champion, The Kingsguard, and The Lord Commander. 

The first three stories were adapted as comic books and reprinted as graphic novels. Additionally, after talk of this series becoming another HBO TV adaptation in the Ice and Fire universe, it was given a straight to series order in 2023 and filming began on the first season, consisting of six episodes, in June 2024. Release date is supposedly late 2025. I can hardly wait! 

If you're a lover of high fantasy similar to The Lord of the Rings (but much, much more graphic) with timeless characters and rich, medieval settings, suspense and danger galore, I can't imagine you wouldn't absolutely love both of George R. R. Martin's connected series, whether reading the books or watching the series, just like I do. The added appeal of dragons, blue-eyed ice creatures, hedge knights, and would-be princes in hiding sold me from the moment I heard about them. There's a lot already available here in this amazing universe with the promise (though I've probably wisely stopped holding my breath) of still more to come. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

Friday, March 14, 2025

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's

A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,

Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner 


 

I can't help it, I feel bad for George R. R. Martin. He takes a lot of flak I don't believe he deserves. He had an idea for a phenomenal, epic fantasy story a la Tolkien (and yes, he, like the father of modern fantasy literature, considers A Song of Ice and Fire one very, very, very long story published in several volumes) and it became larger than life, to the point where he couldn't keep up with it and was quickly finding that each installment was growing and spiraling wildly in a way that undoubtedly felt out of control by the time HBO got involved and began producing the television series. 

Add to that stress, Martin isn't just an award-winning author and editor for many, many success anthologies featuring other authors--he's also a successful TV and feature film writer. When he begins to feel writing for TV compromises "the size of his imagination", he, in frustration, returns to book writing. In 1991, after having a vivid idea of a boy seeing a beheading and finding direwolves in the snow, he wrote the first scene of A Game of Thrones. In this fictional world, seasons last for years and can come to an unpredictable halt. Violent political machinations with several family dynasties vying for control of Westeros--including the daughter of the deposed Westerosi king attempting to return from exile and assume the throne she believes belongs to her--are at the heart of the tale with the growing threat of powerful supernatural creatures returning to the civilized world forming an intriguing backdrop I found irresistible from the first time I heard about these "White Walkers". 

Before long, Martin was researching, making maps and genealogies, and writing a few more chapters, which were interrupted for a TV series he worked on for years that ultimately never aired. In 1994, he returned to novel writing and A Game of Thrones. 1,400 manuscript pages in, he started to realize this was going to be a much larger endeavor than he'd originally thought. It was published in August 1996 with 1,088 pages, not including the appendices. At that time, it was touted the first in a trilogy, but, by the time the second book was published, "trilogy" was dropped. A Clash of Kings was released February 1999, coming in at 1,184 (sans appendices) pages. 

In 1999, after Book 2 reached #13 on The New York Times Best Seller list, producers and filmmakers started showing an interest in the film rights to the series. A Storm of Swords, the third book, was turned in several months late, published in November 2000, with well over 1,500 pages. A Feast of Crows, Book 4, came out five years after the previous (November 2005) with events set up to directly follow where Book 3 had left off, and focused on characters from King's Landing, the Riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands. Book 5, A Dance with Dragons (with a whopping 1,600 pages) was set in the same time period but focused on characters in Essos, Winterfell, and the Wall. Only Arya, Jon Snow, Tyrion, and Daenerys had chapters in both parallel-running volumes. It came out in July 2011. With this story, the series had caught up with what had happened in the previous installment around the two-thirds mark of the novel, and then went further. However, it covered much less than the author intended and left several agonizing tenterhooks that fans have been hanging on all this time. While rude critics claimed Martin had lost interest in the series or, devilishly, was looking to make more money and so held off on finishing the book for publication, he says he just spent too much time rewriting and perfecting it, which I heartily believe. 

In the meantime, in 2007, HBO had acquired the rights to turn A Song of Ice and Fire into a TV series, Game of Thrones. The first 10-episode season aired in April 2011. The series was officially a hit. Though the book series debuted without any mass market publicity or buzz of any kind in the genre, forcing the author to earn his audience the hard way--by writing damn good books that his fans were avidly talking about with other readers--Game of Thrones practically came out of the gate with a cannon explosion. Soon, Martin was carried along by the blitz with a seemingly endless succession of book tours and conventions, though he was trying admirably to juggle all that while writing one script per season of the TV series, writing the sixth book in the series, along with his The World of Ice & Fire companion guide and the Dunk and Egg novellas. 

In March 2012, Martin said that he expects the final two installments to be 1500 pages each but later talked about not being "firm about ending the series with a seventh novel". Book 6, The Winds of Winter, is supposed to resolve the cliffhangers from A Dance with Dragons early on, opening with two big battles that were built up in the previous installment. The viewpoint of Sansa and Arya Stark is supposed to be covered, as well as Arianne Martell's and Aeron Greyjoy's within this title. As for the ending to the series, the author says he wants a satisfying depth and resonance but plans to avoid disappointing fans "by deviating too far from their own theories and desires". 

By October 2012, 400 pages of the sixth novel had reportedly been written, half of which needed revising. HBO was churning out the popular series by mainly following the books already published to a fanatical increase in viewers, and Martin was working hard to deliver in hopes of Book 6 being published before the sixth season of Game of Thrones. By early 2016, he announced he wouldn't be able to catch up with the books in time for the last season of the show. As of this writing, July 2024 (13 years later), we still haven't seen the sixth installment (though in October 2022, he said it was approximately three quarters done), let alone the final (probably) book, A Dream of Spring. 

Martin is said to have told the TV show producers the "major plot points" of what may be in the final two installments. One presumes he told them enough so that the show and its stellar actors (some of whom received a million dollars per episode toward the end) went on to earn countless awards. That said, the final season's ending responses from fans and critics were a pretty mixed bag, with a lot of people unhappy with it. 

For my part, I didn't appreciate the very abrupt end of the supernatural angle of the series. It was almost like the producers came up with a checklist out of nowhere and this vital subplot was checked off summarily within an episode or two. I can't really think of how else it might have been done, so I survived that. That said, for the ultimate end of the series, I had three requirements or I would have been absolutely wroth: Arya, Tyrion, and Jon Snow had to survive and Dany had to die by Jon's hand. So I was pretty pleased with the series conclusion. I don't expect to be quite as pleased with the author's own ending, should we get it, given his own words to the effect of killing off major players so readers don't rely on the hero coming through unscathed and instead experience the tension those characters go through page by page. 

You can almost hear the exhaustion in his voice in a 2003 interview when Martin talked about never again writing anything on this scale, of returning to his fictional universe only in standalone novels, and of writing about characters from other time periods within the setting, such as his Dunk and Egg stories. Disaffected fans in this thirteen year interval between book have been abusive and downright merciless, judging the writing process by their own woefully ignorant prejudices, adding to the stress this author is no doubt feeling to the extreme since the Game of Thrones TV series ended in 2019. 

Martin has also been involved in HBO's follow-up attempts to cash in on more success in this fictional universe, not only with writing the massive two-volume, complete history of House Targaryen that--along with novellas "The Princess and the Queen" (published in the 2013 anthology Dangerous Women), "The Rogue Prince" (2014 Rogues anthology), "The Songs of the Dragon" (2017 The Book of Swords anthology) and the Asimov's Science Fiction and Dragon compilations "Blood of the Dragon" (taken from Dany's chapters in A Game of Thrones), "Path of the Dragon" (Dany's chapters in A Storm of Swords), and "Arms of the Kraken" (based on Iron Island chapters from A Feast for Crows)--spawned the House of the Dragon HBO series currently (as of this writing) in its second season as well as the upcoming one for the Dunk and Egg adventures, and several others which seem to have failed to move forward (the Jon Snow one was what I personally was most looking forward to) or are still being discussed. 

I, for one, devoured every installment of the book series when they were first published and continue to read them every couple years in hopes that a new volume will come out soon and I'll be ready to read it the very instant it's released. I also watch the HBO series at least once a year. My only complaint with it is that it's very hard to watch the over-the-top gratuitousness that goes far beyond the "honest necessity" to reflect real people Martin deliberately includes for "an immersive experience" in the novels because sexuality is "an important driving force in human life". I tend to fast-forward through the worst of it. Other than that, over the course of three or four intense days, I binge-watch the entire series every time I get started with it because I'm tortured with the situations the characters are going through and I can't leave long before I have to return to find out what will happen (though, at this point, I obviously already know). 

I love that the characters are so complex and well-fleshed out, it's sometimes hard not to believe they're just fictional imaginings. Not surprisingly, Ned Stark, Jon Snow, Tyrion, Arya, and Davos are my favorites. The settings are lush and vivid while the events are so authentic and suspenseful, I would love to live in the time period--in theory anyway…okay, so maybe just LARPing there. According to Martin at some point since 2012, he definitely doesn't plan to allow another writer to finish his book series for him if he's unable to complete it himself (he is 76 years old, after all). 

In the meantime, I'm avidly, anxiously, agonizingly waiting for the series to be finished, but I'm also understanding of the author's need to do it in his own time, to the very best of his ability, while also trying to juggle so many other things in the process. The less stress his disgruntled fans put on him, the more likely we'll see the next installments, which hopefully come out with satisfactory conclusions instead of the series exponentially growing and growing and growing with each new volume. So practice patience and enjoy what else the author has to offer, as I am, including non-Song of Ice and Fire offerings, as well as Ice and Fire connected House of the Dragon and the Egg and Dunk adventures, which I'll review next week and hopefully provide something to tide you over for The Winds of Winter

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Thursday, January 02, 2020

SF Seasons

Happy New Year! The days begin to lengthen, even if imperceptibly at first, but nevertheless I have to brace myself for over two months more of early darkness and damp cold. We temperate-zone residents are used to a year divided into the conventional four seasons, recurring in a predictable annual rhythm. My family had a funny encounter many years ago at King's Dominion (an amusement park) in northern Virginia, while standing in line to check out of the hotel adjacent to the park. This happened on a day at the height of summer, and the weather was as expected in a Virginia summer, high humidity with temperatures in the eighties or low nineties. An apparently British couple in line with us asked whether "it was always this hot" all year around. Mentally (not aloud, of course) I collapsed with laughter. In this area we have four seasons just like most other locations in North America, with pleasant springs and falls and miserably cold winters. If our family's experience of living in Hawaii in the 1970s was typical, tropical regions have two basic seasons, rainy and dry, with little variation in temperature or length of daylight.

Science fiction and fantasy often feature imaginary worlds with seasons different from those familiar to us Earth dwellers, but the stories don't always take full advantage of the possibilities. The setting of the Game of Thrones saga famously suffers winters that last for years, whose timing and duration vary. Yet I don't remember noticing in either the novels or the TV series an explanation of how human civilization in Westeros survives those ordeals. How could enough food possibly be stored to sustain entire nations over a multi-year winter, especially with no way of knowing when the cold season will descend upon them? Maybe the southern regions of the inhabited world escape mainly unscathed and supply provisions for the affected areas? The economic effects would be calamitous, though, even if most people managed to scrape by. Isaac Asimov's classic story "Nightfall" takes place on a planet in the middle of a cluster of stars, so that it experiences full darkness only once in several centuries. Although a short story can't cover every aspect of worldbuilding, admittedly, even in the story's later novel-length expansion I don't recall any consideration of how different a culture that develops in perpetual light would be from ours. Agriculture alone would evolve in ways strange to us, wouldn't it? Recently I read SHADOW AND LIGHT and SHADOW RISING, the first two books in an excellent fantasy series by Peter Sartucci. They're set on a planet that revolves around a double star. No results of having two suns, in terms of either circadian rhythms or climate, are developed. As in "Nightfall" with its planet of multiple suns, not only weather but seismic phenomena would surely be affected. With more books to come, however, maybe this aspect of the setting will be elaborated later.

One novel I've read within the past year takes full advantage of its setting's weird seasons, as the title indicates: THE FIFTH SEASON, first book in the Broken Earth series by N. K. Jemisin, offers a devastating, in-depth portrayal of a world periodically ravaged by geological disasters of apocalyptic scope. Fifth Seasons appear at unpredictable intervals and can last from a few months or years to an entire century. At those times, worldwide tectonic cataclysms cause earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis, with side effects such as climate change, crop failures, poisonous fungal growths, etc. Appropriately, this world's cultures are crucially shaped by the Fifth Season phenomenon, which includes the ambiguous role of the few people with the gift of controlling seismic events.

Here's a page that lists eight SF novels about climate change:

Sci-Fi Books That Highlight Climate Change

And here's a different list of fourteen novels focusing on climate catastrophes (including some overlap with the previous one, naturally):

Sci-Fi Books for Earth Day

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Thursday, October 03, 2019

Bait-and-Switch Book Beginnings

Stephen King's latest novel (which I consider one of his best recent works), THE INSTITUTE, starts with a long section from the viewpoint of a secondary character (who doesn't reenter the story until close to the end). It then switches to the protagonist, a 12-year-old boy with a slight degree of psi power who gets kidnapped by the titular Institute. Both characters are deeply engaging, and their separate stories end up skillfully meshed. It's Stephen King, so it works! Nevertheless, spending that much space at the beginning of a novel on a secondary character before even introducing the protagonist is definitely not what most readers expect.

What I think of as "bait-and-switch" narrative is common enough, in a modest way, with suspense and horror fiction. Such novels often start with a brief introduction of a character whose main purpose is to get killed. (A regular reviewer of the SUPERNATURAL TV series used to call this type of victim "doomed teaser guy.") Even in those novels, however, I feel sort of cheated if the author allots too much wordage (more than a few paragraphs or at most a couple of pages) to a doomed character. The writer has fooled us into mistaking this short-lived person for the protagonist, luring us into an emotional investment in her or him, after which we have to start all over getting engaged with a new character.

The sense of being "baited and switched" can pose a difficulty with prologues. If the prologue focuses on a character other than the protagonist of the main text, we may feel as if the author has started the book twice. We get all excited about the prologue's main character and may feel let down when he or she disappears or fades into the background in favor of a different focal character for the story as a whole.

Some readers may feel "baited and switched" by the entire opening volume of George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. While I wouldn't say I felt cheated, I was certainly shocked by that first exposure to his "anyone can die" authorial strategy, when the man I assumed to be the protagonist of the entire series didn't survive to the end of the first book.

Assuming this kind of shift at the beginning of a book is sometimes justified, how can an author pull it off so the reader won't feel tricked? Or lose interest when the focus switches to a different viewpoint character after the opening scenes have lured us into caring about the character first introduced? It's a little different, although still potentially tricky, when a narrative repeatedly switches perspectives throughout, presenting scenes through the eyes of two or more equally important viewpoint characters, as Martin's series does. In reading such a text, I sometimes have trouble getting back up to speed, emotionally, after each switch.

This let-down feeling doesn't have to result from a change in viewpoint characters. Long ago, I read a book intriguingly set in an alternate present where supernatural creatures exist openly, and social and economic structures are accordingly different from those in our primary world. The protagonist is a private detective who works with supernatural-related cases. (At that time, this worldbuilding concept was new and uncommon, not a familiar trope as it is nowadays.) In the first chapter, the protagonist deals with a vampire in a very funny scene. "Oh, goody, a cool vampire novel," I thought. Alas, nary another vampire in the entire book, although it wasn't a bad story on its own terms. Granted, this kind of problem isn't necessarily the author's fault. Other readers less vampire-focused than I might not assume from the first chapter that the point was to launch a vampire plot rather than (as it actually was) to introduce the protagonist's profession. Still, in my own case, I approached the rest of the story with a negative bias as soon as I realized my initial assumption had been mistaken.

Then there was the bait-and-switch of a successful chick-lit novel called MUST LOVE DOGS, whose inciting incident has a friend persuading the protagonist to place a personal ad in a dating venue. The friend gets her to include "Must love dogs" as a way of attracting nice guys, although the heroine doesn't have a dog and knows almost nothing about the species. Between the title and the inciting incident, I was expecting a romance with, you know, lots of dog content. Nope. The story soon leaves that premise behind. Maybe I would have felt less cheated by the plot if the inciting incident hadn't been combined with the title and a dog-centered cover (neither of which might have been the author's fault, admittedly, especially the cover illustration).

Do you feel "baited and switched" by these kinds of abrupt turns in a novel? And, as an author, how do you handle them if you have reason to write them?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Targeting a Readership Part 16, Plotters, Pantsers and Game of Thrones

Targeting a Readership
Part 16
Plotters, Pantsers and Game of Thrones

Previous entries in this series are indexed at:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

So now here is an article in Wired Magazine which is by an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, Daniel Silvermint, and addresses the infamous 8th Season of Game of Thrones

https://www.wired.com/story/game-of-thrones-plotters-vs-pantsers/

-------quote-------
Long-standing threats are being dispatched too easily, and plot threads we thought would matter have been quietly dropped. More troubling still, character motivations appear to be in a state of flux, and much of the drama involves clever people committing obvious blunders and suffering reversals of fortune as a result.
-------end quote-------

All of the issues listed in that quote will always arise when a writer shifts, changes, forgets, or just plain ditches a THEME mid-writing.  A major rewrite has to be done to give the ending material the same theme as the opening material.

So the Wired article advances this idea:

-------quote------
It all comes down to how stories are crafted, and for that, we need to start with two different types of writers: plotters and pantsers. Plotters create a detailed outline before they commit a word to the page. Pantsers prefer to discover the story as they write it—flying by the seat of their pants, so to speak.
-------end quote-------

I understand both these creative styles because I was taught the craft by a pantser, though I rarely employ that method.  I suspect both these definitions miss a vital point.

My instructor worked from a detailed conceptualization of the thematic structure of the piece she was crafting, but seemed to have no conscious idea of what that theme was or what she wanted to say about it.  She followed her characters into the story to see what they'd do, and to be surprised by what they did.

Following your characters by the seat of your pants is somewhat like great conversation.  We often talk "off the cuff" without seeming to plan what to say even as the words flow out of our mouths.  We know the language, and use the knowledge of the "grammar" of language (even as children, long before studying grammar) to place words together.  We craft sentences to say what we mean without thinking about grammar, just about what we mean.

And so it is with both plotters and pantsers.  Plotters write it down, and pantsers don't -- and that's the only difference.

The writer gets inside the Character and runs into the World to see what happens next.  Those who write down detailed outlines often find the Characters take over and run in an unplanned direction.  Those who don't write anything down find the Characters just stop and look at the writer wondering what to do next.

Either way, writing is not about plotting any more than conversation is about grammar.

The process of writing a story is about communicating the theme.

If you change what you are saying, or which side of an argument you are espousing, right in the middle of dinner table conversation, you sound like a hypocrite, or maybe just an idiot.

If you change what you are saying with a story in the middle of writing it, you lose your target readership just as surely as the espouser of a Cause will lose the nodding heads at the dinner table conversation.

Again from
https://www.wired.com/story/game-of-thrones-plotters-vs-pantsers/
 blog entry:

--------quote--------
Martin planned to skip the story ahead five years. But he couldn't make the gap in action feel true to the characters or the world, so he eventually decided to write his way through those five years instead. Knowing the bridging material wasn't ever going to be as gripping as the central conflicts, he compensated by planting more seeds in more corners of his already complex world. And once he had them, he couldn't prune them back without their resolutions feeling abrupt or forced. Worse, some of his idle characters were taking the opportunity to grow in the wrong directions, pulling away from the ending he had in mind for them. Soon, the garden was overgrown, the projected length of the series kept expanding, and the books stopped coming.

For the next couple seasons, showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss tried to take over management of Martin's sprawling garden, simplifying and combining character arcs with mixed results.
--------end quote-------

Trust me, read that whole blog entry to glean the context while thinking in terms of THEME.

In TV, when other writers mix in, other themes get introduced.  This tussle with Characters and Seeds, and conflicts and characters growing in the wrong direction is not dozens of different problems.  It is one problem all by itself -- loss of focus on the thematic structure.  What that world is about, is what makes a statement about this world.

Theme is the fabric that holds all those disparate characters together into a world of art that satisfies.

When opposite or oblique thematic statements are introduced, different segments of the audience become agitated, dissatisfied, disinterested, or just angry.

Study thematic structure from a philosophical point of view -- what is a human being, where do we come from, how did we get created, what is the meaning of life?

These are the kinds of questions that, when answered, form the framework of a work of art.

Changing horses in mid-stream does not lead to a work of art.

Or as this blog entry
https://www.wired.com/story/game-of-thrones-plotters-vs-pantsers/
said:

---quote-------
That's why Game of Thrones feels different now. A show that had been about our inability to escape the past became about the spectacle of the present.
----end quote------

And later, it is stated:
-----quote-----
Organic consequences gave way to contrivance. Gone was the conflict between complicated people with incompatible goals. Grey morality turned black and white.
------end quote------

The only way organic consequences give way to contrivance is when the underlying THEMATIC STRUCTURE is weakened.  Stick to your theme and you'll never write a "contrived plot twist."

Maybe you'll want to watch the whole Game of Thrones series again, or read the books it is based on, with an eye to sussing out the theme that Martin was working with that the showrunners missed.  I've done panels with Martin, and I'm telling you he understands his material on every level, even when it is his subconscious driving the action.

He is all about the charging forth into action, about strategy and tactics, but most of all force directed.

(He's also a very nice guy.)

So this very popular and easily available series is a perfect textbook example of what we've been talking about in all these blog posts.  Theme is the glue that holds it together for the reader/viewer.  Veer away from the theme driving the opening scene, and the ending fails.

------quote------
Endings invite us to consider the story as a whole; where it started, where it went, and where it left us. And we can feel the gaps as this one comes to a close.
------end quote-----

Daniel Silvermint is absolutely correct.  Think about that as you tackle your next writing project.  What is your payload?  What are you saying?  Oh, do please read Silvermint's article in Wired.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Thursday, May 09, 2019

Reformed Villains

I love a good "redeemed villain" story, but creating a good (i.e., plausible and emotionally engaging) one isn't easy. The chief villain of Shakespeare's AS YOU LIKE IT, Duke Frederick, undergoes a sudden conversion at the end of the play, repents of usurping his brother's dukedom, and enters the religious life. Not very believable in real-life terms, but since the change of heart occurs in a romantic comedy, we can suspend disbelief. Usually, redeeming a bad guy is more complicated. How can his or her character arc be made convincing?

A traumatic backstory that arouses audience sympathy can help. So can showing hints of goodness in the character, however tenuous (the "save the cat" moment Jacqueline often mentions). Regina, the Evil Queen in the TV series ONCE UPON A TIME, commits several murders, both by her own hands and by proxy. Her reign is characterized by tyranny and cruel atrocities. She magically curses not only Snow White but the entire realm. Flashback episodes, however, show Regina as a victim of her dictatorial mother, who slew Regina's true love and forced her to marry the king. Although kind to Snow White at first, Regina developed bitter hatred for her because young Snow's carelessness betrayed Regina's secret love and led to his death. As mayor of Storybrooke in our world, Regina adopts Henry, illegitimate son of Snow White's daughter (who initially doesn't know her own true identity—yes, this series is complicated). Regina's love for her adopted child, at first mostly—though not entirely—autocratic and self-serving, gradually develops into a deeper, unselfish affection, which plants the seeds of her repentance and desire for redemption. While I enjoyed seeing the Evil Queen grow into the heroine she becomes by the end of the series, I did, however, have trouble suspending disbelief in her redemption at times, because she commits some horrifically evil deeds in the flashbacks. But the series does show her growth toward goodness as she struggles with the terms of her redemption and her reconciliation with former enemies. For instance, whereas in her youth she pursued implacable, disproportionate revenge against Snow White for the results of Snow's childish mistake, in a later season Regina demonstrates maturity in forgiving a mistake by another character that also threatens to destroy her happiness.

Jaime Lannister in the "Game of Thrones" novels and TV series doesn't have a "save the cat" moment early in the saga. Instead, he's introduced with a "shoot the dog" moment. Caught in an incestuous act with his sister, Cersei, he pushes the witness, young Bran, out of a window, maiming him for life. This is one of several evil deeds Jaime recently mentions in rebuttal to the lady knight Brienne of Tarth when she calls him a "good man." His self-awareness about his dark past highlights the change in him over time. Among other changes, his relationship with Brienne has evolved. At first, he treated her with mocking scorn; now they are friends and lovers. Some details by which the series lays groundwork for Jaime's redemption: He slew the former king, gaining the title "Kingslayer," from sound motives, effectively saving the country from a mad tyrant, but as the nickname indicates, he's regarded negatively for this act. Most of his evil deeds are inspired by love and loyalty toward his twin sister and their mutual children. Yet when she crosses lines in ways too extreme for him to accept, he breaks with her, showing that he possesses a core of honor and decency. The audience also feels sympathy for him when his sword hand is cut off. By the current climactic season, he has demonstrated his reformation in action by offering his services to the heroes trying to overthrow Cersei.

Some fans may feel his past crimes are too serious for any credible redemption, though. What does it take to achieve a plausible reformation and redemption arc for a character guilty of egregious evil? Is there ever a "moral event horizon" that, once crossed, can never be re-crossed?

For fans of vampires, werewolves, witches, and demons, Brian M. Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg edited an anthology on this very theme, THE REPENTANT (DAW, 2003). I reviewed it here in my "retro-review" monthly blog post series on VampChix:

VampChix

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Thursday, January 18, 2018

An Author's Obligation to Readers?

With the TV series GAME OF THRONES having outrun the books on which it's based, there have been speculations that George R. R. Martin may never finish the "Song of Ice and Fire" multi-volume epic. On the other hand, in July 1917 Martin assured the public that he's actively working on WINDS OF WINTER, which might even be released sometime in 2018. (We've heard that sort of claim before, haven't we? :) ) I'm reminded of Neil Gaiman's well-known blog post admonishing fans that George Martin does not work for us:

Entitlement Issues

Gaiman maintains that writing the first book in a series does not constitute a "contract" on the part of the author to write sequels, much less finish the series. He justifiably points out that writers, even bestselling ones, aren't "machines" and have a right to private lives. And I have to concede that readers aren't "entitled" to any and all books they want to read. Still, I don't completely agree with Gaiman's position.

I'm not talking about open-ended series—for example, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover universe and most detective series. These could in theory go on forever, if the author were immortal or, as with Bradley, Tom Clancy, and many others, bequeathed his or her fictional universe to literary heirs. A series like this doesn't tell a single, unified narrative building toward a conclusion without which it would be incomplete. (It's worth mentioning, however, that in her prime Agatha Christie thoughtfully wrote "final case" novels for both Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, to be published after Christie's death.) Works along the line of Stephen King's Dark Tower epic, Gabaldon's Outlander series, and, yes, "A Song of Ice and Fire" do fit the second pattern.

Not that I condone harassing an author about not writing fast enough. Some fans apparently complained when Diana Gabaldon published novellas and novels in the Outlander spinoff series featuring Lord John Grey, on the grounds that she should have been working on the next mainline Outlander book instead! Gabaldon patiently explained that her process doesn't function that way, and the Lord John stories had no effect on the progress of the "big novels." I do believe, however, that when an author starts a series that comprises a unified story, he or she makes an implicit promise to finish the story. A multi-volume narrative, in that sense, is no different in principle from the serialized novels popular in the nineteenth century. While public nagging and angry demands are unacceptable, there's nothing wrong with what we might call "reasonable expectations."

Speaking of which, while I don't begrudge J. K. Rowling THE CASUAL VACANCY and the mystery novels, what happened to that Harry Potter encyclopedia she as good as promised us? She even forced a fan project to shut down because she intended to produce such a guide. All we've gotten, so far, is Pottermore, a flashy website that delivers world and character background material in sporadic chunks and seems more geared to interactivity than information. No, writers don't work for readers, but we can legitimately feel disappointed when we get "teased" with promised books that never materialize. While Gabaldon (for example) goes a long time between release dates of her "big novels," she transparently keeps readers updated about the current work in progress to forestall cries of "when will it be out?"

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, August 08, 2017

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 27 - The Half Hour Drama Is Back

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 27
The Half Hour Drama Is Back
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

When Television first started, most shows were a half-hour -- Lone Ranger, Howdy Doody, etc.

Then Hallmark Theater and other later evening shows went to an hour format.

A half hour show is about 20-odd minutes of show, plus commercials.

Today an hour show is about 46 or 47 minutes of show, plus commercials.

In May, 2017, we are just beginning to see the flood of web-TV, shows made for the web distribution system, with and without commercials.  Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and many more are making original adventure, drama, and commentary non-fiction for web distribution via streaming.

AT&T announced their thinking about the 20-minute adventure/drama in this item.

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/c7f58138-47a5-3339-9548-98b4158dece1/ss_at%26t-ceo-says-20-minute-%E2%80%98game.html

This represents their corporate thinking about the attention span of the target audience for Game of Thrones.

If they buy a 20 minute script, they will insert 10 minutes of commercials from which they pay Game of Thrones producer, and keep the rest.

Maybe you should think about buying AT&T stock?

Or re-think the structuring of your stories (where you put the internal climaxes) so you can sub-divide your novels into 20-minute scripts.

See last week's post on how to untangle a story idea into a linear sequence of scenes.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/08/sorting-out-your-story-line-by.html

To pick up the rhythm of how such a story would go, listen to some old radio -- Lone Ranger, Tom Mix, Fibber McGee and Molly - (whatever you can find).

By the time I Love Lucy was on TV, the hour format had taken hold.  Check out the actual time the script ran vs the air-time it took with commercials, and compare that to today's 1-hour format shows.

YouTube and other streaming distribution channels (check Roku and Apple TV for distributors) will be in the market for short scripts.  We are in a world that has no attention span and little patience.

Learn to think 20-minute installments - starting with a sharp hook, ending with a cliff-hanger.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com