It's a download but a good critique of the series.
Still fun to read as a grown up; you notice more mature moments you didn't before, foreshadowing and such....she really had it planned out. She was no gardener!
No doubt about her planning skill, also had a really good rate of putting out books. A certain someone could learn from her example.
Darkstar will be the next Vulture King.
Craster has 19 daughters and there are 19 castles on the Wall, coincidence I think not!
Still fun to read as a grown up; you notice more mature moments you didn't before, foreshadowing and such....she really had it planned out. She was no gardener!
No doubt about her planning skill, also had a really good rate of putting out books. A certain someone could learn from her example.
Her books also had the exact same plot structure.
Prologue - Optional, but helpful if it frames up why events take place for the reader
Harry's Birthday - Halloween = Exposition & Set Up
Halloween = Inciting Incident occurs which changes the direction of the plot
Halloween - Christmas = Quidditch & Classes, side plots & new character development
Christmas = Plot development that complicates what the Inciting Incident set up
Christmas - Valentine's Day = Classes & Failed Attempts to figure something out, side plots & side characters
Valentine's Day = Perceived Breakthrough in the Plot, but actually a red herring
Valentine's Day - May Day = Harry & Company follow up on the red herring, believing they're getting close to figuring things out, oh and more Quidditch
May Day - Final Exams = Classes & resolution of side plots & characters, a penultimate confrontation or challenge Final Exams = Climax time of the story, Dumbledore & Teachers are somehow indisposed, busy, or detained--most especially Dumbledore Final Exams - Departure = Denoument and further Explanation of events and telling us why the Prologue (if it existed) was important after all, and pointing out the hints that were given to you in the July - Halloween section, and a detailed explanation of why the Red Herring was a Red Herring; Final farewell to side characters.
Book 7 broke with that formula to a large degree, thank god, but for six books, that formula carried her through.
GRRM doesn't do such a formula for his books--far too many characters to mess things up if he'd tried IMO.
No doubt about her planning skill, also had a really good rate of putting out books. A certain someone could learn from her example.
Her books also had the exact same plot structure.
Prologue - Optional, but helpful if it frames up why events take place for the reader
Harry's Birthday - Halloween = Exposition & Set Up
Halloween = Inciting Incident occurs which changes the direction of the plot
Halloween - Christmas = Quidditch & Classes, side plots & new character development
Christmas = Plot development that complicates what the Inciting Incident set up
Christmas - Valentine's Day = Classes & Failed Attempts to figure something out, side plots & side characters
Valentine's Day = Perceived Breakthrough in the Plot, but actually a red herring
Valentine's Day - May Day = Harry & Company follow up on the red herring, believing they're getting close to figuring things out, oh and more Quidditch
May Day - Final Exams = Classes & resolution of side plots & characters, a penultimate confrontation or challenge Final Exams = Climax time of the story, Dumbledore & Teachers are somehow indisposed, busy, or detained--most especially Dumbledore Final Exams - Departure = Denoument and further Explanation of events and telling us why the Prologue (if it existed) was important after all, and pointing out the hints that were given to you in the July - Halloween section, and a detailed explanation of why the Red Herring was a Red Herring; Final farewell to side characters.
Book 7 broke with that formula to a large degree, thank god, but for six books, that formula carried her through.
GRRM doesn't do such a formula for his books--far too many characters to mess things up if he'd tried IMO.
This really burns my posterior. GRRM isn't this paragon of wordsmithing and storytelling with which to bash every other writer over the head with in comparison. good writers finish!
What you have outlined is classic 4 part story structure. (i'm paraphrasing here because i don't have time to source all this)
Hook - something to grab your interest in the first few pages part 1 - setup - introducing the hero(s), setting the stakes and foreshadowning future conflict first plot point - this is where the story takes off from the setup (inciting indicent if you will), and everything changes part 2 - wanderer phase - this is where the hero reacts to the inciting incident, just reactions, no direct action against the antagonist midpoint shift - this is the point where the curtain is pulled back to give more information to the hero or reader, setting Hero to attack mode part 3 - warrior phase - the hero directly attacks the problem using information gained from the MP shift second plot point - this is the point where the hero is turned from the warrior phase to the martyr phase, they will sacrifice themselves to achieve their goal part 4 - resolution - the climax and denouement of the story
This formula has carried every screenwriter, novelist, and storyteller since the days of ancient Greece, even those who claim that all you need to do is write (cough King cough). writers such as King just have this model so ingrained into their creative psyche that they organically put these different key points where they best fit. The best analogy i've seen regarding this is the human body. It is formulaic, yet we all are unique, and the same holds true for stories that follow this structure. they may all have the same kind of thing happening at about the same point (otherwise this structure model isn't supported and it fails to work), but that doesn't mean that War and Peace is in any way similar to The Hobbit. (if you want better info on story structure, check out storyfix.com. Larry Brooks explains it far better than i do...)
and if you think that Martin has more characters than Rowling's work, well, we haven't read the same books. The entire magical world in HP is very expansive, and after the first couple of books characters come in and go out of the story with a vengeance. Rowling did write the first few books as middle grade or Young Adult novels, but books 4-7 are most certainly adult themed books, and she wrote the whole damn series in the time it took the almighty gurm to write 2 or 3. So perhaps if the almighty gurm had followed story structure a bit more closely, he wouldn't have written himself into a corner that he's spent the past 10 years trying to get out of (and instead books 4 and 5 just created far bigger problems for him creatively. or he just got bored and said "piss off"... who knows).
sorry for the rant, but i get so sick of artistic elitism and have to jump in...
Last Edit: Jul 12, 2016 14:11:32 GMT by tzalaran: can't number correctly
Prologue - Optional, but helpful if it frames up why events take place for the reader
Harry's Birthday - Halloween = Exposition & Set Up
Halloween = Inciting Incident occurs which changes the direction of the plot
Halloween - Christmas = Quidditch & Classes, side plots & new character development
Christmas = Plot development that complicates what the Inciting Incident set up
Christmas - Valentine's Day = Classes & Failed Attempts to figure something out, side plots & side characters
Valentine's Day = Perceived Breakthrough in the Plot, but actually a red herring
Valentine's Day - May Day = Harry & Company follow up on the red herring, believing they're getting close to figuring things out, oh and more Quidditch
May Day - Final Exams = Classes & resolution of side plots & characters, a penultimate confrontation or challenge Final Exams = Climax time of the story, Dumbledore & Teachers are somehow indisposed, busy, or detained--most especially Dumbledore Final Exams - Departure = Denoument and further Explanation of events and telling us why the Prologue (if it existed) was important after all, and pointing out the hints that were given to you in the July - Halloween section, and a detailed explanation of why the Red Herring was a Red Herring; Final farewell to side characters.
Book 7 broke with that formula to a large degree, thank god, but for six books, that formula carried her through.
GRRM doesn't do such a formula for his books--far too many characters to mess things up if he'd tried IMO.
This really burns my posterior. GRRM isn't this paragon of wordsmithing and storytelling with which to bash every other writer over the head with in comparison. good writers finish!
What you have outlined is classic 4 part story structure. (i'm paraphrasing here because i don't have time to source all this)
Hook - something to grab your interest in the first few pages part 1 - setup - introducing the hero(s), setting the stakes and foreshadowning future conflict first plot point - this is where the story takes off from the setup (inciting indicent if you will), and everything changes part 2 - wanderer phase - this is where the hero reacts to the inciting incident, just reactions, no direct action against the antagonist midpoint shift - this is the point where the curtain is pulled back to give more information to the hero or reader, setting Hero to attack mode part 3 - warrior phase - the hero directly attacks the problem using information gained from the MP shift second plot point - this is the point where the hero is turned from the warrior phase to the martyr phase, they will sacrifice themselves to achieve their goal part 4 - resolution - the climax and denouement of the story
This formula has carried every screenwriter, novelist, and storyteller since the days of ancient Greece, even those who claim that all you need to do is write (cough King cough). writers such as King just have this model so ingrained into their creative psyche that they organically put these different key points where they best fit. The best analogy i've seen regarding this is the human body. It is formulaic, yet we all are unique, and the same holds true for stories that follow this structure. they may all have the same kind of thing happening at about the same point (otherwise this structure model isn't supported and it fails to work), but that doesn't mean that War and Peace is in any way similar to The Hobbit. (if you want better info on story structure, check out storyfix.com. Larry Brooks explains it far better than i do...)
and if you think that Martin has more characters than Rowling's work, well, we haven't read the same books. The entire magical world in HP is very expansive, and after the first couple of books characters come in and go out of the story with a vengeance. Rowling did write the first few books as middle grade or Young Adult novels, but books 4-7 are most certainly adult themed books, and she wrote the whole damn series in the time it took the almighty gurm to write 2 or 3. So perhaps if the almighty gurm had followed story structure a bit more closely, he wouldn't have written himself into a corner that he's spent the past 10 years trying to get out of (and instead books 4 and 5 just created far bigger problems for him creatively. or he just got bored and said "piss off"... who knows).
sorry for the rant, but i get so sick of artistic elitism and have to jump in...[/quote] I am well aware of this formula, being a writer/playwright and holding two degrees in an artistic field regarding the craft. I wasn't however going to go into the nitty gritty of it for people who likely aren't interested in such. Nor was I trying to express a certain level of elitism that GRRM was better than JKR. I was expressing frustration and relief as a reader of their books that hers were especially formulaic to the point of being like clockwork, and at least GRRM can hide and deviate from the standard enough for the clockwork to not be so immediately obvious and overbearing.
Further there are many different deviations from that plot set up which goes into how paced and structured it is--some with multiple climaxes instead of just a singular one (ASOS makes use of that especially). What I was expressing was that the clockwork nature got to be too much for myself as a reader in Books 1 - 6 as you could literally tell time by what holiday it was close to. For Book 7 she finally managed to change things up enough that her clockwork mechanics weren't so obvious.
Formulaic when it becomes reliable enough that you can set a watch to it, bores me as a reader (because my writer brain gets turned on at that point and starts breaking down its components until it's simply no fun anymore and rather predictable). They're fine in small doses, but eventually the joy of reading is lost. This is why architect authors (to use GRRM's own terms) eventually lose me as a reader unless they bring enough to the table otherwise to keep me interested--for example Shakespeare and Austen have particular wit (Austen) or poetry (Shakespeare) and/or turns of the phrase, social commentary, on insight into human nature to keep me satisfied. Rowling... while an okay author has a smidgen of social commentary and beyond that has world building, and once you figure out the Wizarding World has a slightly Victoriana-esque lens on modern society, the only thing left is all those subtle references she makes to Spiritual Alchemy (of the Christian rather than the Platonic nature) and Alchemical theory as put into literary allusions and blatant allegory as nods and winks to readers who look for that kind of stuff--which is fine, but hardly inspirational as she goes through the steps repeatedly (if you're interested the seven stages of Spiritual Alchemy as based upon Hermetic and Platonic Principles: Calcination, Dissolution, Separation, Conjunction, Fermentation, Distillation, Coagulation).
Gardeners (again, GRRM terms being adopted) are more apt to take chances and go off on interesting side stories and characters that become far more interesting and complex the more the author focuses on it--sometimes to the irritation of readers who just want to get the main plot over with already, but to the other readers who don't mind meandering, they're nice side trips (although as karsa rants about, the side trips have likely overtaken the main plot entirely now). They also at the same time do a better and worse job of fleshing out the world (they may flesh out a nook and/or cranny of the world that has little to do with the overall plot: e.g. Mereen & Slaver's Bay), which for me is where Martin gets me, beyond his ensemble plot that has all the characters having climaxes at different points of the story, but more to that the density and the interconnections of his plots and characters. Sure, he goofs a lot and is far from a perfect author or a Master Builder as it were, but he does deliver to the plot a level of "thickness" and "texture" which is interesting to wade and eventually swim through as there's always something to keep you interested. He's more like a juggler juggling 20 or more balls at a time.
AGOT is arguably the most conformable of the ASOIAF novels to the simple plot--but that's because he manages to keep a lot of the recurring characters to being from the same houses (even minor characters where we get mentioned of House Darry in one person's story and how House Darry helped another set of characters in another--thus giving a unifying nature to the plot that covers two continents). ADWD is much more episodic than conforming to a larger overarching structure (though there are hints that there is such a structure in place, just too large to be visible in ADWD alone--that's partly why I argue AFFC & ADWD and eventually TWOW are all his "second book" structurally speaking, while AGOT, ACOK, and ASOS are all his "first book"--what takes some authors 1/3rd of a book to write in terms of plot--GRRM needs an entire book's worth to deliver)--and I presume that Martin likely did that switch over in writing styles (become more episodic) to better aid the TV adaptation, which considering they dropped the majority of his episodic meanderings must make him feel like he wasted his time (to some extent, yes, Georgie, you did).
I can understand your frustration, but please understand mine with Rowling which I approach as a reader who cannot for the life of him turn off his writing brain to just "enjoy the story", especially when she doesn't even try to mix things up by every once in a while having a plot point occur on St. Patty's Day instead of Valentine's Day. Eating the same soup every time with no deviation can get boring.
Book 6 felt like a jumping the shark moment for the book series, for myself. I read Book 6 and felt a deep disturbing feeling in the pit of my stomach the entire time that it wasn't really for me. Book 7 was read simply to finish out the story and not much more.
Book 5 dragged for me, mainly due to being annoyed with Prof Umbridge. It's no mistake that once authors reach uberfame status that their books become a little longwinded. Editors no longer edit, publishers no longer push, and we end up with Feast and ADWD.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
I believe, but don't quote me on this, that after book 5 Rowling insisted on not using an editor... Could be the issue with some of the later books. I know she dropped the editor, but can't remember how famous she was or what book trumped ego vs editor.
Speaking of which, I find it pretty damn ironic GURM's first book published was a work he edited and continues to edit...yet can't seem to apply the same principles. My pet theory is that he's not cut out for more than short stories, which are actually harder than novels. *scratching head*.
And yes, whoever mentioned Stephen King, he's talented at both. Look at Shawshank. Beautiful short story in his Seasons collection, plus his multitude of compilations and novels. I wasn't fond of his earlier works, but I feel his writing has vastly improved. He can write horror and general fiction. I admire his ability to do so. Neil Gaiman can even write childrens' books. I can't remember the title now, I think it's called The Graveyard Book, based off the Jungle Book, but it was amazing and won that coveted prize for break out childrens' book of the year. Frack. I can't think of it, but it's a gold little emblem
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones