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[First off - have a book to recommend, entitled CRAFTIVITY - you can get it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Great book. Well laid out with some good advice. It is basically about how to crochet, knit, build, sew, hand-make stuff. Worth a look-see. Also am sort of enjoying Chris Moore's "Lamb", funny book, not at all what I expected. Indirect satire, with a good solid and touching story at the heart. Sort of like Borat in that respect, albeit less offensive and crude, more subtle if slightly irreverent.]
Yesterday, read an interesting discussion in Entertainment Weekly with Stephen King and the producers of the TV show Lost which shed further light on the differences between writing a novel and creating a tv show. Here's a few quotes from the discussion:
( snippets of fascinating interview between King and Abrams, Lindelof, and Cuse (producers/writers of Lost) taken from EW, for full interview read this past week's EW. )
A novel writer has the luxurary (sp? - can't spell this word to save my life) of knowing how his book will end, when it will end, and ensuring it will end the way he wants it to. The novel writer who is not writing a frigging serial of novels, also has the luxury of killing off whomever he/she chooses without fans dictating not to do it. Not so, the TV show creator. First off, the TV show creator does not own the TV show - the network does. He/she is under contract to the network to deliver a product that will make money and last at least five seasons. Less then that, it does not make money. Twin Peaks for example may have been cool but made no money because only two seasons and cult doesn't make money. They were told by network to create a show about a bunch of plane crash survivors. They intended to kill Jack in the first episode, network head told them not to. They wrote an episode that revealed more about the island's secrets, network got nervous and told them to change it. If you start killing off too many characters - network starts to get nervous. Rightly so. Because as King reported - that would upset the fans of the books. This, by the way, annoys the bejeesus out of me. I think the author has the right to do whatever they damn well please to their characters - they are writing the book, we are reading or watching their story. If I wanted to read the frigging fans' version - I would read fanfic - I don't, well rarely, and mostly out of curiousity, boredom and oh alright, for the porn. In short, I think Rowlings should ignore her fans and write the story. Kill Harry, if it works for your story. Don't cater to fans. And in books and movies you can sort of get away with that. Used to get away with it with tv shows. Stupid internet has made that more difficult. Now we are hyper-aware of what everybody thinks about everything. Which wouldn't bug me if the people creating the product did not pay so much attention. Stephen King is right in the interview when he states - whatever you do, however you tell it, there will be thousands of people upset with you over it. Because it's NOT what they wanted. If you pay attention to the them - you might as well be writing a paint-by-numbers or by committee. Because the story isn't yours anymore. You aren't telling it. They are. And that is the death of your story. You've sold out. And when creators do that? I stop paying attention. What's the point?
Yesterday, read an interesting discussion in Entertainment Weekly with Stephen King and the producers of the TV show Lost which shed further light on the differences between writing a novel and creating a tv show. Here's a few quotes from the discussion:
( snippets of fascinating interview between King and Abrams, Lindelof, and Cuse (producers/writers of Lost) taken from EW, for full interview read this past week's EW. )
A novel writer has the luxurary (sp? - can't spell this word to save my life) of knowing how his book will end, when it will end, and ensuring it will end the way he wants it to. The novel writer who is not writing a frigging serial of novels, also has the luxury of killing off whomever he/she chooses without fans dictating not to do it. Not so, the TV show creator. First off, the TV show creator does not own the TV show - the network does. He/she is under contract to the network to deliver a product that will make money and last at least five seasons. Less then that, it does not make money. Twin Peaks for example may have been cool but made no money because only two seasons and cult doesn't make money. They were told by network to create a show about a bunch of plane crash survivors. They intended to kill Jack in the first episode, network head told them not to. They wrote an episode that revealed more about the island's secrets, network got nervous and told them to change it. If you start killing off too many characters - network starts to get nervous. Rightly so. Because as King reported - that would upset the fans of the books. This, by the way, annoys the bejeesus out of me. I think the author has the right to do whatever they damn well please to their characters - they are writing the book, we are reading or watching their story. If I wanted to read the frigging fans' version - I would read fanfic - I don't, well rarely, and mostly out of curiousity, boredom and oh alright, for the porn. In short, I think Rowlings should ignore her fans and write the story. Kill Harry, if it works for your story. Don't cater to fans. And in books and movies you can sort of get away with that. Used to get away with it with tv shows. Stupid internet has made that more difficult. Now we are hyper-aware of what everybody thinks about everything. Which wouldn't bug me if the people creating the product did not pay so much attention. Stephen King is right in the interview when he states - whatever you do, however you tell it, there will be thousands of people upset with you over it. Because it's NOT what they wanted. If you pay attention to the them - you might as well be writing a paint-by-numbers or by committee. Because the story isn't yours anymore. You aren't telling it. They are. And that is the death of your story. You've sold out. And when creators do that? I stop paying attention. What's the point?
