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shadowkatThank you for answering my poll - currently it's tied between those who are ambivalent and those who have never read the comics or plan to. I have no idea why people feel that way. But it is fun to speculate. My guess is the characters as they are depicted in the comics, specifically the female lead (buffy) and the story the writers have chosen to tell no longer resonates with or speak to most people on an emotional level. That's a personal thing, totally pov and perspective - don't try arguing with people on that one. Won't work. Because you don't know why it doesn't resonate. It's more than likely what resonates for you is the very thing that is turning your friend off. This happens a lot with cultural stuff. For example - Bones. My friend from college and her hubby love Bones. I'd personally rather watch paint dry, be less annoying. Can't stand it. What worked for her, does not work for me. Meanwhile I adore the show House and she hates it. We can speculate all we want on why, but the truth of the matter is - it is what it is. Same deal with X-Files and Buffy, she wouldn't watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer if you paid her, and I was not a fan of the X-Files, although I did enjoy some of the stand-alone episodes, but mostly I found it too scary, too gross, and the whole alien conspiracy bit annoyed me. Alien conspiracy or aliens' invading or the US abusing aliens stories don't work for me - it's a sci-fi trope that I grew bored of ages ago. I know I'm in the minority on that - everybody online adores the X-files.
Speaking for myself in regards to the comics? I'm not sure when it happened exactly, can't quite put my finger on the exact moment, but somewhere along the line I just stopped liking the main characters. I'm still curious, intellectually speaking, and I love mocking the things, but I stopped liking the characters and in particular the lead, Buffy. I don't care right now if she lives, dies, or hops a plane to a new dimension. I don't really like her and as a result don't particularly care one way or the other. That's an awesome feat, considering how much I once did care - the writer actually killed my interest and love for his lead character. Kudos. That takes work people. And I'm not that upset about it. Well I was - way back in May, but I got over it. Now? I'm just rather fascinated by it. I'm not sure if this has happened to anyone else or not? (shrugs)And I suppose it's possible I could change my mind at some point, I do that a lot, but highly unlikely.
As for writing and stories...read a few comments and an excellent post by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flake_sake
about what works in a story and what doesn't, which got me to thinking about what works for me, and wondering well...what works for everyone else? I'm guessing it's different for all of us, because hello, we think differently. I remember way back in 2003 posting an essay on the APTO board about the episode Storyteller (Buffy S7) which everyone and their mother adored to pieces.
I hated it. It was entitled, why I hated Storyteller - and was really an examination of differences in taste and why we don't always like things in the same or for the same reasons or even, in most cases like the same things at all.
I tend to think metaphorically, I'm not really a literal thinker. And I've been trained to think critically. Also analytically. Add to that - a strong dislike for routine. Plus a very dry sense of humor, and an intolerance for embarrassment humor. Physical slapstick style humor tends to make me cringe. I found Three's Company and the movie Dumb and Dumber unwatchable for example. But Sascha Borat's first film and that South Park Musical- had me in ribbons of laughter. Farce, Satire, and clever parody - will make me laugh. Coupling made me laugh. Friends bored me. Big Bang Theory I giggle during. 30 Rock and Cougar Town - I wonder what's funny about a woman making a complete idiot of herself over some guy.
In stories...I love metaphor, if it is done well. And well written plots that do not overshadow the characters and come from the characters, not forced on the characters. I'm most interested in motivation. Why does the character choose to do this. And what are the consequences of that choice and why did they make that particular choice. Difficult emotional issues and choices intrigue me.
I want the story to take risks. But. Those risks should make logical sense. They should be something the character would do. And not merely a gimmick to shock the reader or character.
Example - if the writer kills a character this must push forward the plot, it should come organically from the story. And the character shouldn't suddenly be brought back to life later, without consequences.
I'm not really into plots. Plots tend to be pretty boring in of themselves. And there really aren't any original ones. But a well done plot, intricately woven, that comes from the characters, and pulls everything together in a way that when you stand back from it - you think, whoa. Is a thing of beauty. I've seen this done a few times in books - Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Series, actually did it. And The Flanders Panel by Arturo Reverte-Perez comes to mind.
Also, was quite impressed by Maria Doria Russell's The Sparrow - a story told in reflection and flashback.
Gimmicks annoy me. Unless used well. I disliked 24 for example because the gimmick was illogical and obvious. But, I rather liked the gimmick used in say...Memento - where the lead character, whose pov we are in has short-term memory loss - the story is told in reverse, as he tries to remember what happened, forgetting what happened last. That's a character driven gimmick as opposed to an external gimmick. Character driven/pov gimmicks often work better than writer imposed external gimmicks.
Experimental Narrative style - this can work or be annoying. Some writer's use experimental styles to show how clever they are. Other's who are true masters of the form - use it in a way that expresses character or themes in a way that you can't normally. I can't say I like it necessarily, at least not at this point in my life. Those who have used this well? William Faulkner - used it in Sound and The Fury to get across three points of view, each distinctive from the first. James Joyce does much the same thing in Ulysess - where we are trapped inside the consciousness of Leopold Bloom, his friend Stephen Dadelus and his wife Molly Bloom during the course of one day. Experiencing their bodily functions, pains, sorrows, and physicality.
There's a chapter with Molly on a chamber pot during her period...which is rather interesting.
And another with Leopold (at least I think it was Leopold) trying to piss (while he has the clap - STD). Ulysess was banned in the US in the 1940s-50s, my mother did a thesis on why it was banned and told me about it. So I became wildly curious as to why the US banned it.
It's a weird book - since it has to be translated even though it was written in English, only problem was - Joyce couldn't type, so he sent it to French nuns who didn't speak English to type up his horrid handwriting. Scholars years later poured over his handwritten manuscripts and the nuns manuscripts and have come up with differing versions. There's been at least three that I know of. No one is clear as to which is the most accurate. You know academics - they love to argue about these things. Sloppily written? Well. Yes and know. But Ulysess may perhaps be a perfect example of a book that was deliberately yet inadvertently sloppily written.
I loved it to pieces when I was 19-21. Read it three times. Wrote five papers on it, including my thesis. Now? Ugh. You couldn't pay me to read the thing. Life is too short to waste on sloppily written books that you need a committee to make sense of.
I'm in love with words. And, I am dyslexic - so I have a tendency to inadvertently say or write the wrong word, even though I'm positive I said something different. As a result, I tend to double check everything. I read every sentence twice. I re-read every thing I type as I type it.
And I will repeat what people say to me. Compensation techniques that I'm not even conscious of doing most of the time. Words are hard...they didn't come easy to me. So I care about them.
And I went to law school - which teaches precision in words. That said? I'm a contradiction in terms, because nothing drives me nuttier than nitpicking over words or semantics. Because of the dyslexia - I learned how to interpret meaning based on context. I read body language, tone, and context. So even if I have never seen the word before - I often can figure out what it means by how it was used and rather quickly. That's because I've had to.
As a result of this - I have no patience for books like Twilight, which reuse the same words over and over. Or use words like sparkly. Also because I've worked so hard at developing my own writing and vocabulary - I can't read a book that is poorly written. Or written too simply.
Which may be a better phrase. Purple prose bugs me.
Characters are important to me. I don't necessarily have to like the character, it helps of course if I don't hate them or want to kick them - which was what I felt while reading the book Atonement. I do have to find them interesting and I have to care about them. When I stop caring...I start to lose interest. Had this problem with Bram Stocker's Dracula - I stopped caring about the characters and had grown bored. This also happened to me in the novel, Atonement by Ian McEwan - I hated the protagonist with a passion. And wasn't too fond of anyone else. The book as a result became a chore to read. Not a pleasure. Same thing happened
with The House of Sand and Fog. Yet, the Harry Dresden and Harry Potter books - I devoured because I loved the main character to pieces. And all the other characters as well. They may not have been as well written as House of Sand and Fog, but they were more entertaining.
Comics. I happen to enjoy graphic art. Lover of anime, and graphic novels going as far back as college, possibly earlier - with the nieghbor's Tin Tin comics and the Asterix books in France.
Alan Moore fascinates but is tough to read at times. Experimental comics never really entertained me. They feel like work - which sort of goes against the whole point. I preferred the pulpy, beautifully painted, action and noir comics, which no girl would admit to reading.
Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns (which in an odd way Whedon's Buffy comic sort of reminds me of, except it's not as well written or drawn as Moore's or plotted. Dark Knight - the first one, was a brilliant political satire on Superman and Batman, and vigilantism. Along with how media pushes it.). Also loved to pieces Batman Year One. I remember picking up Neil Gaiman's Sand Man and The Dreaming - was rather impressed by both...the intricate world and blending of character and metaphor and theme. Was a bit of Neil Gaiman fanatic in 1999-2000 - when I went to see him speak at the opening of Princess Monokee at NY Film Festival - he'd written the English version, which was dubbed by Clair Danes, Billy Crudup, and Gillian Anderson - he was very far away, I didn't have great seats.
So what I look for is really great characters, built up with great words, and a fun intriguing plot, as well risks that make logical sense and do not take me out of the story. Moralistic stories tend to annoy me. Because hello, hypocrite, much? But I rather adore political allegories - such as Orwell's Animal Farm. And satire is always fun.
Speaking for myself in regards to the comics? I'm not sure when it happened exactly, can't quite put my finger on the exact moment, but somewhere along the line I just stopped liking the main characters. I'm still curious, intellectually speaking, and I love mocking the things, but I stopped liking the characters and in particular the lead, Buffy. I don't care right now if she lives, dies, or hops a plane to a new dimension. I don't really like her and as a result don't particularly care one way or the other. That's an awesome feat, considering how much I once did care - the writer actually killed my interest and love for his lead character. Kudos. That takes work people. And I'm not that upset about it. Well I was - way back in May, but I got over it. Now? I'm just rather fascinated by it. I'm not sure if this has happened to anyone else or not? (shrugs)And I suppose it's possible I could change my mind at some point, I do that a lot, but highly unlikely.
As for writing and stories...read a few comments and an excellent post by
flake_sakeabout what works in a story and what doesn't, which got me to thinking about what works for me, and wondering well...what works for everyone else? I'm guessing it's different for all of us, because hello, we think differently. I remember way back in 2003 posting an essay on the APTO board about the episode Storyteller (Buffy S7) which everyone and their mother adored to pieces.
I hated it. It was entitled, why I hated Storyteller - and was really an examination of differences in taste and why we don't always like things in the same or for the same reasons or even, in most cases like the same things at all.
I tend to think metaphorically, I'm not really a literal thinker. And I've been trained to think critically. Also analytically. Add to that - a strong dislike for routine. Plus a very dry sense of humor, and an intolerance for embarrassment humor. Physical slapstick style humor tends to make me cringe. I found Three's Company and the movie Dumb and Dumber unwatchable for example. But Sascha Borat's first film and that South Park Musical- had me in ribbons of laughter. Farce, Satire, and clever parody - will make me laugh. Coupling made me laugh. Friends bored me. Big Bang Theory I giggle during. 30 Rock and Cougar Town - I wonder what's funny about a woman making a complete idiot of herself over some guy.
In stories...I love metaphor, if it is done well. And well written plots that do not overshadow the characters and come from the characters, not forced on the characters. I'm most interested in motivation. Why does the character choose to do this. And what are the consequences of that choice and why did they make that particular choice. Difficult emotional issues and choices intrigue me.
I want the story to take risks. But. Those risks should make logical sense. They should be something the character would do. And not merely a gimmick to shock the reader or character.
Example - if the writer kills a character this must push forward the plot, it should come organically from the story. And the character shouldn't suddenly be brought back to life later, without consequences.
I'm not really into plots. Plots tend to be pretty boring in of themselves. And there really aren't any original ones. But a well done plot, intricately woven, that comes from the characters, and pulls everything together in a way that when you stand back from it - you think, whoa. Is a thing of beauty. I've seen this done a few times in books - Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Series, actually did it. And The Flanders Panel by Arturo Reverte-Perez comes to mind.
Also, was quite impressed by Maria Doria Russell's The Sparrow - a story told in reflection and flashback.
Gimmicks annoy me. Unless used well. I disliked 24 for example because the gimmick was illogical and obvious. But, I rather liked the gimmick used in say...Memento - where the lead character, whose pov we are in has short-term memory loss - the story is told in reverse, as he tries to remember what happened, forgetting what happened last. That's a character driven gimmick as opposed to an external gimmick. Character driven/pov gimmicks often work better than writer imposed external gimmicks.
Experimental Narrative style - this can work or be annoying. Some writer's use experimental styles to show how clever they are. Other's who are true masters of the form - use it in a way that expresses character or themes in a way that you can't normally. I can't say I like it necessarily, at least not at this point in my life. Those who have used this well? William Faulkner - used it in Sound and The Fury to get across three points of view, each distinctive from the first. James Joyce does much the same thing in Ulysess - where we are trapped inside the consciousness of Leopold Bloom, his friend Stephen Dadelus and his wife Molly Bloom during the course of one day. Experiencing their bodily functions, pains, sorrows, and physicality.
There's a chapter with Molly on a chamber pot during her period...which is rather interesting.
And another with Leopold (at least I think it was Leopold) trying to piss (while he has the clap - STD). Ulysess was banned in the US in the 1940s-50s, my mother did a thesis on why it was banned and told me about it. So I became wildly curious as to why the US banned it.
It's a weird book - since it has to be translated even though it was written in English, only problem was - Joyce couldn't type, so he sent it to French nuns who didn't speak English to type up his horrid handwriting. Scholars years later poured over his handwritten manuscripts and the nuns manuscripts and have come up with differing versions. There's been at least three that I know of. No one is clear as to which is the most accurate. You know academics - they love to argue about these things. Sloppily written? Well. Yes and know. But Ulysess may perhaps be a perfect example of a book that was deliberately yet inadvertently sloppily written.
I loved it to pieces when I was 19-21. Read it three times. Wrote five papers on it, including my thesis. Now? Ugh. You couldn't pay me to read the thing. Life is too short to waste on sloppily written books that you need a committee to make sense of.
I'm in love with words. And, I am dyslexic - so I have a tendency to inadvertently say or write the wrong word, even though I'm positive I said something different. As a result, I tend to double check everything. I read every sentence twice. I re-read every thing I type as I type it.
And I will repeat what people say to me. Compensation techniques that I'm not even conscious of doing most of the time. Words are hard...they didn't come easy to me. So I care about them.
And I went to law school - which teaches precision in words. That said? I'm a contradiction in terms, because nothing drives me nuttier than nitpicking over words or semantics. Because of the dyslexia - I learned how to interpret meaning based on context. I read body language, tone, and context. So even if I have never seen the word before - I often can figure out what it means by how it was used and rather quickly. That's because I've had to.
As a result of this - I have no patience for books like Twilight, which reuse the same words over and over. Or use words like sparkly. Also because I've worked so hard at developing my own writing and vocabulary - I can't read a book that is poorly written. Or written too simply.
Which may be a better phrase. Purple prose bugs me.
Characters are important to me. I don't necessarily have to like the character, it helps of course if I don't hate them or want to kick them - which was what I felt while reading the book Atonement. I do have to find them interesting and I have to care about them. When I stop caring...I start to lose interest. Had this problem with Bram Stocker's Dracula - I stopped caring about the characters and had grown bored. This also happened to me in the novel, Atonement by Ian McEwan - I hated the protagonist with a passion. And wasn't too fond of anyone else. The book as a result became a chore to read. Not a pleasure. Same thing happened
with The House of Sand and Fog. Yet, the Harry Dresden and Harry Potter books - I devoured because I loved the main character to pieces. And all the other characters as well. They may not have been as well written as House of Sand and Fog, but they were more entertaining.
Comics. I happen to enjoy graphic art. Lover of anime, and graphic novels going as far back as college, possibly earlier - with the nieghbor's Tin Tin comics and the Asterix books in France.
Alan Moore fascinates but is tough to read at times. Experimental comics never really entertained me. They feel like work - which sort of goes against the whole point. I preferred the pulpy, beautifully painted, action and noir comics, which no girl would admit to reading.
Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns (which in an odd way Whedon's Buffy comic sort of reminds me of, except it's not as well written or drawn as Moore's or plotted. Dark Knight - the first one, was a brilliant political satire on Superman and Batman, and vigilantism. Along with how media pushes it.). Also loved to pieces Batman Year One. I remember picking up Neil Gaiman's Sand Man and The Dreaming - was rather impressed by both...the intricate world and blending of character and metaphor and theme. Was a bit of Neil Gaiman fanatic in 1999-2000 - when I went to see him speak at the opening of Princess Monokee at NY Film Festival - he'd written the English version, which was dubbed by Clair Danes, Billy Crudup, and Gillian Anderson - he was very far away, I didn't have great seats.
So what I look for is really great characters, built up with great words, and a fun intriguing plot, as well risks that make logical sense and do not take me out of the story. Moralistic stories tend to annoy me. Because hello, hypocrite, much? But I rather adore political allegories - such as Orwell's Animal Farm. And satire is always fun.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-11 04:38 am (UTC)In the meantime, though, I started a fan-fiction WIP that included BtVS characters as well as AtS characters, and I didn't want to read the comics for either show so I wouldn't be influenced by them and could tell my own story.
I didn't finish that WIP until a year ago, and by then, nothing I'd heard about the Buffy comics storyline sounded the least bit appealing. I am, of course, reading the Angel comics you sent me, but still struggling mightily with the medium and understanding "what the hell just happened in that panel right there?"
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Date: 2010-09-11 05:18 am (UTC)It's not that any of these things were impossible, but it was like being jumped from season 2 to season 7 and just asked to take on faith that of course Spike has a soul and Willow tried to destroy the world and Giles is betraying Buffy. I felt like Joss had a Big Cool Idea he wanted to write about, and he was forcing the characters to play out that BCI whether it really fit them or not. I'd been lukewarm about Buffy for some time, and I was really hoping that in the comics I would find reason to like her again. No such luck. I left AAtS still liking Angel despite all the dicy things he'd done, but no longer. He's pretty much moved over to the villain side of the fence for me. I don't see how he's any different than Jasmine.
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Date: 2010-09-11 07:03 am (UTC)This! And also:
I want the story to take risks. But. Those risks should make logical sense. They should be something the character would do. And not merely a gimmick to shock the reader or character.
This.
I think motivation is something that is extremely crucial for me too. I like to have odd angles explored, the story taking risks as you put it, but the characters getting there has to make sense, plotwise and more importantly motivation wise. If a story takes shortcuts there it loses it's emotional impact on me.
When #36 came out, I was just reading the 5th Temeraire book and the contrast was so stark.
On the comics Buffy is just pushed to behave like a total moron by the glowhypnol and afterwards she's probably going to angst about it.
In the Temeraire books the main character had just done something he thought at the same time deeply amoral and unavoidable if he wanted to live on with himself. The whole conflict was so real, it was build over four books, it was all his free will and there really was no proper way out he could have reconciled with himself.
While I just rolled my eyes at Buffy and have lost all sympathy for her, I was fascinated by Laurence's angst, because the motivation was real and so much more layered than a cheap plot device to get the character to a certain point fast.
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