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Jun. 17th, 2012 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWatching The Rhenbach Fall - episode 2.3 of Sherlock made me realize two things or reminded me of two things.
* Everyone lies. Writers, particularly journalists are a)guillible, b)lazy, c) great liars.
Part of the problem is deadlines and having to come up with great stories and not wanting to put the time in for research and double checking sources. For a great satirical take on this - see Season 5 of The Wire, where Detective McNulty and Detective Freemon managed to convince the press that there was a serial killer taking out homeless people in order to get more funding. But I've seen this happen in real life - my brother in grad school managed to pull a sizable hoax for three months on various media outlets, who could have easily found out the truth if they bothered to check sources. And don't get me started on the News of the World Scandal. As Sherlock states all a good lie needs is basis in truth.
You embellish on the facts.
The journalist in Rhenbach Fall is a great depiction of that...she goes for the story, and falls to double-check her source, believes the lie she's told because it suits her aims.
It accomplishes her purpose - so she expands on it. Just as the Sgt - Donovan believes the lie because it makes her feel better about herself.
* If you want to grab a reader, create a bestseller, and be memorable, possibly even immortal as a writer? Create memorable characters not plots. The artistry is in the character. Jeffrey Eugendis won't be remembered. But Jim Butcher and JK Rowling will.
Why? For the same reason we love Shakespeare or Dickens or Bram Stoker or Jane Austen - we remember the characters, the iconic characters they created and we keep writing stories about them. If people write fanfic about your characters...then you have hit gold.
Think about Conan Doyle...he's not necessarily a brilliant writer, but he created one of the most interesting fictional characters ever in Sherlock Holmes. People can't forget Sherlock. He permeates our fictional and cultural landscape. Doyle managed to create a character that readers of all ages and timelines fell in love with and continue to write fanfic about, over 100 years after Doyle's death.
Sherlock will never die. Same with Hamlet, Elizabeth Bennett, Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Rhett Butler, Harry Potter, Peter Rabbit, Frodo, Bilbo Baggins, David Copperfield, The Artful Dodger, Huck Finn, Dracula, Frankenstein, Buffy, Spike, Spock, Katniss Everdeen, Starbuck,
Hot Lips Houlihan, Hawkeye Pierce, Miss Marple, and on.
If you can create a character that your reader falls for, identifies with, cares about or is fascinated about to the extent that they want more of that character...than you have achieved your goal. Good writers create characters that fictional or non-fictional, feel real, flesh and blood, in the reader's mind to the point we will fight about them endlessly.
Interesting take on Rhebach Falls, ended differently than it usually does. Rather liked Moffat's version of Sherlock.
Oh...a Facebook discussion with my second-cousin about Sherlock.
Cousin: Lucy Liu's Watson is quite the hottie.
ME: Have you seen the Sherlock on PBS, the British update? He's quite the hottie.
Cousine: Somehow I don't think of Benedict Thomas Carlton Cumberbatch as a hottie. And is that really his name?
Me: Smart is the new sexy? (Later, I decided I should have said, says the guy who calls Lucy Liu a hottie, excuse me, she's stick thin and has no bust. If you can find a stick figure hot, so can I. But I'm glad I didn't. In some respects, I'm protected by inability to come up with nasty quips on the spot.)
* Everyone lies. Writers, particularly journalists are a)guillible, b)lazy, c) great liars.
Part of the problem is deadlines and having to come up with great stories and not wanting to put the time in for research and double checking sources. For a great satirical take on this - see Season 5 of The Wire, where Detective McNulty and Detective Freemon managed to convince the press that there was a serial killer taking out homeless people in order to get more funding. But I've seen this happen in real life - my brother in grad school managed to pull a sizable hoax for three months on various media outlets, who could have easily found out the truth if they bothered to check sources. And don't get me started on the News of the World Scandal. As Sherlock states all a good lie needs is basis in truth.
You embellish on the facts.
The journalist in Rhenbach Fall is a great depiction of that...she goes for the story, and falls to double-check her source, believes the lie she's told because it suits her aims.
It accomplishes her purpose - so she expands on it. Just as the Sgt - Donovan believes the lie because it makes her feel better about herself.
* If you want to grab a reader, create a bestseller, and be memorable, possibly even immortal as a writer? Create memorable characters not plots. The artistry is in the character. Jeffrey Eugendis won't be remembered. But Jim Butcher and JK Rowling will.
Why? For the same reason we love Shakespeare or Dickens or Bram Stoker or Jane Austen - we remember the characters, the iconic characters they created and we keep writing stories about them. If people write fanfic about your characters...then you have hit gold.
Think about Conan Doyle...he's not necessarily a brilliant writer, but he created one of the most interesting fictional characters ever in Sherlock Holmes. People can't forget Sherlock. He permeates our fictional and cultural landscape. Doyle managed to create a character that readers of all ages and timelines fell in love with and continue to write fanfic about, over 100 years after Doyle's death.
Sherlock will never die. Same with Hamlet, Elizabeth Bennett, Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Rhett Butler, Harry Potter, Peter Rabbit, Frodo, Bilbo Baggins, David Copperfield, The Artful Dodger, Huck Finn, Dracula, Frankenstein, Buffy, Spike, Spock, Katniss Everdeen, Starbuck,
Hot Lips Houlihan, Hawkeye Pierce, Miss Marple, and on.
If you can create a character that your reader falls for, identifies with, cares about or is fascinated about to the extent that they want more of that character...than you have achieved your goal. Good writers create characters that fictional or non-fictional, feel real, flesh and blood, in the reader's mind to the point we will fight about them endlessly.
Interesting take on Rhebach Falls, ended differently than it usually does. Rather liked Moffat's version of Sherlock.
Oh...a Facebook discussion with my second-cousin about Sherlock.
Cousin: Lucy Liu's Watson is quite the hottie.
ME: Have you seen the Sherlock on PBS, the British update? He's quite the hottie.
Cousine: Somehow I don't think of Benedict Thomas Carlton Cumberbatch as a hottie. And is that really his name?
Me: Smart is the new sexy? (Later, I decided I should have said, says the guy who calls Lucy Liu a hottie, excuse me, she's stick thin and has no bust. If you can find a stick figure hot, so can I. But I'm glad I didn't. In some respects, I'm protected by inability to come up with nasty quips on the spot.)