n a message dated 2/13/01 7:40:56 AM Eastern Standard Time, tucev@tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu writes:
<< This is actually the author trying to explain to us the psychological motivation of characters in her story, and she is doing it in a very clumsy way. She also shows great disrespect for us as the readers, because she thinks that we wouldn't be able to figure out by some more subtle signs how Blake feels about Avon or how Vila feels about Blake or whatever. >>
Yes, but this is the way written fiction has to work. In a play or a tv show or a movie, so much more can be said with an *expression* or body language that *cannot* be conveyed in any other way than with words in written fiction. Ask any professional writer who has written both forms. A writer on the Highlander tv series wrote a novel about the show and she mentioned in her afterword that she couldn't *believe* how unbelievably different and difficult it was to write the novel as opposed to a script. She pointed out the fact that she had to be so much more wordy and that she couldn't rely on the actor's being able to get the feeling and the meaning of the words across. She had to *explain* everything.
If an author, be they pro or fannish, doesn't include enough description, explanation, dialogue, etc., you end up with a very sterile story that might as well be a script with little to no stage direction. I've seen many fan stories like that and, believe me, once read they are usually quickly forgotten. There's nothing there to involve the reader in what's happening. As a professor of literature once told me in college: "Character is everything." A movie/tv show can focus on action/adventure to the exclusive of character (I, personally, might not enjoy that all that much, but it can work), but if a book does that, it's just boring.
Annie
On Tue, 13 Feb 2001 Ashton7@aol.com wrote:
Yes, but this is the way written fiction has to work. In a play or a tv show or a movie, so much more can be said with an *expression* or body language that *cannot* be conveyed in any other way than with words in written fiction. Ask any professional writer who has written both forms. A writer on the Highlander tv series wrote a novel about the show and she mentioned in her afterword that she couldn't *believe* how unbelievably different and difficult it was to write the novel as opposed to a script. She pointed out the fact that she had to be so much more wordy and that she couldn't rely on the actor's being able to get the feeling and the meaning of the words across. She had to *explain* everything.
This is because a book is like a cake and a script is like a recipe for a cake. A script which actually contained all the worked-out detail of a finished artistic product would look hellishly overwritten, with nothing for the director or performers to do.
Iain
Iain said:
This is because a book is like a cake and a script is like a recipe for a cake. A script which actually contained all the worked-out detail of a finished artistic product would look hellishly overwritten, with nothing for the director or performers to do.
One reason that many actors and directors hate working with a living playwright who is present at rehearsals is that many a playwright doesn't WANT there to be anything for the director or performers to do other than do EXACTLY what the playwright put into the script.
Maybe that's what being a fanwriter is about? Achieving Hitchcock's dream of treating actors like cattle because we have total control over them? Maybe bad stories come about from Mad Character Disease (which in turn, is caused by what we feed them?)
-(Y)
On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Dana Shilling wrote:
One reason that many actors and directors hate working with a living playwright who is present at rehearsals is that many a playwright doesn't WANT there to be anything for the director or performers to do other than do EXACTLY what the playwright put into the script.
Then they shouldn't be playwrights. If they're not willing to be pleasantly surprised by how their text is performed, why are they creating a text for performance in the first place? Certainly any playwrights I've worked with have been very interested in seeing what the actors do with the text: I'm optimistic enough to hope that the type you mention are in the minority.
Shakespeare didn't write stuff like
[HAMLET enters slowly, and sits on a dark wooden chair stage right]
HAMLET To be, or not to be: [BEAT] that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer [HAMLET LEANS TOWARDS AUDIENCE] the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune [HAMLET STANDS AND BEGINS TO PACE ACROSS THE STAGE] or to take arms [HAMLET RAISES HIS VOICE] against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? [BEAT] To die: to sleep; [HAMLET SITS DOWN, LOOKING DEFLATED] no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache [TEARS WELL IN HAMLET'S EYES] and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation [HAMLET EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN AN EXPANSIVE GESTURE TOWARDS THE AUDIENCE] devoutly to be wish'd.
and I don't see why anyone else should.
Actually, while we're on the subject, could I take this opportunity to implore any Lystians who write scripts to remove evry stage direction that says [BEAT]? It's something I always find insulting, to be honest.
Maybe that's what being a fanwriter is about? Achieving Hitchcock's dream of treating actors like cattle because we have total control over them? Maybe bad stories come about from Mad Character Disease (which in turn, is caused by what we feed them?)
Possibly. However, I think bad stories often come about because the author doesn't have a good idea of how a particular actor would be likely to approach a particular piece of dialogue, and this gives a false feeling to the story.
Iain
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Iain Coleman