UPDATE: I read it. I did not look at the blurbs or accolades until after. I didn't hate it. I got into it, and read until the very end--which was hardly a surprise, but then the whole thing was a big collection of cliches and recycled tropes--the nerd, the crass opportunist, the trauma that haunts the main character, the evil company, etc. Some stories & sub-plots were over-written--what had happened on Ferris Colony, for example, I felt like that was told to me more than once.
I did like the Aurora, and I liked The Monster, and though I found the main character less than sympathetic, I was rooting for her. There was a great book in there, somewhere. It was better written than the book I'd read before it, so maybe it seemed better than it was to me.
I haven’t read that book, and hadn’t heard of it until now, so I can’t comment on it. I liked your take on it though. Because plot is hard -- for me, anyway. But for anyone drawing from those influences, it should be less hard.
The one inviolable rule of plot (as I see it) is that every moment in your story needs to move the plot forward. That can mean different things in different genres, but every moment should up the stakes, or provide relevant exposition, or deepen the themes, or reveal important things about the characters, etc. If you’re not doing any of those things, you’ve got a problem; if you find yourself *undoing* the things you’ve already done in previous scenes, well…it’s probably time to rethink the whole enterprise.
The old improv theater cliché is “yes, and”—that is, if someone on stage says you’re all in a plane, you don’t get to say “No, it’s a spaceship!” You agree to the scene you already have, and then you build on it. Failing to say “yes, and” to *yourself* is a pretty serious problem, and it’s the exact one that Barnes has, lol.
Another book by a screenwriter which I recently read talked about how you don't want the reader/viewer to have an out, eg escape route out of the story.
I have not read this. I read all kinds of genres, and I love horror films, but horror fiction haunts me. It's been 27 years since I read Pet Sematary. Not over it. All the filmed versions of Let the Right One In were chilling and fun, but the book ...OMG...anyway...
When you said luxury cruise spaceship, I thought HELL YES sign me up, then boom, no, you'll only be seeing the bridge and adjoining cabins WHAT, NO. Now I want to read it to see why other people think it is good.
Tough Crowd, by Graham Linehan. Most of it is about how he became a writer, how he learned to craft a script, how Father Ted and The IT Crowd were developed.
That sounds like a chore to read. One of my writing teachers said the same thing to me about plot -- that every scene needs to keep things moving. My current work in progress is historical fiction about women’s baseball in its final year. Over the course of it, the players slowly realize that it’s over and they’ll have to get on with their lives, some promising careers snuffed out just as they were really getting going. But finding all the little ways to move it forward has been a struggle.
I also liked what you said about burning bridges when you comment on other authors’ books. Someone on Goodreads called Laird Hunt’s work “dreamy and halfwitted” and I agreed, so he’ll probably hate me but it’s punching up from where I sit!
Yeah, the baseball book sounds tricky—stories that slowly wind down, instead of wrapping up quickly, can be a bit of a drag if they're not done really well.
If I could armchair-quarterback (mixed metaphors!) for a sec, my guess is that the "internal movement" of the characters is something that's really important to nail here. Each scene should change how they see themselves, the world, etc., even if just a tiny bit—and of course, there should be a through-line to it: they should all have very noticeably different perspectives at the end than they do at the beginning.
If that advice helps, feel free to use it; if not, feel free to ignore it, haha. For me, with some projects, I've found it really helpful to keep a spreadsheet of how each character needs to feel at the beginning and end of every scene.
Actually, that helps a lot! When I get it published, you will be in the acknowledgments! Spreadsheets are a good idea. I’m very disorganized generally. If only I could have a project manager for writing novels like I do at my copywriting job.
Maybe it is one of those stories that should be told backwards from sorrow into joy like the Martin Amis novel where Holocaust victim flee the fire and eventually rejoin normal life.
Maybe it is one of those stories that should be told backwards from sorrow into joy like the Martin Amis novel where Holocaust victim flee the fire and eventually rejoin normal life.
UPDATE: I read it. I did not look at the blurbs or accolades until after. I didn't hate it. I got into it, and read until the very end--which was hardly a surprise, but then the whole thing was a big collection of cliches and recycled tropes--the nerd, the crass opportunist, the trauma that haunts the main character, the evil company, etc. Some stories & sub-plots were over-written--what had happened on Ferris Colony, for example, I felt like that was told to me more than once.
I did like the Aurora, and I liked The Monster, and though I found the main character less than sympathetic, I was rooting for her. There was a great book in there, somewhere. It was better written than the book I'd read before it, so maybe it seemed better than it was to me.
I haven’t read that book, and hadn’t heard of it until now, so I can’t comment on it. I liked your take on it though. Because plot is hard -- for me, anyway. But for anyone drawing from those influences, it should be less hard.
The one inviolable rule of plot (as I see it) is that every moment in your story needs to move the plot forward. That can mean different things in different genres, but every moment should up the stakes, or provide relevant exposition, or deepen the themes, or reveal important things about the characters, etc. If you’re not doing any of those things, you’ve got a problem; if you find yourself *undoing* the things you’ve already done in previous scenes, well…it’s probably time to rethink the whole enterprise.
The old improv theater cliché is “yes, and”—that is, if someone on stage says you’re all in a plane, you don’t get to say “No, it’s a spaceship!” You agree to the scene you already have, and then you build on it. Failing to say “yes, and” to *yourself* is a pretty serious problem, and it’s the exact one that Barnes has, lol.
Another book by a screenwriter which I recently read talked about how you don't want the reader/viewer to have an out, eg escape route out of the story.
I have not read this. I read all kinds of genres, and I love horror films, but horror fiction haunts me. It's been 27 years since I read Pet Sematary. Not over it. All the filmed versions of Let the Right One In were chilling and fun, but the book ...OMG...anyway...
When you said luxury cruise spaceship, I thought HELL YES sign me up, then boom, no, you'll only be seeing the bridge and adjoining cabins WHAT, NO. Now I want to read it to see why other people think it is good.
What’s the name of that book? I’d love to know more about what their definition of an “out” is.
Tough Crowd, by Graham Linehan. Most of it is about how he became a writer, how he learned to craft a script, how Father Ted and The IT Crowd were developed.
That sounds like a chore to read. One of my writing teachers said the same thing to me about plot -- that every scene needs to keep things moving. My current work in progress is historical fiction about women’s baseball in its final year. Over the course of it, the players slowly realize that it’s over and they’ll have to get on with their lives, some promising careers snuffed out just as they were really getting going. But finding all the little ways to move it forward has been a struggle.
I also liked what you said about burning bridges when you comment on other authors’ books. Someone on Goodreads called Laird Hunt’s work “dreamy and halfwitted” and I agreed, so he’ll probably hate me but it’s punching up from where I sit!
Yeah, the baseball book sounds tricky—stories that slowly wind down, instead of wrapping up quickly, can be a bit of a drag if they're not done really well.
If I could armchair-quarterback (mixed metaphors!) for a sec, my guess is that the "internal movement" of the characters is something that's really important to nail here. Each scene should change how they see themselves, the world, etc., even if just a tiny bit—and of course, there should be a through-line to it: they should all have very noticeably different perspectives at the end than they do at the beginning.
If that advice helps, feel free to use it; if not, feel free to ignore it, haha. For me, with some projects, I've found it really helpful to keep a spreadsheet of how each character needs to feel at the beginning and end of every scene.
Actually, that helps a lot! When I get it published, you will be in the acknowledgments! Spreadsheets are a good idea. I’m very disorganized generally. If only I could have a project manager for writing novels like I do at my copywriting job.
Maybe it is one of those stories that should be told backwards from sorrow into joy like the Martin Amis novel where Holocaust victim flee the fire and eventually rejoin normal life.
Maybe it is one of those stories that should be told backwards from sorrow into joy like the Martin Amis novel where Holocaust victim flee the fire and eventually rejoin normal life.