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Subject: Re: Reading, A Lost Art

Author: ~Steve-o

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 23:37:15 06/11/01 Mon In reply to: JIM 's message, "Re: Reading, A Lost Art" on 21:50:47 06/11/01 Mon >>Personally, I don't like Dickens, but I get what he >>did. >AOL. I read "A Christmas Carol" when I was young, and >liked it. Unfortunately, since then Dickens has been >associated in my mind with a pushy ex-girlfriend. Dickens is hit or miss. Part of the original serial format was that he would take up the next chapter where the last one left of. When I sit down and write Ford, I know where the story's going (mostly), what's going to take place in each chapter (mostly) and some of the better lines that I want to use. Dickens actually made it up as he went along. If you read "Oliver Twist," you'll see, IMHO, exactly how that can go horribly, painfully wrong. But, if you read "Great Expectations," you'll see it go wonderfully right. >I still feel about Hemingway the way I feel about Heinlein. >Unnnnngggh. Guh, buh, snuh. I can read Hemingway without feeling like I'm watching an incestuous, orgy episode of Laugh-in. >Precisely. As we often say - maybe sometimes to >convince ourselves as much as anyone else - we're >doing this for our own enjoyment. Everyone knows that >the two people most excited about the Ford/HG >cross-over are me and ~Steve-o. As far as I can tell, from reading the forums, etc., JR's the only one who actually consistently reads the story. So what? I'm enjoying the heck out of writing it. >If you enjoy writing/drawing/verb-of-your-choice-ing the >thing, who cares if most of the rest of the web, or the >world, thinks its chaff? The most important thing is making >something you're satisfied with. Exactly. When it comes down to it, I'm the one who works late at night after work on the HTML for my site, I'm the one who maintains it, and I'm the one who pays the monthly bill for the server space. I may rag on the soaps for being horribly bad or doing things like having a sniper on the seventh floor of a building shoot someone on the street with a pump-action 12-gauge or a killer who replaces paintballs with real bullets, but all that really means is that I don't have to read their stuff. >Another related one is that it is truly easier to catch >and hold someone's attention with a mix of text and images >than with text alone. This goes back to JR's original point of the short-attention space syndrome. Most people want to be entertained rather than be forced to think, and reading is precisely that, picturing the words in your head. No writer, not Stephen King, not me, not William F. Buckley, not Chris Longo, neither novel nor web serial nor column, is ever going to get the kind of publicity a comic strip writer gets because you can't condense writing to tasty, bite-sized morsel without losing a lot. I love the idea of a Bitbooks Newsbox because it does offer the serial writer a bit of the publicity that online comics get. I also love the idea of a paid content provider that producers can work through for the same reason, it lends a bit more credibility to the average whatsit and people are more likely to accept content from a larger site than from someone's personal site. It's sad to say, but it's true. If it looks "corporate," its somehow more believable in the average web-surfer's eyes. And I also disagree that getting recompense for your work is a bad thing. I don't think everyone who's taken a penny for their work is a sell-out. Pete Abrams makes a decent bit from Sluggy-merchandise, and the strip only gets better. Greg Dean has Paypal on his site, and Real Life still kicks ass. Sure, you do it because you enjoy doing it, but there's nothing wrong with getting paid for doing what you love. >Text is pretty linear, so anything you spend time >describing automatically comes up front and center. Exactly. It's very very hard, if not impossible, to push something past a reader and have them not realize it until later. You get that a lot with comics; a second read always reveals something you missed. If you re-read a story, you'll pick up something you missed, but it's usually a minor story event, not something the author intentionally hid. >On the other hand, some things we do in text would be >impossible or very difficult in a more visual, >tackable format. Eg Reaper's mode of communication, >Grayhound's chatroom scenes, or the little Chimera >subterfuge revealed in this week's BGBM. Difficult, but not impossible. >What I mean is, one way we can try to overcome the >limitations of text on the web is by using it to our >advantage. JR's already doing this with his layout. The format I've chosen kinda nips it in the bud for me. You've got room to play, that "SHEBLAM!" on the latest BGBM killed me. >I'm pretty sure that the Guide will be considered a >classic for some time to come. For no other reason >that it was the first honest-to-goodness sf comedy to >be widely recognized. And also because it's a very influencial book. I'm re-reading it now, and I'm realizing it's really not as *great* as I remember it, but it's darn good and incredibly original. There was nothing like it before it came out, and there's still nothing in it's style that compares. I could still name several authors of the last few decades that I consider masters: Flannery O'Connor, Frank McCourt, Larry McMurtry, Tom Wolfe, Ray Bradbury; these are people who knew the construction of a good story and knew how to craft not only believable characters, but characters you were interested in. Just because they were sold into Hollywood slavery doesn't detract from their value in the least. Anyone who thinks that a book written in the last 50 years can't be a classic has never read "Ballad of the Sad Cafe." >>>the number of hits a site gets is no indication >>>of worth at all. >>well then why am i addicted to checking my site >>counter?!?! >Cause like me, you're a raving egomaniac. Or because you're like me and have a fragile ego and need that constant reassurance :) [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Reading, A Lost Art	TechnoAtheist	08:27:16 06/12/01 Tue
Re: Reading, A Lost Art	JIM	11:34:31 06/12/01 Tue