FerretBrain

2013-03-14 20:42 - I Fold - link I was going to try to watch Ripper Street but didn't get the channel it was on--but I still get exactly what you're saying. There's plenty of things to copy about many good shows, and a lot of people copy the wrong things. Take that new serial kil...

2013-03-13 18:33 - I Fold - link

There's exactly as much in an episode of Edge of Darkness or The Prisoner as there is in an episode of Deadwood or Mad Men.

Is it a coincidence that you're comparing those modern shows ...

2013-03-13 02:46 - I Fold - link <quote>I can see where you're coming from, but I tend to take the opposite view. The way I see it you can *only* define a golden age in hindsight. Yes, this means you're looking through nostalgia glasses, but otherwise you've got no context.</q...

2012-06-29 17:08 - The Rain Fell in Torrents – Except at Occasional Intervals - link

This article gets at something I've been thinking of for a while. Not about writing, since I learned a long time ago that most how-to books about fiction and writing advice blogs are worse than useless. There aren't really any set <br...

2012-06-26 17:06 - The Rain Fell in Torrents – Except at Occasional Intervals - link

Isn't it brilliant?

I think a teacher of mine in college used just that opening paragraph to show how cinematic Dickens was. He starts out in an aerial shot and gradually drops down to the people, ultimately landing on the...

2012-06-26 16:11 - The Demon's Blah Blah Blah - link

If you have a reasonable idea of who a character is, or at least the fanon version of him, you can put words in his mouth and make him do things that feel authentic.

Within reason. Because let's not forget that ...

2012-06-26 15:56 - The Rain Fell in Torrents – Except at Occasional Intervals - link I'm embarrassed to admit that I had no idea that phrase was supposed to symbolize bad writing. I think I always just took it as a shorthand for a certain kind of genre story--which I suppose implies bad writing, but to me it was more about the kind of stor...

2012-06-26 15:39 - The Demon's Blah Blah Blah - link It's an interesting question, though isn't it, exactly how bad it is to recognize fanfic styles in an original work? Is it just jarring or actually bad? I mean, the CoB article imo does a great job in pointing out the ways it can be a problem (and I didn't...

2012-06-09 02:55 - Quis Copyright Ipsos Custodes? - link Oh, p.s. That reminds me, thinking of the TKJ that yeah, I am really confused by the idea that Watchman needs to be kept in the hands of AM because other writers--especially female ones--will mess up all the feminism.

2012-06-09 02:54 - Quis Copyright Ipsos Custodes? - link

I'm sure he knew how ridiculous it would sound if he said Jekyll and Hyde were obscure and forgotten and only about six people had heard of the story.

I'm not that familiar with LoEG but the little I remembered from it was...

2012-05-06 19:48 - Cabin Fever - link I've been really conflicted about this movie because people tell me I should see it because I like horror movies, and I've heard people say it's great, but I'm just so completely wary of anybody making this kind of meta-commentary on horror. That critique ...

2012-04-23 00:04 - When Harry Met Enid - link I don't think anybody would say it was her fault. It came up, I think, because there were a lot of people crediting her with single-handedly boosting literacy rates etc. That idea has gotten repeated a lot, so it just gets corrected. Blaming her for not pe...

2012-04-22 17:17 - When Harry Met Enid - link

Were they packing the bookstores year-round or just around the Potter release dates? Because if it's the latter, that might just be a side effect of them all being keen to read the same books by the same author rather than being particular...

2012-04-22 06:03 - When Harry Met Enid - link I could swear I remember reading some actual research about this idea with HP. The basic result was, unsurprisingly, that while HP did certainly get kids interested in reading those books (just as Star Wars got kids interested in seeing Star Wars), the num...

2012-04-10 02:58 - Feminists in an Adventure with Pickup Artists - link

Whereupon he's rewarded with the love of a Good Woman. And Belle does manage to love him in his Beast form, which was required for him to be redeemed. He may not be "worthy" of her love, but he needs it anyway, and she gives it to him because s...

2012-04-09 20:21 - Feminists in an Adventure with Pickup Artists - link

I just think it's entirely predictable that "love people for who they are" means "women should love men even if they're ugly, even though men would never be asked to love a woman who isn't beautiful." Then the story seems to turn arou...