posted
reading all your past reviews, it's quite obvious that you're not some brown-noser to the publishing/movie industry, and that you like to tell it like it is.
So tell us some things that are only uttered in the circles you frequent. What do writers have to say about other writer?
I'll get the ball rolling with some questions that have been nagging me for a while. Feel free to volunteer anyone.
I know his wife is a good pal of yours, but is Robert Jordan just seen as milking his serise? Do writers think this as well as his fans?
What do people think of James Patterson's 5-books-a-year career as of late? Do people see his selling out, too?
Posts: 340 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
There's a difference between having general strong opinions, and trash-talking specific people in your industry. Don't expect him to give this the answer you're looking for.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Trash-talking and strong opions are, indeed, differnt things, and I don't expect his to trash anyone. Simply speak his mind. He could like the direction RJ is taking Wheel of Time, or the volume of Pattersons writing. I just want to know what writers thinks of the issues readers are so vocal about.
And from a person that accused Stephen King of "not caring anymore," and Dean Koontz of "using pretensious prose, and knowing better," I expect nothing less than the truth
Posts: 340 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Jordan is a writer of ability and integrity, and he is telling the story as he believes it needs to be told.
I've never read any James Patterson. I have noticed, though, that there is often a co-writer's name on his books of late. There is pressure on a bestselling author to do more and more collaborations in order to exploit his brand name. These collaborations (really written by the lesser-known name) make a fraction of what the solo books do - but even a fraction of Patterson's sales is very, very nice. Some writers choose to do this, and some don't. I worry that it will dilute the value of the name.
I do have one collaboration already in print - Lovelock. But in this case, Kathy and I are truly collaborating - chapter by chapter, we both write in turn.
I will also have a novel version of Malpractice, co-authored by Aaron Johnston. This is another matter - Aaron and I talked long and worked hard in coming up with the storyline of his screenplay adapting the story for film. When he was done, I thought his screenplay was so good that I felt it should be novelized. He is writing the novelization, with input from me and some writing by me where it's helpful. So in this case, the story was jointly developed and he earned the right to do the novel by doing such a good screenplay (we sold the book from his screenplay).
Collaboration is hard, though. It requires a great deal of harmony and a friendship that can withstand argument <grin>. How Patterson, for instance, conducts his collaborations, creatively or financially, I have no idea.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
Howard Waldrop's collection Custer's Last Jump and Other Collaborations provides an interesting look at collaborative fiction writing, both in the form of a series of collaboratively written short stories (including "One Horse Town" by Waldrop and Leigh Kennedy, which is among my favorite short stories, period) by Waldrop and various other authors, and in the form of a series of introductions that provide insight into the particulars of each collaboration.
posted
But don't you think that The Wheel of Time is taking too long to get finished? I thought you said in a review of David Farland's The Runelords that if Robert Jordan could write like David Farland he'd have finished The Wheel of Time in one book.
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I do have one collaboration already in print - Lovelock. But in this case, Kathy and I are truly collaborating - chapter by chapter, we both write in turn.
(emphasis mine)
That verb is PRESENT TENSE! *hopeful* Does this mean what I think it means?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
You know rivka, I went through about 50 Pinky and the Brain "are you thinking what I'm thinking" quotes looking for one that would be funny in response to your "Does this mean what I think it means", but I didn't find any that were perfect.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Jordan is a writer of ability and integrity, and he is telling the story as he believes it needs to be told.
Surely Jordan wouldn't sue over a throwaway comment on a web forum? Or are there some kind of arcane Writers' Guild rules about being ultra-polite about each other?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Or maybe OSC disagrees with you. Certainly he disagrees with you on other things....
Of course, he didn't say how much ability or integrity -- just that he had some. And writing the story as he believes it needs to be told isn't the same as writing the story in the best way it can be told.
I actually find it very sad for you that you seem to think politeness is an arcane concept. But I'm also certain that many of my beliefs you would find sad for me, if you were to feel anything for me. So there we are, I guess.
posted
Calmly, Moose, I wasn't criticising anyone. I just found the extremely diplomatic tone rather amusing. You can almost see the strain as he tries to figure a way to say something nice-sounding without lying outright.
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posted
I was never anything but calm, though I can see how my comments could be read otherwise.
Having met Mr. Card, and talked with Mr. Card, I don't perceive any strain at all in his sounding nice. He is nice. Unsurprisingly, I'm reminded of an OSC quotation (that happens a lot to me). I can't go get the precise words, since my wife is asleep in the room with the books, but it's regarding Ender. "He never had to remind anyone that he was commander; he just was. Authority came from him like breath." Or something like that.
I sense more of the strain when I see Mr. Card post something that isn't nice, and even then it isn't so much strain as exasperation. "It would've been so easy to do this right, but they didn't." That kind of thing. I suspect there's more of that in his columns because it's, I don't know, sexier. The way newspapers get better circulation when they're running negative stories instead of positive.
Um... ok, I'm just kinda rambling now, so I'll end here.
posted
Notice how i said Jordan's wife (Harriet, who is an editor at Tor and has a special thanks credit on Ender's Game) is a friend of OCS's? I didn't expect him to trash Jordan's serise, just on the general principals of politness. What he said was enough for me.
It's a true statment and shouldn't be twisted
Posts: 340 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I personally like the Wheel of Time even though in the past it has been knocked a lot. The last few books seem to be draggin it out and going no where but Jordan has opened so many things up that I believe the next book or two of the actual series not the three prequals he is writing, new spring included, will be better than the last three and I look forward to them.
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Noemon: You know rivka, I went through about 50 Pinky and the Brain "are you thinking what I'm thinking" quotes looking for one that would be funny in response to your "Does this mean what I think it means", but I didn't find any that were perfect.
*muses* You mean they do make rubber pants that size?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Why do people always assume that the "truth" must be negative, so someone saying something accurate gets taken as a lie if it isn't nice.
Jordan doesn't sue people for saying negative things about his work.
How do you think I could be friends with Harriet McDougal without being friends with her husband? It's weird that you would think my friendship would be exclusively with the wife.
Your tone was asking that I dish the dirt. You wanted to frame the discussion as whether Jordan is just "milking his series," implying that you might have some insight into his motives. Did you ASK me whether I thought the series was too long or slow-moving? No. You asked me about Jordan's motive. But now I see that you simply assume that everyone has the worst motives - Jordan is greedy, you say, and I must be cowardly (fearful of a lawsuit) or simply dishonest out of politeness or loyalty to a friend.
It never crosses your mind, apparently, that people are decent, honest, and doing the best they can.
Here's a clue: Whenever you assume something about the motives of strangers, without any data at all, and your assumptions are all negative, you are revealing far more about yourself than about them. I have found, in many years of experience, that honest people generally start with the assumption that other people are honest - it allows them to be suckered by con men sometimes, but they do live in a happier world most of the time.
I'm on record many times over, teasing Jordan about the length of his series, just as I've teased George Martin about the gap between the latest two volumes (counting the almost-released new one as the latest). But I also know both men - and the publishing business! - well enough to know that any idea of Jordan stretching out his series to "milk" it is absurd.
Furthermore, that accusation would certainly apply to ME, with my ever-growing Alvin Maker series. But I know that the series only became seven volumes instead of three because I fell in love with the world I was creating and kept coming up with stories I wanted to tell within books that didn't have room for them.
And I suppose that with every Ender story I write, I have to bear the accusation from you that I must be "milking" the series.
You see how this goes? When you gossip, the people you gossip with become perfectly aware of the kind of thing you'll be saying about THEM when their back is turned.
And look! That's exactly what you did! Though you didn't wait till my back was turned ... I'm not sure if that's better, but ... it's different.
I'm reminded of the couple I knew who were expecting a baby, but it miscarried. Apparently someone in their church group worked in the hospital and saw a notation that the wife had received a d&c - routine after a miscarriage, but also one of the procedures used in an abortion. This observer assumed the WORST possible interpretation of the procedure. So along with the heartbreak of losing that pregnancy, they also had to put up with the vicious rumor spreading through an anti-abortion church group that they had had the forbidden procedure.
What makes gossip evil is not that one talks about people, but that one always assumes the darkest plausible motive for their actions. The gossiper speaks as if he KNEW things that no one can actually know, and nudges the listeners, urging them to agree with his fictional account of real people's behavior.
So when I see a gossipy thread, nudging me to affirm someone's dark assumptions about good people, I don't just let the gossip stand, I answer it with the truthful things I know about those people. And see how you reacted to my truthful statement - you assumed the worst plausible motive for THAT.
What a mirky world the gossip lives in, surrounded by people who do everything they do for nefarious reasons. Like living in the midst of conspirators while always being left out of the conspiracy ...
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
*clap clap* I prefer it when authers milk a series so that we get even MORE books to buy that feature our favoite characters, kinda like how you keep making all these books we love though that's not milking per say I think all either requested it or your publisher did.? in fact I take that back milking doesn't apply to you at all you just do what you love to do and keep doing it. Your next 3-4 books could go under but you'ld still keep writing good for you Mr Card! *clap clap*
... wow I won first prize for the mumbling on award.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Gecko: Trash-talking and strong opinions are, indeed, different things, and I don't expect him to trash anyone. Simply speak his mind. He could like the direction RJ is taking Wheel of Time,
The term milking isn't my own. It's one used by millions of reader. Asking if the series is "too long," isn't that just a nice way or asking whether the series could be shorter? And Therefore, implying it could be less books, therefore implying Jodan would have made less money, therefore implying by making it longer, he sells more books, and is therefore milking it? Wouldn't asking if the series was too long be the exact same thing as asking if he's milking it? They're practically synonyms.
Honestly, I don't see how a legitimate question such as this could make one go off the handle; it's the same question two-thousand negative reviews over at Amazon.com are asking right now.
Are they all negative people, or angry consumers?
Not to say Jordan isn't, but it's a fact not all writers are saint. All writers, in fact, are human. Many were alcoholics, many beat their significant others. Many did drugs.
Would it be such an unspeakable thing to assume that one might be looking out for his wallet rather than the reading public? Again, not to say that is what Jordan is doing, I'm speaking in the hypothetical.
Then I said:
quote:Originally posted by Gecko: What he said was enough for me.
It's a true statement and shouldn't be twisted
I don't know what you took that to mean, but I thought it conveyed my satisfaction with your answer because it was the best and truest one you could give without lying or sugarcoating. What it didn't mean was the exact opposite, as you obviously assumed.
I also said I didn't think you're comments would be negative about Wot because I assumed you actually liked it. But honestly, (while I think you're telling the truth) you can't say that your friendship with the Rigney's has no bearing on your criticism of the series. It's like when you're wife asks you if she looks fat in her new dress.
Your diatribe was a little much for an innocent comment, me thinks.
PS. I know that you were under no obligation to ever answer my question at all, and the fact that you did says something, but I don't want you to get the wrong impression of my intentions.
PPS. You compared your serise with WOT, and let me say, that when you actually have a fresh story to tell with each book, or actually continue the story from the previous books, that's not milking (as in yours, and GRRM's case). But if in every new book, 2/3 of the words are adjectives, then . . . you make the call.
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