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I gave up on Heroes in the first season after getting tired of constant subtitles. This season I heard it had gotten good, so I checked it out again. The subtitles were still annoying (I think three of the storylines involved them) but I tried to look past them. Beyond that, the episodes have just been boring. There are too many storylines, so many that you go two weeks before seeing what happens next. I think the writers have forgotten that this is one show. You want more stories, do a spinoff, like Heroes: Atlantis. Or Heroes: Miami.
It's good the creator knows his show has hit a rock, and maybe he'll fix it. Like Lost. The network realized the show wasn't working, so they forced changes.
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The subtitles annoyed me too, and I wasn't too hooked in the beginning of the first season, but kept up with it because my friends did. I have to say I've been pleased with the new season episodes most recently - I think I'm seeing that 'pick-up' that Kring is promising.
It's really cool that he's able to step back and acknowledge the blunders he feels the show has made. I definitely agree with you, lehollis, about that being a good attribute.
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I read subtitles effortlessly, but then I grew up on subtitled Akira Kurasawa and Ingmar Bergman. Love Heroes, first season and second, thought it took three or four episodes to hook me. I have a fondness for continued stories, gained in childhood watching Zombies of the Stratosphere and Captain Marvel.
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quote: I read subtitles effortlessly, but then I grew up on subtitled Akira Kurasawa and Ingmar Bergman.
My own childhood has a lot of subtitles in it - if that doesn't sound funny. :p
I think the font and the name/place nature of the subtitles was what annoyed me, and that there seemed to be so many of them - too many switches and reminders that pulled me out of the narrative rather than helped. Dialogue subtitles are fine with me. I've kind of gotten attached to the quirky way they slip the chapter title into each episode now, though.
Lehollis: The only thing that makes me get better at looking at my own work is leaving it aside long enough that reading it again for an edit feels like reading it for the first time. In other words, I have to get out of my own head and come around to it as a reader again. Putting on my hardcore lit-analyzing hat (prime word there being anal) helps me see things more objectively, too, if I don't have time to let the work "cool."
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I think also analyzing what you read is important. I've been getting much of the same advice lately, that it's lacking in description. Someone even wrote in the margin, "Are they floating in space???"
So, I've decided to reread authors whose world stands out vividly to me. I'm going to go through it line by line and try to decipher how they go about revealing their world.
I think a lot of learning to write well is learning what effect your words have on your reader, and how you can control that effect.
quote:Lehollis: The only thing that makes me get better at looking at my own work is leaving it aside long enough that reading it again for an edit feels like reading it for the first time. In other words, I have to get out of my own head and come around to it as a reader again. Putting on my hardcore lit-analyzing hat (prime word there being anal) helps me see things more objectively, too, if I don't have time to let the work "cool."
Yep, good idea. My own WiP has been cooling about seven weeks, now. I'm about ready to pick it up and start working seriously on it, again. Thanks for sharing.
The subtitles in Heroes didn't bother me. It looks like they're either hit or miss. (I did think it was a bit too much when they had another subtitle-only thread this season, though.)
I also liked that they had fun with the subtitles, like when Hiro gulped in one subtitled scene, and the subtitle read "Gulp".
quote:So, I've decided to reread authors whose world stands out vividly to me. I'm going to go through it line by line and try to decipher how they go about revealing their world.
Let me know what you learn about it, if you can, Anne.
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I'll bet one thing the people whose worlds come through clear do is use specifics in their descriptions rather than generics.
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quote:I'll bet one thing the people whose worlds come through clear do is use specifics in their descriptions rather than generics.
That's certainly part of it. Also, what details to you choose to put in? How do decide which are the most salient details that will create your world most effectively? And how do you slip those in?
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posted
I'm happy that he can see what he did wrong. That article is an echo of conversations me and my friend have been having. And on the 5th we both said, "finally something is actually happening."
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