Minor annoyances
Jan. 25th, 2008 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zengar1) Still raining.
2) I just had a character pop into my head, complete with a bit of dialog that identified a couple of other characters and gave some hints as to plot. However, it's completely useless for the project I intend to be working on, and requires world attributes that I don't think fit with any partial ideas I have sitting around.
3) I just gave up on another book I was reading for a reason I find annoyingly frequent. What genre or subgenre is to blame for the infiltration of these plots into so many sci fi and fantasy books? I'd guess somewhere in either the Romance, or Literary ends of things, but I'm not sure. What I'm talking about is the stories that are all about political intrigue and all of the problems result from character A not talking to person B. Also B doesn't talk to C, C doesn't talk to A, and D doesn't talk to anybody.
Meanwhile the villain (and it's almost always a single figure dancing through everything without a single mis-step) is manipulating the entire thing behind the scenes and while the reader knows immediately, even those characters who should know better don't do anything that might slow him or her down. It only take two characters actually talking about their problems to realize that there might be a common thread, they talk to a third and it's confirmed, and by the fourth they've got the bastard nailed to the wall, but they never think of doing it until the last 50-100 pages. Besides, it makes the villain a cardboard cut-out Machiavelli. They kind of have have to be, since they're building a fragile house of cards, almost invariably manufacturing accusations of infidelity or treason completely out of thin air, without ever being caught.
You know, the more I think about it, the more i think it's probably a subgenre of Romance that's to blame. It has the right ... superficial (not the right word, but it will have to suffice) feel to it.
2) I just had a character pop into my head, complete with a bit of dialog that identified a couple of other characters and gave some hints as to plot. However, it's completely useless for the project I intend to be working on, and requires world attributes that I don't think fit with any partial ideas I have sitting around.
3) I just gave up on another book I was reading for a reason I find annoyingly frequent. What genre or subgenre is to blame for the infiltration of these plots into so many sci fi and fantasy books? I'd guess somewhere in either the Romance, or Literary ends of things, but I'm not sure. What I'm talking about is the stories that are all about political intrigue and all of the problems result from character A not talking to person B. Also B doesn't talk to C, C doesn't talk to A, and D doesn't talk to anybody.
Meanwhile the villain (and it's almost always a single figure dancing through everything without a single mis-step) is manipulating the entire thing behind the scenes and while the reader knows immediately, even those characters who should know better don't do anything that might slow him or her down. It only take two characters actually talking about their problems to realize that there might be a common thread, they talk to a third and it's confirmed, and by the fourth they've got the bastard nailed to the wall, but they never think of doing it until the last 50-100 pages. Besides, it makes the villain a cardboard cut-out Machiavelli. They kind of have have to be, since they're building a fragile house of cards, almost invariably manufacturing accusations of infidelity or treason completely out of thin air, without ever being caught.
You know, the more I think about it, the more i think it's probably a subgenre of Romance that's to blame. It has the right ... superficial (not the right word, but it will have to suffice) feel to it.
