and now for something completely different ~

[lookingland]

i purposely didn't get on the 'puter all day yesterday ~ i feel compelled to apologize to my flist (livejournal can get so obligatory, can't it?). and then i feel bad because i have read a lot of your entries, but didn't respond because i was busy elsewhere in my head.

anyway, i apologize. for what it's worth.

~ * ~

i'm 2k away from finishing NaNo. big whoop. congrats to the rest of you who are sticking it out in a more committed fashion!

i've been working on painting stuff and trying to get Eleison in order. I'm also trying to breakdown, compositionally, pages for Jack because we were supposed to debut this in 2006 and it would appear the year is coming to a close.

all that and i have been thinking about Beeton's dime novels lately. we had a tour of the Anderson Library special collections (got to see a copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle up close and personal, even ~ squeeee!). Anyway, the Anderson Library has a large collection of Sherlock Holmes materials, including Beeton's first appearance of the character in A Study in Scarlet from 1887 and another copy that was in the library of the Tzarina of Russia (and allegedly among her possessions when the family was executed).



at any rate, this got my mind turned back in on the whole dime novel thing, which i have ruminated over in the past (and which was my original desired concept for Reconstruction except i chickened out on doing it). i'm thinking seriously of picking up this thread and trying to start again on this particular quilt. see, i don't think i will find a solution to the narrative problem that i continue to tangle with. i've come to the conclusion that there is no fast and easy solution, that i simply must choose a "box" and start packing this thing into it or else it will never get done. i don't know why i continuously talk myself out of my ideas, but this is definitely case-in-point.

all that remains is deciding whether there is one box or several (divided by epoch, for example, or by some aristotelian sense of unity), what goes in the box (in terms of regular content to be indexed), and what wrapping to give it (ooo pretty covers!).

and that's as far as i've gotten with this idea because it's about here that i always get stuck on the same problem of chronology.

so here's question about spoilers (please elaborate in a post):

American Beauty begins with the narrator explaining that he's about to be dead very soon. so we know he dies. i think it works anyway, but any story that begins at the end and then employs flashbacks can potentially tell "too much" and spoil certain aspects of the drama (i know bachsoprano is wrassling with this issue as well). john knowles frequently employs an authorial intrusion (i'm thinking specifically of The French Lieutenant's Woman) that tells us what's going to happen (my favorite moment in the book is when it "ends" halfway through and the narrator says [paraphrasing here] ~ "well you know that can't be the real ending because you can clearly see there's so many pages left" ~ brilliant).

anyway, what do you think? is this maddening and destructive to the enjoyment of a story for you?

let's poll!

[Poll #871087]

Comments

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

I impulsively and immediately answered "1",
"4" would do as well and is less harsh.
darth vader bein luke's father is an example
of something I couldnt care less about, then
or now. (and I enjoyed the first 3 star wars
released greatly, the 4th less the 5th and 6th
not at all but anyway...) on the other hand
take a mystery like,what comes to mind, raymond
chandler's the big sleep--it is literature and
I have read it more than once years ago, but
knowing who is guilty perhaps makes the second
reading lacking in some element present in
the first.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

no doubt a story can have a greater impact the first time around if you don't know what is going to happen ~ the twist ending or surprise victim/killer/whatever ~

but it occurs to me that if the point of the story is not necessarily to surprise, then it's not important if we know how it all turns out in the end.

after all, we know alice is going to return from wonderland eventually ~ there's never any question of that.

: D

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well also the use of the word
"spoilers" really is a sort of cant
(jargon) isnt it? one feels in the
presence somehow of vieweres of
daytime soaps.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

somehow it always reminds me of fruit.

: o p

hahahahahahaha ~

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

I think that when handled well, a sort of gimmick like the one employed in American Beauty can be a great device. I loved American Beauty. THe same sort of idea is used in Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. I think it all boils down to how well an aithor employs their devices.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

definitely "how" is critical. i tend to feel that if i see it's a device or gimmick at all, i don't like it. i prefer the author's hand to be more invisible than that.

if a twist ending or a "spoiled" death is organic to the story (as it is in American Beauty where the whole point is a reflective meditation on one's life), then that's all good.

: D