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Been doing more reading.
"Literary terms and criticism" by Peck & Coyle

I was looking for a book to explain all the words I keep finding in the other books.

So I started with some words I thought I knew the meanings of, and now for three things looked up I've found two I'd call wrong. Or, not wrong precisely, more like... zoomed in too close, picked out one detail that is a bit sideways of the point.

So now I have to wonder, which is more likely wrong, me or the book?

I hates that.

Now I'm going to end up looking at the more complicated books and trying to prove bits wrong.


Or, for a more interesting evening, switching books and reading something else entirely.


I'm all sleepy. I've done all the necessary reading, so I can skip as much of this as I want, but I'm also bored, so I don't want to skip it. Is a bit annoying. I tried going back to bed but I mostly did lying down with my eyes closed all morning, which actually gets kind of boring, even if my MarySue of DOOM epic does get added to.
Actually, I tend to go over roughly the same things repeatedly. Is kind of comforting.

Is never going to make a story though. I mean, curling up in the corner with a headache while Angel or Doyle or Lindsey or Giles does something sympathetic just doesn't make grand fiction.
(Ethan just makes the headache go away. Though admittedly sometimes by making there be such a pretty light show one is entirely too distracted to complain.)

Robin Hood, week 2

Somehow it's less fun when they go around actually saying "I love you"
( Read more... )

The characters are getting more rounded, there's things that spark my interest, but the plots are making me *facepalm*. It gets another week, but I'm far from a fan.

And also... What are they *wearing*? At one point Marian had the medaeval equivalent of a wonderbra on, some kind of furry thing that almost gave her cleavage even in the shapeless sack she had on under it. Its just... Half the clothes remind me of Blakes 7. Of all the things I like about B7, the wardrobe is not in fact one of them. Except on Servalan. And Avon sometimes. And some of the other outfits were kind of cool. Just... Okay, what I actually mean is, I've watched this show for two weeks, and there's nothing I'd actually want to wear as a costume. The sheriff had some nice fabrics going on, but on the whole, no.

Last, and this is a problem only at my end, I can't decide which settings to keep the TV on. The color especially makes rather a lot of difference. Gives it a totally different look. I can't decide if I want it turned up to some clothes violently orange or down to everything vaguely beige. I can't seem to find a middle set. Is irritating.

Guess I'll be irritated again next week then :-)

More about Robin Hood, and really obvious slash. And also a lack of women.

So, Much and Robin ( Read more... )

In other news, as per usual, Marion is The Girl. ( Read more... )

Yes, I can find something to whine about everywhere.

I ate all the donuts, sort of by accident, while I was thinking on reading. And now I've started on the mini chocolate. Just... not my shiniest day, really.

How not to end a story

You know what's not a good ending?

"at the end I was certain we had lost."

"So was I." "Some wonder or another, beyond my understanding, intervened at the last."

*headdesk*

see, this is why I haven't read these books for a very long time. You trudge through a trilogy, increasingly wondering why he wrote it as a novel and not an RPG supplement, and when you get to the end?
They lose, but the writer doesn't let them.

*headdesk again*

To be fair, he has an explanation. There's a shiny rock tied to the life force of the entire planet. The bad things that made it thought it would suck the life out of everyone and they would get real strong. Instead "It was as if the very stuff of life, the souls of all that lived upon this world, rejected the [bad things]. The Lifestone aided us, not them."

The thing is, the story did not lead up to that ending. They had big battles with armies, and small duels with heroes, and a bit of magic where mages thought their way out of traps. This ending doesn't pay off any of those strands.

In order to make 'life rejects evil' the payoff, the story would really have to focus in on the positive emotions, the life affirming stuff, the getting married and having children and falling in love and all that, and contrast it with the nasty necromancy the other dudes are using. And it kind of tries. The trouble is it does so with characters that could be summed up by a character sheet, and relationships that basically seem to be "gain a dependent, -10". There's some feeling in the best friends fighting side by side sections, but its very skinny.

All adventure, no emotion. So an emotion based shiny ending just doesn't work.

imho, etc



I have an annoying tickly cough that isn't really a cough. I'm hoping it goes away. It would be nice to get more well instead of more ill.

I'm also very grouchy.



The other way this author can't make an ending - it's ended a half dozen times in the last three pages. Everyone gets their own ending. The big plot is finished and now all the people are getting shinies and going home with someone. Except the plot is *finished* so why do we care???
Blah.