The Fun parts

[andrewducker]

One of my favorite anecdotes is from a writer who decided that he would write all the exciting, fun parts of his novel first, and go back and fill in the boring middle parts later. When he had finished writing just the fun parts, he looked over what he had, came to an important realization, and sent the finished work off to his editor.

From.

And on that note, I've just finished the first 21 parts (and first week) of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. And if you liked Harry Potter at all and aren't reading this then you really, really should be.

Comments

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

Damnit! I was trying to get work done tonight! *clicks on chapter 4*

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

You may want to warn people about how that's a fanfic in the truest sense of the word, and makes all the mistakes they do, as such. It's great fun, but man it craps all over the Harry Potter universe and has the traditional author arrogance of 'OMG I can do this so much better'.

[andrewducker]

How does it crap all over the HP universe?

I actually think he does write better than JKR, but then I've been a fan of his writing for a while now.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

The foundation of the fic is that it's about applying a rationalist perspective to the HP universe. And on top of that, in illustrating the many ways in which the HP universe is deficient, like the whole gold vs silver no arbitrage thing.

I cannot speak for fanfic as a whole, just what I've read. Of the stuff I've read, which also hasn't been much, fanfic writers seem to wear certain traits on their sleeve. Their love of self-insertion, the original setting, the desire to destroy the elements of that setting that don't make sense to them, and so on.

JK Rowling is a decent author. I think she's made some fairly entertaining books, that read well and are better than the average crap paperback. Less Wrong's material is written with more skill than a novice, but I think he still falls into the new and/or unexperienced/amateur writer category. It's got plenty of force, and that makes it fun, but I think it shows off its mistakes readily.

[andrewducker]

Oh, he's definitely not perfect. He could do with a better editor at times, and he's an amateur, albeit one with skill and potential.

And I do love the originals.

But I don't have a problem with people pointing out flaws in books - it's always been something that friends and I have sat around doing anyway, and something that Rowling does herself in the series - I love how the wizarding world starts out as a place of wonder in book 1 and by the final book is clearly in need of being dragged kicking and screaming in the the century of the fruitbat.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem with fanfic like MoR though, is that the flaws that exist are often in the mind of the reader. Take the arbitrage issue, for example. We don't have enough data to really say if that's a flawed system or not. It just looks like one because of the abundance of gold. And the way he portrays Ron and Hermione, they are distinctly his own characters that are pretty well divorced from what's in the books.

But other things he nails right on, like the issue of giving a child a time travel device. Granted, it was Hermione, and she was older, but it was still something that let her step backwards in time by three hours. Pretty goddamn crazy.

I think the thing that I've disliked the most though is the portrayal of Snape as a child abuser and Dumbledore as a crazy asshole. It's good that he's establishing his own take on the universe, but by and large these are going to get pointed at as problems with the original material when they aren't anything of the sort.

[andrewducker]

I thought the description of Snape was spot on. Snape is _vile_ towards a variety of people in the books. He bullies Harry terribly, and is generally a fantastically large asshole.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I think he's certainly vile, and definitely an asshole. I don't think he is in any way a child abuser as presented in the books. He only gets to that level because that's the level that Less Wrong takes him to.

[andrewducker]

Do you mean sexually? Because I didn't see that in the story. Did I miss something?

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Oh, hmm...depending on how far you've read you might not have gotten there yet. But Harry lays it all out in a meeting between Snape, McGonagall, himself, and Dumbledore.

[andrewducker]

Yup, read all of it. Don't remember anything about sexual abuse.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I didn't say sexual abuse. Harry outright says that Snape abuses children.

[andrewducker]

In which case, I'd argue he does. His verbal treatment of them counts.

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

The way I read that scene (the meeting) there was no hint of sexual abuse. Just lots of other kinds of abuse and making kids' lives an absolute misery precisely as he did in the books.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Wait . . . Snape is House?

Cool beans!

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

their love of self-insertion, the original setting, the desire to destroy the elements of that setting that don't make sense to them

If these are the defining traits of the fanfiction you've read, you've only been reading crap fanfiction.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

A critical review of Dario Argento's film Tenebre, in which the protagonist is a thriller writer who is being threatened by a maniac taking inspiration from his latest novel, Tenebre:

'“Cut out the boring bits and you've got a best-seller,” advises urbane novelist Franciosa, provoking the immediate and easy response to Tenebre that without the boring bits you wouldn't have a film.'

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

...huh. This is completely my problem. But I need to connect the fun bits together or they won't make sense. Baaaah!