Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

I wanted to talk a little bit about prequels and the troubles with them. I was talking earlier in the week with all_choseny who is more excited to see the Potterverse prequels than I am. I hear GMM is delayed on the next Game of Thrones book because he's gotten hooked on the prequels. Hell I've written a few myself. But in many ways they are tough to do and even tougher to do right.

Don't get me wrong I'm not anti-prequel. I'm quite excited to see Boom!'s early Slayers comics and I think that's because it's so wide open. Outside of the First Slayer, and the two Spike killed we know next to nothing about pre-Buffy slayers (unless there's stuff in the comics I don't remember or never read) So it's hard really to mess things up.

Enterprise suffered a lot in the Star Trek universe because it was a prequel set so far ahead of Kirk's time. (It suffered from some bad writing too but that's another topic). They didn't want to stick with the same old same old villains and in a way I can't blame them. I can't tell you how damn tired I am of daleks and cybermen in the Whoverse. But they turned around and created a supervillain in the Xindi that seems utterly implausible that we never heard of them in ANY other ST verse.

So prequels can be hamstrung by existing canon. God knows I was when I published Blood Red Roulette to the point I had to put out an author's note for the book to say the pre-existing short story canon was erroneous (and in partly it was).

That's a bit of my problem with the second Fantastic Beasts movie. We already know Grimwald isn't going to DO anything to Dumbledore. We know he's not going to get the wizards to enslave muggles. At best, he paves the way for Voldemort so half the teeth have been removed from the movie. For me that's what was better about the first movie which still had problems, it was less tied to what comes later (but the obscurus is SO powerful it's as implausible we've not heard of it as the Xindi were)

all_choseny mentioned wanting to see a Mauraders era prequel and that might be more interesting. Maybe uncouple it a bit from major events. I'd rather see a young Lily, Sirius etc outside of battling Voldemort.

How do you feel about prequels? Share some you think got it right.

Have a ton of links. Here's from Betty

How to Write Interesting Scenes

Description Errors That Result from POV Limitations

writing tips

A Snapshot of My Writing Process

Testing...Testing...is This Query On? Identifying Problems in a Novel

4 Key Ways to Improve Tension and Pacing in Your Novel

4 Elements of Narrative That Anyone Can Learn

5 Tips for When You’re Stuck in a Scene

One Random "Yes"

Five Ways Terrain Can Affect Fantasy Battles

Five Relationship Dynamics for Stronger Romances

Podcast
225 – Fractal Plots

Stories Need to Stop Promoting Torture (Honestly I'm not sure I agree but then again it's a mythcreants' article so....

Introducing Otherworldly Elements Without Confusing Readers

How Do I Craft Truly Despicable Characters?

Podcast
224 – Threatening Villains

Book Reviews: The Ultimate Word Of Mouth Promotion

Do Unto Other Authors: Review A Book

Want reviews? Assemble a book review team.

How to Make the Most of a Professional Book Review

How to Write a Galley Letter (And Get Book Reviews)

BookLife Offers Free Book Reviews for Independent Authors

Why Audiobooks Are A Bad Investment For Most Independent Authors

The Shape of Fear

Make The Most Of Your On-Air Interview

North Street Book Prize A contest for self pubbers

Comments

[alexseanchai]

I think we're supposed to believe Ariana Dumbledore was an Obscurus?

This does not help, though

[cornerofmadness]

That is possible and now it doesn't

DISCO

[dauntless_heart]

I have become a HUGE Star Trek Discovery fan--and I love what they're doing: part pre-quel and part time travel/alternate universe.

The show is very controversial with some fans--but I LOVE IT!

Re: DISCO

[cornerofmadness]

Cool. I didn't care for the first episode and if I lived where I could stream I WOULD have continued watching it but I can't so I couldn't

[trobadora]

I'm generally not fond of prequels if I'm really into the pre-existing canon because it basically never fits into my ideas (and usually not in a good way). If I don't have strong feelings about the canon it's a different matter.

[cornerofmadness]

That might be my issue with it too. Or if I already know how it turns out, I'm not sure I can invest in the prequel

[all_choseny]

I'm vegging out. I'm going to come back to this tomorrow because there are so many good links.

[cornerofmadness]

It's a good crop this time

[all_choseny]

How to Write Interesting Scenes

Every scene should be a complete story unit unto itself, packed with all the reasons we love fiction in the first place.

Oooh, now I need to go back and see if I have accomplished this in my previous chapters.

3 parts: goal, conflict, disaster

Description Errors That Result from POV Limitations

I'm going to try to be more cognizant of how I write my decriptions. That was a good article.

Five Relationship Dynamics for Stronger Romances

Hmmm, I was trying to figure out where Spuffy fits in this. I would say the Dynamic with Buffy being Sweaterboy and Spike being the Nightmare.

Great article selections!

Prequels don't really bother me. I really enjoyed Episodes I-III in the Starwars franchise. The oneshots are also really good (Rogue One and Solo). I guess I got into liking prequels during my obsession with V.C. Andrews lol. I'm assuming that after her death the estate let the ghost writers create all these back stories based on her completed novels and the notes they found of planned books. They were good crack fiction.

What irks me about JK is that I don't think people are nearly as interested in some of the things she wants to write as she thinks they are. Like I don't really care about some of the subplots. As far as GMM, ugh! How could he let the fanfiction (HBO Series) beat him to his ending?! lol. He needs to put the backstories down and finish what he offered us. At least with most prequels, we were already given the full story first.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

I'm afraid a Marauders era prequel wouldn't live up to the fic.

[cornerofmadness]

Very possible especially since Rowling has made some truly dubious choices as of late.

[cornerofmadness]

Those first two articles you picked were ones I really liked though each scene being a complete story can really put on the pressure. I haven't read the romance one yet (I get a lot of these from my friend Betty and don't always get to read them all before I share).

I think I approach prequels with trepidation. I didn't like the Star Wars prequels (Solo I did like but that fits in to the it's a story with no real impact on the existing canon if you know what I mean. Rogue one does but I've not seen that one yet)

I agree with you about JK. She also needs to stop gay-baiting because it's really pissing people off. If she's going to do prequels and claim Dumbledore is gay, let's see it (granted Fantastic#2 danced around it). As for Martin, no argument. I also heard (however true it is) that he regretted killing someone he decided later would have been important and has sort of writer's blocked himself

[all_choseny]

I wonder why he just doesn't bring them back. It's a fantasy novel where magic exits. If it's who I think it is, just do what the show did.

[cornerofmadness]

that's a good question. I don't know who as I never did care that much for the books and never watched the show.

[aaronlisa]

Prequels are hit or miss for me. I think that author(s) regardless of the medium need to have a really good hold on canon to be able to do a good prequel. One of the reasons why I stopped watching Enterprise was because I found it to be boring. And they tried to do to many references to the existing canon. You know what tell me a story just set after first contact but when it's still the Wild West out there but in Space. That's what I wanted. Not something that was going over the same tired themes from the series. I still think we can have a series set pre-Star Trek that makes nods to the original source material but does it's own thing without resorting to a super powerful villian that's never mentioned anywhere else in canon. Or ret-conned into later series/movies/etc.

With Harry Potter, I've always wanted a TV series that's set in the 70s that focuses on the Mauraders and other characters. Like give me some backstory on Lucius and Narcissa. Was Lucius forced into his political position? Were the Death Eaters that Harry saw poisoned by the Dark Mark due to Voldemort going insane everytime he created a horcrux? I've seen so many interesting concepts set in fanfiction where either some of the characters from the books go back in time (i.e. the time turner trope) or fics set in the 70s that try to explain how things end up the way they are in the 90s. I don't need some overarching back story for Voldemort. Or Grindelwald or Dumbeldore. I still haven't seen the second Fantastic Beasts movie because they moved away from it being about Newt and his love of magical animals and made it a prequel for the book series. Essentially I want an more adult TV series set in the 70s for the Harry Potter verse. I want it done by someone other than Rowling though.

The Buffy comics have done a few prequel stories in Tales of the Slayers and a little bit in Tales of the Vampires and it doesn't really spit in canon's eye. In fact, the Vampires one gives a bit of back story on Giles' family involvement in the COuncil. And The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King has a few good examples of him writing stories that take place before the current canon is occuring within the books that don't ruin everything that was written before it. (If that makes sense?)

I've always viewed The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned as psuedo-prequels as they have origin stories for Lestat and vampires in general. And Lestat explains things about Louis getting wrong in Interview with the Vampire as Louis being so desperate to make Lestat the villian of his story that the inconsistencies work between the first two books work. And then with the third book, other inconsistencies are easily explained away becuase we find out that a character didn't have the full story of what was happening.

Of course, I am also not talking about prequels to beloved works that are written/developed by other author(s). (Such as Wicked by Gregory Maguie. Or Lost Boy by Christina Henry as I feel that they fall into their own category. But again some work, some not so much.)

Overall, I find prequels are hit or miss. Some are really good. Others not so much. And when it comes to quality, I often look at how close the connection to the original source material the author has. I am more likely to forgive someone like Henry or Maguire for mistakes with canon when they're building their own world based on someone else's work. Enterprise doesn't get a pass because Berman had been involved in other Star Trek projects. He wasn't Roddenberry but he wasn't new to the fandom or source material either. (Then again from what I've heard about Berman he gets a hard fail from me in a lot of areas.)

[cornerofmadness]

I definitely agree about Enterprise. I understand Discovery might be close to what you're looking for but I can't see it.

I think a lot of us would like to see the Mauraders era stuff but that's exactly why Grindelwald (which I spelled wrong in the post I see) didn't work for me. It was depressing and tried way too hard to work in backstory that I didn't care about.

I do see prequels like you do though. (I dont' know much about Bermen)