More on writing
Feb. 1st, 2021 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessWe didn't get a lot of snow and I did manage to get another dental appointment to see if this tooth is broken. Not til president's day because I don't want to miss class.
Here's an open call Bodies Full of Burning: An Anthology of Menopause-Themed Horror It’s a very short word count but I might give it a try even though horror isn’t usually my cuppa.
So, the writing talk. Let’s talk continuity. It is hard to do sometimes, especially in a series because book one usually comes out before the next one is written. It’s probably a less common thing to have the whole trilogy or whatever written before you put out the first book. It is also an issue in TV series. We’ve all seen them. We’ve all groaned at continuity errors. How do we avoid them? I’m sure outlining would help. Do we outline all the books in a series from day one? Not if you’re me. What do you do when you think of something very cool but it’s not in the first book(s)/script(s) and in fact will screw things up? It’s hard to resist that.
Let’s look then at Prodigal Son Episode #3
On the surface, I loved it. It finally felt like last year’s show. The jokes were landing. The dark twisty crime was dark and twisty. There was less of the things I disliked (i.e., all the Endicott fall out) Edrisa talking about JT bringing Tally to orgasm to jumpstart labor was a sure sight better than her constant harassment of Malcolm (I really wish they’d stop that. I like her character but not when she’s doing that). Gil’s reaction to Jess after she friend zoned him pretty harshly was good (i.e. go piss up a rope). Her additions to all of this were awkward but they’re meant to be. The interactions with Malcolm and Martin were very good, the betrayal Malcolm felt when he thought Daddy had told the administrators his name, his apology afterward, him wanting to NOT be the Surgeon’s son (drawing a line between the monster and the father he loved) all so good.
On the flip side, the bad, I’m sorry but Martin escaping makes no sense. It just feels like a) overstuffing the plot and b) a way to utilize Michael Sheen more. How can he help Malcolm if he’s free? How could he not see Malcolm would turn him back in? On the run he’d see less of Malcolm. Right now, he has his son over a barrel. He knows what his children have done. He can blackmail all the visits he wants out of Malcolm and gaslight the shit out of him.
And then the continuity issues. Wow. There were so many and a lot of fans were honestly pretty upset. I know that some of this was rewritten quickly to replace JT after Frank Harts had a COVID-19 exposure and had to be quarantined (which sucked since it was the baby episode. At least he could be written out as being at the hospital). Maybe that was the reason for SO many continuity issues. Face it, fans know canon inside and out. We’re going to notice if you screw it up. I think we know it better than the actors (I watched one YouTube where they quizzed the actors on who said what and some couldn’t even recognize their own lines) because you’d think some of the actors would say ‘hey! This breaks continuity.’
The problem with series is it’s not all one person writing it. It’s easy to screw it up. Hell, I’ve screwed up stuff when I’m the only one with hands on it. It’s easy to see how multiple writers can make a mess. There are supposed to be continuity readers but whoever they had for this episode must have been drunk. Where to start?
Malcolm’s hand tremor – Is he lying to Dani about Remington Academy being the cause of it? (I’m going with that after so much police brutality has been in the news, at least that’ll be how my fanon will deal with this) We KNOW that it began with Shannon’s interviewing 10-year-old Malcolm (without his mother which let’s not get into how that would never happen). In fact, that’s how Shannon recognized Adult Malcolm. So, either he’s lying or he’s blocking it out (to give the writer’s some credit for this boo boo which made fans lose their damn minds, self-included)
Malcolm going to Harvard – Okay so he went to Harvard. Did Jess buy them off? Harvard is highly unlikely to take on a disciplinary nightmare like an expulsion which had to go on the record as what? Attacking a student? In fact, absolutely NONE of that made any sense. It’s not even a continuity issue. It just makes no sense. Jessica is a chair woman on the board. Her family founded the school. Are we to believe that NO ONE was sued and/or challenging when her son was expelled for no reason (Malcolm himself said this, Brumbeck had no proof that Malcolm had tampered with the bully’s meds. ). Narratively it would have made more sense to have Brumbeck keep Malcolm around and bully him himself after learning he was Malcolm Whitly and for that matter, how the shit does he not know? Everyone knows who Jessica is.
That takes me to Malcolm’s surname. In the pilot Jessica made it sound like his surname Bright was a phase. She said something like now that he was out of the FBI he could stop all that Bright Nonsense (which put her on the wrong foot with fans right out of the gate). But now we learn he took this on when he was in h.s. So why in the world would she think he was going to go back to being a Whitly? Makes no sense especially since she would have been okay with the legal name change.
And from there we go to WHEN did he go to Remington? High school only? His last year only? (we’re debating it) and that means Vijay must have been grade school/middle school because he knew Malcolm as Whitly and Malcolm had to tell him ‘I’m Bright now.’ So, if he was Bright in h.s. that means Vijay wasn’t there (and a jillion fanfics are jossed).
Don’t get me started on the idea Malcolm was in a closet for 3 days (which caused the tremor and claustrophobia) . Okay so did Jess just ignore the fact her son didn’t meet his driver? She didn’t call? I find this SO hard to believe. Rich kids are often kidnapped for ransom. Her family HAS to be a target of Martin’s victims. How drunk WAS she all weekend that she missed he wasn’t there? It’s been suggested that maybe Malcolm had been acting out and not showing up (he does that as an adult) or that he was going out to the Hamptons alone. Because I do struggle with her being this bad of a mother when she’s so up in his face now.
For that matter, schools are cleaned at night and on weekends. No one heard him in that closet? It’s a boarding school. That means a lot of teachers live on campus as do other kids. Did he not tell him mother about this? He doesn’t tell Gil? This isn’t a prank. This is kidnapping and assault really. He is in there no food, no water (canon) and maybe has a janitor’s sink to pee/poop in (not canon but obvious). All of the issues about this could have been cleaned up with a line or two as to WHY no one was called and maybe say ‘I never told mom.’ (because I’m sorry Jess would have gone wild on that headmaster)
Yes, not all of that is continuity issues. Some of it is shaky inner logic. However, this lead to a continuity issue that’s major. He has claustrophobia? We’ve NEVER seen this any other time. He’s been in his father’s small cell several times without blinking an eye. Okay maybe that’s big enough. What about when he was in John Watkins’s prison under the house? What about him going through the tunnels under the house? What about him dropping into a buried RV? Gil’s small office? So yeah it probably felt great to add claustrophobia to Malcolm’s list of mental issues but it makes no sense since we have 22 episodes where we see NO signs of it and it actually added nothing at all to the storyline. His claustrophobia wasn’t really a plot point in the end. He was able to function and we didn’t see him really struggling with it.
Have a wonderful Imbolc
Here's an open call Bodies Full of Burning: An Anthology of Menopause-Themed Horror It’s a very short word count but I might give it a try even though horror isn’t usually my cuppa.
So, the writing talk. Let’s talk continuity. It is hard to do sometimes, especially in a series because book one usually comes out before the next one is written. It’s probably a less common thing to have the whole trilogy or whatever written before you put out the first book. It is also an issue in TV series. We’ve all seen them. We’ve all groaned at continuity errors. How do we avoid them? I’m sure outlining would help. Do we outline all the books in a series from day one? Not if you’re me. What do you do when you think of something very cool but it’s not in the first book(s)/script(s) and in fact will screw things up? It’s hard to resist that.
Let’s look then at Prodigal Son Episode #3
On the surface, I loved it. It finally felt like last year’s show. The jokes were landing. The dark twisty crime was dark and twisty. There was less of the things I disliked (i.e., all the Endicott fall out) Edrisa talking about JT bringing Tally to orgasm to jumpstart labor was a sure sight better than her constant harassment of Malcolm (I really wish they’d stop that. I like her character but not when she’s doing that). Gil’s reaction to Jess after she friend zoned him pretty harshly was good (i.e. go piss up a rope). Her additions to all of this were awkward but they’re meant to be. The interactions with Malcolm and Martin were very good, the betrayal Malcolm felt when he thought Daddy had told the administrators his name, his apology afterward, him wanting to NOT be the Surgeon’s son (drawing a line between the monster and the father he loved) all so good.
On the flip side, the bad, I’m sorry but Martin escaping makes no sense. It just feels like a) overstuffing the plot and b) a way to utilize Michael Sheen more. How can he help Malcolm if he’s free? How could he not see Malcolm would turn him back in? On the run he’d see less of Malcolm. Right now, he has his son over a barrel. He knows what his children have done. He can blackmail all the visits he wants out of Malcolm and gaslight the shit out of him.
And then the continuity issues. Wow. There were so many and a lot of fans were honestly pretty upset. I know that some of this was rewritten quickly to replace JT after Frank Harts had a COVID-19 exposure and had to be quarantined (which sucked since it was the baby episode. At least he could be written out as being at the hospital). Maybe that was the reason for SO many continuity issues. Face it, fans know canon inside and out. We’re going to notice if you screw it up. I think we know it better than the actors (I watched one YouTube where they quizzed the actors on who said what and some couldn’t even recognize their own lines) because you’d think some of the actors would say ‘hey! This breaks continuity.’
The problem with series is it’s not all one person writing it. It’s easy to screw it up. Hell, I’ve screwed up stuff when I’m the only one with hands on it. It’s easy to see how multiple writers can make a mess. There are supposed to be continuity readers but whoever they had for this episode must have been drunk. Where to start?
Malcolm’s hand tremor – Is he lying to Dani about Remington Academy being the cause of it? (I’m going with that after so much police brutality has been in the news, at least that’ll be how my fanon will deal with this) We KNOW that it began with Shannon’s interviewing 10-year-old Malcolm (without his mother which let’s not get into how that would never happen). In fact, that’s how Shannon recognized Adult Malcolm. So, either he’s lying or he’s blocking it out (to give the writer’s some credit for this boo boo which made fans lose their damn minds, self-included)
Malcolm going to Harvard – Okay so he went to Harvard. Did Jess buy them off? Harvard is highly unlikely to take on a disciplinary nightmare like an expulsion which had to go on the record as what? Attacking a student? In fact, absolutely NONE of that made any sense. It’s not even a continuity issue. It just makes no sense. Jessica is a chair woman on the board. Her family founded the school. Are we to believe that NO ONE was sued and/or challenging when her son was expelled for no reason (Malcolm himself said this, Brumbeck had no proof that Malcolm had tampered with the bully’s meds. ). Narratively it would have made more sense to have Brumbeck keep Malcolm around and bully him himself after learning he was Malcolm Whitly and for that matter, how the shit does he not know? Everyone knows who Jessica is.
That takes me to Malcolm’s surname. In the pilot Jessica made it sound like his surname Bright was a phase. She said something like now that he was out of the FBI he could stop all that Bright Nonsense (which put her on the wrong foot with fans right out of the gate). But now we learn he took this on when he was in h.s. So why in the world would she think he was going to go back to being a Whitly? Makes no sense especially since she would have been okay with the legal name change.
And from there we go to WHEN did he go to Remington? High school only? His last year only? (we’re debating it) and that means Vijay must have been grade school/middle school because he knew Malcolm as Whitly and Malcolm had to tell him ‘I’m Bright now.’ So, if he was Bright in h.s. that means Vijay wasn’t there (and a jillion fanfics are jossed).
Don’t get me started on the idea Malcolm was in a closet for 3 days (which caused the tremor and claustrophobia) . Okay so did Jess just ignore the fact her son didn’t meet his driver? She didn’t call? I find this SO hard to believe. Rich kids are often kidnapped for ransom. Her family HAS to be a target of Martin’s victims. How drunk WAS she all weekend that she missed he wasn’t there? It’s been suggested that maybe Malcolm had been acting out and not showing up (he does that as an adult) or that he was going out to the Hamptons alone. Because I do struggle with her being this bad of a mother when she’s so up in his face now.
For that matter, schools are cleaned at night and on weekends. No one heard him in that closet? It’s a boarding school. That means a lot of teachers live on campus as do other kids. Did he not tell him mother about this? He doesn’t tell Gil? This isn’t a prank. This is kidnapping and assault really. He is in there no food, no water (canon) and maybe has a janitor’s sink to pee/poop in (not canon but obvious). All of the issues about this could have been cleaned up with a line or two as to WHY no one was called and maybe say ‘I never told mom.’ (because I’m sorry Jess would have gone wild on that headmaster)
Yes, not all of that is continuity issues. Some of it is shaky inner logic. However, this lead to a continuity issue that’s major. He has claustrophobia? We’ve NEVER seen this any other time. He’s been in his father’s small cell several times without blinking an eye. Okay maybe that’s big enough. What about when he was in John Watkins’s prison under the house? What about him going through the tunnels under the house? What about him dropping into a buried RV? Gil’s small office? So yeah it probably felt great to add claustrophobia to Malcolm’s list of mental issues but it makes no sense since we have 22 episodes where we see NO signs of it and it actually added nothing at all to the storyline. His claustrophobia wasn’t really a plot point in the end. He was able to function and we didn’t see him really struggling with it.
Have a wonderful Imbolc
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Date: 2021-02-03 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-03 09:54 pm (UTC)