Two Thoughts On Stories
Two thoughts on the telling of stories, united solely by having come from my brain.
Thought #1 - Story Structure
Several authors I followed recommended the works of Rachel Caine, who unfortunately recently died from cancer. Her most recent work was her series starting with Stillhouse Lake. These are contemporary thrillers. I read and enjoyed the first three books in the series but will probably not get #4 or #5. This is due to story structure.
Stillhouse Lake and it's sequel Killman Creek are basically a duology. Stillhouse doesn't end on a cliffhanger per se, but it's clearly just half of the story. That story is mostly wrapped up in Killman. The third book in the series, Wolfhunter River, provides some cleanup but it mostly exists to transition the main character into a new profession. That's where I'm losing interest. I've said this before, but sometimes a story has a sweet spot, and when you get out of that spot things aren't as good.
Thought #2 - Believability
I watched a couple of movies recently, specifically Netflix's The Midnight Sky and the animated movie The Croods. Ironically, I found The Croods to be much more believable. This was because the movie made no claims to be in the least bit scientifically accurate. For example, in the movie we have swarms of piranhakeets that devour a ground whale!
Midnight Sky, on the other hand, attempts to be scientifically real. But everything from the "newly-discovered habitable moon of Jupiter" to the calamity which kills humanity on Earth just did not work for me. It was all well-executed and technically proficient, but just not very real.
Most of this unbelievability came from my scientific and technical knowledge. I'm sure 9 out of 10 people who watched it didn't have a problem with any of that. Here, the moral is no story works for every audience. This entry was originally posted at https://chris-gerrib.dreamwidth.org/749776.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Thought #1 - Story Structure
Several authors I followed recommended the works of Rachel Caine, who unfortunately recently died from cancer. Her most recent work was her series starting with Stillhouse Lake. These are contemporary thrillers. I read and enjoyed the first three books in the series but will probably not get #4 or #5. This is due to story structure.
Stillhouse Lake and it's sequel Killman Creek are basically a duology. Stillhouse doesn't end on a cliffhanger per se, but it's clearly just half of the story. That story is mostly wrapped up in Killman. The third book in the series, Wolfhunter River, provides some cleanup but it mostly exists to transition the main character into a new profession. That's where I'm losing interest. I've said this before, but sometimes a story has a sweet spot, and when you get out of that spot things aren't as good.
Thought #2 - Believability
I watched a couple of movies recently, specifically Netflix's The Midnight Sky and the animated movie The Croods. Ironically, I found The Croods to be much more believable. This was because the movie made no claims to be in the least bit scientifically accurate. For example, in the movie we have swarms of piranhakeets that devour a ground whale!
Midnight Sky, on the other hand, attempts to be scientifically real. But everything from the "newly-discovered habitable moon of Jupiter" to the calamity which kills humanity on Earth just did not work for me. It was all well-executed and technically proficient, but just not very real.
Most of this unbelievability came from my scientific and technical knowledge. I'm sure 9 out of 10 people who watched it didn't have a problem with any of that. Here, the moral is no story works for every audience. This entry was originally posted at https://chris-gerrib.dreamwidth.org/749776.html. Please comment there using OpenID.