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[dear_tiger]

I almost finished the last season of The Killing finally, and it sucked. I love that show and I love that they quit once they were done telling the story, but damn, that last season. Can they possibly drop any more parallels, subtle as an anvil? Suddenly everyone was having the exact same melodrama, everyone wanted to coddle that kid, and half the

Comments

[galwithglasses]

This is only slightly related to authorial intent in fiction but the place I really want to know about the author's intent is in poetry and song lyrics....I know I'm hearing or reading what I want into the writing but it's also really great to get at the writing from the author's perspective. Getting at authorial intent in a non-fiction work can be vital to getting at bias and evaluating it's assumptions and conclusions. I know that's off the topic some here but some days it's much more fun to contemplate poetry and music than anything that Carver may or may not be doing with his intent. Chances are even if people hooked Carver up to the intent detector, people are still going to see the story the way they want anyway. It would be helpful sometimes with a show like SPN to have some idea about intent though because sometimes they seem to be trying really hard to take things in a specific direction and then something misfires and they end up in a weird spot plot-wise and you sit there and wonder if they forgot to film a scene or you missed something when you got up to get another whiskey to drink with Dean. It's not so much that the intent is the issue so much as the story construction and plotting. In the big scheme of things, Carver isn't the author except of the episodes specifically written by him. I think he's like the editor-in-chief of a newspaper. Watching SPN has been a great example of why writing anything by committee can be about as productive as 17 people trying to assist in making chocolate pudding. Sure the pudding gets made but the consistency might be weird and consumption of said pudding is at your own risk and the flavor is probably a little funky. A lot of the quality of the output depends on how well the head cook works with the team. (Now apply that same method to writing policy and legislation and it's no wonder the tax code is a little complicated. How did I get from song lyrics to taxes....wanders off humming the Taxman.......)

[amberdreams]

Aye, and in your cooking analogy, Carver seems to be a somewhat careless Head Cook. Hence continuity keeps getting singed.

[galwithglasses]

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought this said headless cook.......

[amberdreams]

ha ha ha is that why you used a Sean Bean icon - poor headless Ned...

[dear_tiger]

:D I don't really give a shit what Carver the headless cook is doing lately, so I'm all for song lyrics and poetry derail! So totally with you there. With most song lyrics and poetry, I have no clue what the author was even talking about, but oh I want to! Although it probably is disappointing and not as cool as we imagine. I recently found "Epistle To Be Left in the Earth" among my notes, and it's so cool, but probably if I were to look it up, it's about something boring. Like the potato crop of 1915 in Idaho or something.

[galwithglasses]

That Epistle is some wild stuff and I have no idea what it means either but if it is potatoes, they are from another galaxy or they are apocalyptic spuds. It's that kind of thing where I just want to hear what the author was thinking about. I love to hear what other people get from the writing too because guaranteed, none of us read it the same way.