4216: Them's Fightin' Words
In tenth grade, our English Literature class [I tend to call it these days, because it's not strictly "English" class like Spanish or French class] took the PSATs or other, immediately following which our teacher proceeded to spend the remainder of the period lecturing us on what the correct answers were. This is relatively insignificant until he got to one question, which went something like this:[instructions: read a short essay and replace the underlined excerpts with the best phrase]
After that, I went back to my car, which is green.
(a) car, which, is green.
(b) car.
(c) car, that is green.
(d) correct as is
He declared that two answers were obviously wrong, which puzzled most of the class [I'm certain, 'cause I definitely was]. Someone volunteered that (a) was clearly wrong, which he accepted, but no one could figure out the "obvious" second wrong answer.
"It's (b) car.!"
At the time, I had no understanding of the ability of a student [or person, really] to contest this, to openly declare, "Teach, you're full of shit!" The question was not about grammatical use [which he proclaimed was the point of the question, the propriety of that vs. which] but about overall flow, and the colour of the car is completely irrelevant to the subject matter, which is attending a college [or whatever--I'm paraphrasing at this point and just made up some appropriate filler].
Yes, when we got the results back, (b) was in fact CORRECT. Did he say as much? OF COURSE NOT.
"car, which is green" became a point of contention for me, subconsciously lessening my opinion of others based on their flagrant [WRONG] declarations and undoubtedly having other undiagnosed effects. Mostly, I recognize it now for what it is, the identification of "filler" words that drag down a narrative.
"car, which is green" carries directly over into movies, because [good] movies can't afford such filler. Fans of a book may complain about things a movie leaves out, but as I learned from direct research on [read: watching the movie prior to reading the book for] HP2 and now The Pelican Brief, the book often includes stuff that really adds only peripheral information... such as a car being green. The car's greenness interrupts the flow of the narrative, and cutting that emphasizes the best parts. I mean, who really would've wanted to see all twenty times Darby [Pelican] called people but chickened out on telling them anything useful? Or, for HP, all of the times Harry got sent to detention? I mean ALL THE TIMES. Once gets the idea across just fine. More than that is wasting time that could be spent watching him/her/them do cooler, more interesting stuff--the stuff that's the reason we watch movies in the first place. The book might have time in spades, but movies are generally a 2-3 hour commitment [especially in-theatre], and I've gone over how painful it is to sit still for that long without the freedom to pause. I mean, even WITH a pause option, I don't often find that kind of block of time for watching things--we abandoned the telly some time ago [again] and haven't really felt deprived for it.
[I kinda wonder how lucrative a "home theatre away from home" market would be--along the lines of max 20 or so people per room with a Netflix-style, on-demand selection of what to play...]
It's a lesson I've only gradually learned in my writing. My first serious efforts suffered from chronicle-itis--I honestly did want to write an encyclopedia along the lines of Tolkien--but especially the feedback I got from my MoD submissions taught me that sometimes details I might want to add [as a joke/nod/for sentimentality/whatever] don't in and of themselves add anything to the story as a whole.
To Pixar-ize the above post: Who wants to read a 50-page knock-knock joke?
I'm nearing the end of Pelican and have found the following things changed/cut:
- Denzel's character talking to the Supreme Court justice instead of the justice's aide [saves casting another character]
- Denzel's character, instead of spending at least three scenes talking to a photographer snoop, being the snoop himself [saves three scenes and casting another character]
- Julia Roberts [Darby] calling the Fibbie lawyer twice and accomplishing something both times vs. calling like eight but saying nothing worthwhile for most of them [saves like a half-hour of screen time]
- Denzel getting scolded for almost getting caught [it might be his character to be sometimes-careless, but it doesn't do anything to the narrative by showing it]
- pretty much anything the hitman does [there's no reason to care what he's thinking--his feelings don't matter, his past doesn't matter]
I'm not quite to where the second car bomb is triggered with a specific indicator vs. seemingly at random [gives Julia a chance to shine as a "clever" law student when she realizes what's up], but I'm pretty sure the movie update is an improvement, because I caught the same cue during the movie. I'm mildly irritated by the in-book switching to third-person omniscient to, say, reveal that this guy they discovered totally has the hots for Julia [who cares?/why couldn't this be shown from Julia's perspective?], but overall it's a good change from the [para]normal stuff I read... I also note, as, "Why would anyone be a lawyer??" is a recurring theme in the book, the best argument for it is, "apparently, to write John Grisham novels" ;p
[I *am* tempted to write some kind of heavily-researched thriller along these lines, but NO TIME]
In general--to append to my thesis--the adaptation is the "second set of eyes" for the original, which can apply to a novelization of a movie as well. [I happened to hate the Steamboy novelization and fell asleep trying to read it before seeing the movie, but it's possible to write a book version that improves upon the movie.] It's a chance to revisit and improve upon the source material, which depends upon the editor as to the quality.
Unrelatedly, I note that my theory held true XD [first reblog I've seen with a comment appended!] Also, note to self: make a post about Kickstarter =p
After that, I went back to my car, which is green.
(a) car, which, is green.
(b) car.
(c) car, that is green.
(d) correct as is
He declared that two answers were obviously wrong, which puzzled most of the class [I'm certain, 'cause I definitely was]. Someone volunteered that (a) was clearly wrong, which he accepted, but no one could figure out the "obvious" second wrong answer.
"It's (b) car.!"
At the time, I had no understanding of the ability of a student [or person, really] to contest this, to openly declare, "Teach, you're full of shit!" The question was not about grammatical use [which he proclaimed was the point of the question, the propriety of that vs. which] but about overall flow, and the colour of the car is completely irrelevant to the subject matter, which is attending a college [or whatever--I'm paraphrasing at this point and just made up some appropriate filler].
Yes, when we got the results back, (b) was in fact CORRECT. Did he say as much? OF COURSE NOT.
"car, which is green" became a point of contention for me, subconsciously lessening my opinion of others based on their flagrant [WRONG] declarations and undoubtedly having other undiagnosed effects. Mostly, I recognize it now for what it is, the identification of "filler" words that drag down a narrative.
"car, which is green" carries directly over into movies, because [good] movies can't afford such filler. Fans of a book may complain about things a movie leaves out, but as I learned from direct research on [read: watching the movie prior to reading the book for] HP2 and now The Pelican Brief, the book often includes stuff that really adds only peripheral information... such as a car being green. The car's greenness interrupts the flow of the narrative, and cutting that emphasizes the best parts. I mean, who really would've wanted to see all twenty times Darby [Pelican] called people but chickened out on telling them anything useful? Or, for HP, all of the times Harry got sent to detention? I mean ALL THE TIMES. Once gets the idea across just fine. More than that is wasting time that could be spent watching him/her/them do cooler, more interesting stuff--the stuff that's the reason we watch movies in the first place. The book might have time in spades, but movies are generally a 2-3 hour commitment [especially in-theatre], and I've gone over how painful it is to sit still for that long without the freedom to pause. I mean, even WITH a pause option, I don't often find that kind of block of time for watching things--we abandoned the telly some time ago [again] and haven't really felt deprived for it.
[I kinda wonder how lucrative a "home theatre away from home" market would be--along the lines of max 20 or so people per room with a Netflix-style, on-demand selection of what to play...]
It's a lesson I've only gradually learned in my writing. My first serious efforts suffered from chronicle-itis--I honestly did want to write an encyclopedia along the lines of Tolkien--but especially the feedback I got from my MoD submissions taught me that sometimes details I might want to add [as a joke/nod/for sentimentality/whatever] don't in and of themselves add anything to the story as a whole.
To Pixar-ize the above post: Who wants to read a 50-page knock-knock joke?
I'm nearing the end of Pelican and have found the following things changed/cut:
- Denzel's character talking to the Supreme Court justice instead of the justice's aide [saves casting another character]
- Denzel's character, instead of spending at least three scenes talking to a photographer snoop, being the snoop himself [saves three scenes and casting another character]
- Julia Roberts [Darby] calling the Fibbie lawyer twice and accomplishing something both times vs. calling like eight but saying nothing worthwhile for most of them [saves like a half-hour of screen time]
- Denzel getting scolded for almost getting caught [it might be his character to be sometimes-careless, but it doesn't do anything to the narrative by showing it]
- pretty much anything the hitman does [there's no reason to care what he's thinking--his feelings don't matter, his past doesn't matter]
I'm not quite to where the second car bomb is triggered with a specific indicator vs. seemingly at random [gives Julia a chance to shine as a "clever" law student when she realizes what's up], but I'm pretty sure the movie update is an improvement, because I caught the same cue during the movie. I'm mildly irritated by the in-book switching to third-person omniscient to, say, reveal that this guy they discovered totally has the hots for Julia [who cares?/why couldn't this be shown from Julia's perspective?], but overall it's a good change from the [para]normal stuff I read... I also note, as, "Why would anyone be a lawyer??" is a recurring theme in the book, the best argument for it is, "apparently, to write John Grisham novels" ;p
[I *am* tempted to write some kind of heavily-researched thriller along these lines, but NO TIME]
In general--to append to my thesis--the adaptation is the "second set of eyes" for the original, which can apply to a novelization of a movie as well. [I happened to hate the Steamboy novelization and fell asleep trying to read it before seeing the movie, but it's possible to write a book version that improves upon the movie.] It's a chance to revisit and improve upon the source material, which depends upon the editor as to the quality.
Unrelatedly, I note that my theory held true XD [first reblog I've seen with a comment appended!] Also, note to self: make a post about Kickstarter =p