ah--Plot summaries. As I see it, the problem is not so much that they are detailed, but that they are detailed to the point of incoherence. It helps when it is a summary, when it shows the main lines of the action and the key relationships. When it recounts every exchange in the episode, you might as well rent the DVD and watch it. It will take less time than trying to untangle the summary.The key word I've learned to anticipate is "meanwhile".
Of course bad writing is not limited to plots, but it sticks out there so clearly. that's why I like outlines, and list format. it's easier to do that naively and still be comprehensible, than to try for long paragraphs without thinking how a paragraph should be organized.
On 12/4/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/5/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
In particular the articles on "Characters in [whatever]" or "List of murders in [some series]" have always seemed to be enormously helpful in keeping things straight. The more obscure the minor characters, the more we need an encyclopedia.
There's definitely a line somewhere. There's "having an encyclopaedia article about" and then there's "exhaustively documenting". There was an article recently with several huge paragraphs documenting, in minute details, everything that had gone in a single episode of a Big Brother episode. Who had said what to whom, how they responded, why the first person was upset, then how they played with whatever by themselves singing whatever...
And of course there is the problem of "in universe" styles - the difference between "Joe appeared only sporadically throughout the second series, chiefly as a comic device to..." and "Joe is seldom seen, as he is working in his laboratory, but whenever he turns up he is sure to crack a great gag..." Vomit, vomit.
Steve
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