yakalskovich | Epic fantasy is epic

Slowly getting hooked on 'Game of Thrones'. I like how they take time to tell the story, give you time to start caring about all those characters. My favourites so far are Tyrion Lannister, and Littlefinger, and I must admit to a certain predilection for Danaerys despite the fact there this feeling of "one trope too many" around her which so far prevents her from developing much non-tropical personality.

I find it slightly worrying that the entire series of books isn't even completely written yet. Eventually, Wikipedia assures me, people are certain that the three story lines (only starting out at where I am) of a power struggle in King's Landing, Danaerys beyond the sea, and Jon Snow up at the Wall will come together. But how can they if they aren't written yet?

What I like is how there are really alien elements in the familiarity of High Fantasy's perpetual middle ages, starting with the odd square things the priests (or whatever, Maesters?) wear on their shoulders at Jon Arryn's funeral rites at the very beginning, mediterrenean/oriental elements both in King's Landing and beyond the sea, and the steampunk/fallen former technical civilisation elements at the Wall. Suddenly, clockwork elevators and steel t-beam constructions, whoops! That tells us that many long winters ago/before the dragons came/ whatever, civilisation was much more advanced. The Wall itself -- what in blazes might have built it?

So many delightful answers that might be so many years in the coming. I don't know that I'll want to read the books (my to-be-read-pile has reached Pluto, who tells the books on top of the stack that he's a planet, never mind what those haters say), but I guess until somebody commits bad shark-jumping the way Supernatural has, I'll be along for the ride, show-wise.-

ETA: Ahahahahahahhhh, Guppy Sandhu as a barbarian warrior! I knew I know that face!!! That made me hoot with laughter, and totally killed my Suspension of Disbelief there, as bad as Caserta in Star Wards Episode 1... Now I scared the cats away with my raucous laughter.-

ETA2: Now with pictorial proof:

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Oh yes, that not only happened (notoriously) in London and New York...

Honestly, I think I could handle being a copy editor these days now that I have been playing for beta for several fanfic writers.

I've advised fanfic-going-pro writers as well, about all sorts of detail and research -- especially about 19th century Germany, which sounds cool in theory, but poses a language barrier to the research by English-speaking people.

I have to say I find this whole "fanfic writers moving into publishing" trend funny -- and I don't mean to sound arrogant, tho' I know it comes off that way.

Do they have any idea how hard it is to get published???

Dreadfully. But some of these people are getting published, or are already published and writing more. So being their 'Prussian beta' is a fun way for me to get things to research and interesting questions to answer.

Very few. And if you speak to editors from the big publishing houses, they will tell you that having a following of free readers online does not translate to having a paying readership who wants to read your original work. Cassandra Clark made it because Meyer backed her and big.

I don't really mind how successful they are financially as long as they write interesting things for me to pluck apart...

LOL

Good for you!

I just find myself wondering at the --

naivete?

audacity?

Not sure what word I want there. I mean, the idea that because someone will read your fic based on a character/plot/fandom that they adore somehow translates into a ready and willing fan base who will gobble up your original work is --

Well, kind of stupid, really. Sometimes I feel like they have no contact with the reality of the business.

I think I spend too much time teaching teenagers! LOLOLOL

Yes, that is the main gap between fanfic and professional original writing: - how to get people to care about your original characters! If you use pre-existing charries from canons, with a fan base, that is a given. But how do I make my readers care about Felix and Dmitri...

Most writers use vanity presses -- they pay to have it published. In the case of Clark, Meyer paid to have it published and then pushed it hard and it rode the Twilight fame.

But the actual published writers still hold down full-time jobs. One of my favorites (who came from LJ and is a good friend) is Clare London. She's an accountant. :D

http://www.amazon.com/Freeman-Clare-London/dp/1608200043

She's an amazing writer and weaves a killer plot.

Oh look!

Musings on the 1918 bestseller list
1. The U.P. Trail by Zane Grey
2. The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair
3. The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart
4. Dere Mable by Edward Streeter
5. Oh, Money! Money! by Eleanor H. Porter
6. Greatheart by Ethel M. Dell
7. The Major by Ralph Connor
8. The Pawns Court by E. Phillips Oppenheim
9. A Daughter of the Land by Gene Stratton-Porter
10. Sonia by Stephen McKenna

I think my friend

essayel has mentioned Clare London as well at some point.-

Oh I friended her! I saw you mention something about her and then saw her journal and she looks delightful.

She's probably like, "WHO ARE YOU???"

And I am smiling saying "the russky connection!"

essayel is wonderful. I totally adore her to bits. She's always worth reading, both her fics and her observations.-

I didn't see her fics?

But she is ever so clever and I thoroughly enjoyed her scathing commentaries. LOL

Her fics are few and far between, and she has a writing LJ as well, where she posts snippets. Several, actually.

That sounds like my group! LOL We usually have 50 things going simultaneously, which makes for raucous fun if nothing else...

You use real life characters, so people already care about them!

I told you the Russian monarchy is hot and it is. Publishers will put out calls to see what is being written and what they need and that is always on the list.

Nobody ever even heard about them, except people that are interested anyway. And people who are into Russian nobility might not like what I have to tell about them.

Well, yes, that can make you a bit unpopular.

Of course, historians regularly slam Nicholas for being such a complete bungler! How anyone could be so completely incompetent...

I'd have said I don't bother with the imperial family, really; but re-reading what I have, I came on that long stretch of conversation between two of my characters going on about how incredibly incompetent, inefficient, wasteful and infuriating everything is...

So yes, there is that as well, among many other offensive things.

about how incredibly incompetent, inefficient, wasteful and infuriating everything is...

Well, everybody knows that! How can that possibly upset anyone?

Some people stuck in the past still would be offended by that - in their religious feelings, their patriotism, their sense of good-old-time...

Oh, please! *rolls eyes*

Even the Soviet historians (I mean, their own, not foreign historians) say that the Tsar was so incompetent, a revolution was inevitable.

Hey what do you happen to know about Italian legal proceedings in the early 1920s?

Next to nothing, but if I needed to deal with that, I'd have to take the rise of Fascism into account, and the way that must have changed society in that time.

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