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Non-spoiler alert: this post does not contain spilers.
The most recent episode of Game of Thrones enraged enough writers that we have all been commiserating about it on twitter, and dissecting why it was so bad, and hypothesizing about how it could have happened, how it could be that this bad writing made it onto the air. It's probably a combination of jealousy and cautionary tale, but mostly it's that people who care deeply about story logic hate to see a story done wrong, in a way that is not assuaged by production values.
A lot of these discussions seem to have veered into a pantser versus plotter dialectic, in which GRRM is a pantser and D&D are plotters, and that's the big reason the back end is bad once it goes past GRRM's books. I get why writers want to talk about this; it lets writers speak from the experience of their own writing styles and the strengths and weaknesses they've found in them.
However, none of these pantser-plotter theorists are screenwriters, and it shows.
Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay are separate Oscar categories. They call for different skills and are interesting to different people. It's not as big a difference as Documentary Short Subject versus Best Short Film (Live Action), but it's a bigger difference than Best Actor versus Best Supporting Actor.
Whether you are good at adaptation has next to nothing to do with whether you are a pantser or a plotter. The raw material is already there. You figure out how to make it work as cinema. This, I can't emphasize enough, not the same thing as taking what is on the page and putting it on the screen. It won't just need to be expanded or contracted. It will need to completely change form. Complicated multi-location action sequences that would be tedious to follow in a book can be conveyed in a few glances on screen. Internal struggles that are the meat and potatoes of a book are entirely opaque in closeup.
This is not to mention logistical considerations of how many actors you want on your soundstage being distracting in the background, or how many locations you can afford to film at.
Adaptation is puzzle solving and it is cool and fun. It is cool and fun enough that it makes up for all the people who will tell you the book was better and why couldn't you stick to the book.
Original screenplays? Totally different process. Feels different, works differently. Different stresses.
The difference we're seeing isn't GRRM writes one way and D&D write a different way. D&D were writing the TV series this whole time. D&D write one way when they're doing adaptations. They write another way when they're writing original screenplays. I don't think they like writing original screenplays. But they weren't not writing back when they were adapting. They added a ton of stuff; they're capable of adding stuff.
For instance, the character of Margery Tyrell barely exists in the book because you only see her through Circe's point of view, and they avoid each other. But that obviously doesn't work in TV, where we see her from a neutral point of view. They had to invent Margery, basically. Similarly, in early seasons, they invented a brothel madam, Rosie, because we need to be able to show Littlefinger running a brothel instead of being able to see in his head that he knows he does that. They basically invented Shae, too, because they had to come up with what she feels about Tyrion instead of just writing what Tyrion feels about her.
They added that looooong stupid Sansa/Ramsey Bolton plot because they needed somewhere to stick Sansa for a year while other plots played out, and didn't want everybody to wonder where the actress was and if it was like Portia di Rossi mostly disappearing from Arrested Development.
The issue isn't that they can't make stuff up or add complications. They did plenty of that. They did it within the context of solving problems for an adaptation. I wouldn't say there's no overlap in skills and techniques, but "writing is writing" isn't exactly right either. Being good at oils doesn't transfer to being good at watercolors.
Even though I'm annoyed with D&D (including with many of their adaptation choices) I sympathize with how annoying it would be to sign on for an adaptation and then get stuck with nothing to adapt. It's like if I was hired to play Hamlet and then was asked to improv all Hamlet's lines, and also the play will still be advertised as Hamlet. I can do improv, but are you serious?
I wish adaptation would get more love. It's completely its own skill.
The most recent episode of Game of Thrones enraged enough writers that we have all been commiserating about it on twitter, and dissecting why it was so bad, and hypothesizing about how it could have happened, how it could be that this bad writing made it onto the air. It's probably a combination of jealousy and cautionary tale, but mostly it's that people who care deeply about story logic hate to see a story done wrong, in a way that is not assuaged by production values.
A lot of these discussions seem to have veered into a pantser versus plotter dialectic, in which GRRM is a pantser and D&D are plotters, and that's the big reason the back end is bad once it goes past GRRM's books. I get why writers want to talk about this; it lets writers speak from the experience of their own writing styles and the strengths and weaknesses they've found in them.
However, none of these pantser-plotter theorists are screenwriters, and it shows.
Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay are separate Oscar categories. They call for different skills and are interesting to different people. It's not as big a difference as Documentary Short Subject versus Best Short Film (Live Action), but it's a bigger difference than Best Actor versus Best Supporting Actor.
Whether you are good at adaptation has next to nothing to do with whether you are a pantser or a plotter. The raw material is already there. You figure out how to make it work as cinema. This, I can't emphasize enough, not the same thing as taking what is on the page and putting it on the screen. It won't just need to be expanded or contracted. It will need to completely change form. Complicated multi-location action sequences that would be tedious to follow in a book can be conveyed in a few glances on screen. Internal struggles that are the meat and potatoes of a book are entirely opaque in closeup.
This is not to mention logistical considerations of how many actors you want on your soundstage being distracting in the background, or how many locations you can afford to film at.
Adaptation is puzzle solving and it is cool and fun. It is cool and fun enough that it makes up for all the people who will tell you the book was better and why couldn't you stick to the book.
Original screenplays? Totally different process. Feels different, works differently. Different stresses.
The difference we're seeing isn't GRRM writes one way and D&D write a different way. D&D were writing the TV series this whole time. D&D write one way when they're doing adaptations. They write another way when they're writing original screenplays. I don't think they like writing original screenplays. But they weren't not writing back when they were adapting. They added a ton of stuff; they're capable of adding stuff.
For instance, the character of Margery Tyrell barely exists in the book because you only see her through Circe's point of view, and they avoid each other. But that obviously doesn't work in TV, where we see her from a neutral point of view. They had to invent Margery, basically. Similarly, in early seasons, they invented a brothel madam, Rosie, because we need to be able to show Littlefinger running a brothel instead of being able to see in his head that he knows he does that. They basically invented Shae, too, because they had to come up with what she feels about Tyrion instead of just writing what Tyrion feels about her.
They added that looooong stupid Sansa/Ramsey Bolton plot because they needed somewhere to stick Sansa for a year while other plots played out, and didn't want everybody to wonder where the actress was and if it was like Portia di Rossi mostly disappearing from Arrested Development.
The issue isn't that they can't make stuff up or add complications. They did plenty of that. They did it within the context of solving problems for an adaptation. I wouldn't say there's no overlap in skills and techniques, but "writing is writing" isn't exactly right either. Being good at oils doesn't transfer to being good at watercolors.
Even though I'm annoyed with D&D (including with many of their adaptation choices) I sympathize with how annoying it would be to sign on for an adaptation and then get stuck with nothing to adapt. It's like if I was hired to play Hamlet and then was asked to improv all Hamlet's lines, and also the play will still be advertised as Hamlet. I can do improv, but are you serious?
I wish adaptation would get more love. It's completely its own skill.
