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rinueNon-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.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-15 04:54 am (UTC)The pantser vs. plotter theory had not made its way to the parts of the internet I could see screaming/commiserating about the latest episodes, but I am very glad it provoked this post, because I enjoyed it.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-15 05:47 am (UTC)(Wandered in via network, btw; hi!)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-15 01:12 pm (UTC)I made a go at Brotherhood about a year ago, because I'd like to see the real ending, but found I spent too much of my time distractedly comparing it to the other one instead of treating it as its own thing. So I put it aside. But I'm feeling like the time is now to pick it up again.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-15 11:01 am (UTC)(Weirdly, I felt that Tyrion's murder of Shae in the books was entirely unsympathetic from his POV and completely turned me off his character, whereas it was a lot more justifiable on the show. Though that may fall under the writers deciding not to make a character you're rooting for completely unwatchable.)
GRRM wrote for TV too, which is one of the reasons I think the first three books work so well as TV seasons. They're written episodically and they adhere tightly to an arc structure, which is why I find the whole assertion that GRRM is a pantser bizarre. I actually think the problem with the later books is what another blog called "radical empathy"—which isn't a problem from a philosophical or political POV—but makes for a mess in terms of narrative structure. Because he felt the need to explore not just every character as the hero in their own story, but like, every bit of the world and history. In novels, it can work; in TV it sucks because what do you do with Theon for an entire book while he's off-stage being tortured?
The most frustrating thing in the last few episodes is that I can absolutely see what they're trying to do and it needs tweaking as opposed to burning to the ground. Script editors don't get enough love either. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-15 01:35 pm (UTC)I like that he has his revolutionary characters struggling with questions of whether it's possible to be moral in this sort of universe. With the structure Martin set up, he's implied a lot of the important answers to the questions are going to come from looking at other cultures/norms.
Jon's become bi-cultural through his exposure to the wildlings, and Dany through her experience with the Dothraki and with trying to rule the slaver bay cities. The next set of arcs Martin has set up is that other "hero" characters still need to experience that "study abroad" growth before coming together for the resolution - in Dorne, in the Iron Islands, in that maester city Sam goes to.
TV show was not interested in furthering those arcs, because there's not material about those places to adapt yet. You'd have to invent it. So it's gone against the story logic to dig into "you're whatever you're born as and nobody ever changes" - the opposite of what the build up had been telling us.
And I guess as a reader I could be wrong and it could be that GRRM decided to consistently send characters to look at different government systems because oh dear he simply can't stop spinning things out compulsively, poor helpless pantser George.
Also agreed that books Tyrion is waaaaay less sympathetic than TV Tyrion. And book Jon is pretty much an entirely different person (who I like a lot better).
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-15 09:25 pm (UTC)TV show was not interested in furthering those arcs, because there's not material about those places to adapt yet. You'd have to invent it. So it's gone against the story logic to dig into "you're whatever you're born as and nobody ever changes" - the opposite of what the build up had been telling us.
Agreed. I think that's one of the things that has been turning my stomach about this season. While some of it feels genuinely interested and subversive—Dany's descent into madness, Jaime's lack of redemption—the fact that the writers aren't taking the steps to make it make sense, narratively, means that they fall into shitty and reactionary tropes.
Book Jon is so much better than TV Jon, who is boring and sucks.