Most sequels suck for a variety of reasons. Some sequels are too much like the original book and seem pointless. On the other hand, some sequels deviate too far from the original and piss off the fans. Some sequels are rushed because the author wants to publish it while the original is still in the public’s mind, and the sequel comes out poorly written. Some sequels ruin beloved characters established in the first book.
At any rate, it’s tough to write a good sequel.
Now famous author Ernest Cline is writing a sequel to his best selling novel Ready Player One. So far, the title seems to be… Ready Player Two.
The gimmick in Ready Player One was the bombardment of references to 1980s pop culture. I enjoyed the first chapter of Ready Player One because it focused on Robotron, my favorite video game of the early 1980s.
Even though I like Robotron, I didn’t finish reading Ready Player One. And I didn’t see the movie either. I heard the movie didn’t mention Robotron at all.
Despite my distrust of sequels, the writer in me is interested in an author’s perspective in writing one. Below is an excerpt where Ernest Cline discusses writing a sequel to Ready Player One::
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The sequel picks up a little over a week after the first book ends. Then there’s a gap of time, but it all kind of flows out of the first story. It’s that trick of a sequel where you don’t want to tell the same exact story again, but you want to give fans similar elements that made the first story a success. I think I successfully did that in a very different story that takes place over a different time span than the first book, but it has all the same characters, and some new characters and I also built on the characters’ backstories, and it also builds on the technology and the world.
Read more at ‘Ready Player Two’ author Ernest Cline on returning to the Oasis .
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Now that I think about it, I’m not sure the title Ready Player Two reflects what the sequel will be like. The term ready player two usually means the guy competing with whoever is ready player one. A book titled Ready Player Two would logically be about Ready Player One’s competition. Instead, Ready Player Two seems to have the same protagonist as Ready Player One.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking it.
What do you think? What makes a good sequel? What makes a bad sequel? Does the title Ready Player Two make sense if the it has the same protagonist as Ready Player One playing a different game?
When Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney came out in the 1980s, it was a big deal because the author was a young New Yorker who wrote a novel in the second person point-of-view. Plus, it was a novel about drugs and New York and debauchery, and maybe the author knew what he was talking about, so his book was a literary hit.
This book has always rubbed me the wrong way. When I wrote a short story in second person for my fiction class in the 1980s, the professor mocked me for the attempt, saying it should never be done. A few months later, this Jay McInerney guy got applauded for doing the same thing I did, except in novel form. I wanted to take a copy of Bright Lights, Big City and rub it in the professor’s face, except the semester was over.
To be fair, my short story might have sucked. Bright Lights, Big City might have sucked too. Here’s an excerpt from the first paragraph:
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You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might come clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder. Then again, it might not. A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is a result of too much of that already. The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where two A.M. changes to six A.M. You know this moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush. Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers. They are tired and muddy from their long march through the night. There are holes in their boots and they are hungry. They need to be fed. They need the Bolivian Marching Powder.
*****
Yeah, this could get old really quickly. Plus, the spell can get broken with one moment of reader denial.
Book: “Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers.
Reader: “No, it isn’t. This is stupid. (Reader slams book shut and places it back on shelf.)
I don’t remember much about my second person point-of-view short story in the 1980s, but I know my paragraphs were shorter, and I got straight to the point. Maybe my short story didn’t suck after all.
*****
What do you think? Does second person point-of-view work for you in fiction? How many books about New York debauchery can you read before it gets old?
Reading a novel like War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy can be tough for a couple reasons. First of all, the novel is really long. Even more important, it’s in Russian, so having a good translation is very important.
If I ever decide to read War and Peace, I own a used paperback copy from 1968 translated by Ann Dunnigan (thank you, Ann Dunnigan).
Meanwhile, Amazon has a version translated by Louise and Aylemer Maude. Before I commit to reading, I want to compare translations and see if one is obviously more readable than the other. Below is an excerpt from War and Peace Chapter Two (translated by Ann Dunnigan) describing the aunt that nobody wants to talk to.
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“Have you seen my aunt?” or, “You’re not acquainted with ma tante?” Ana Pavlona said to each new arrival, very gravely leading him to a little old lady with towering bows on her cap, who had emerged from another room as soon as the guests began to arrive, and slowly turning her gaze from the visitor to ma tante, she would pronounce their names and withdraw.
Every guest performed the ceremony of greeting this unknown, uninteresting, and unnecessary aunt. Anna Pavlovna followed these greetings with solemn, melancholy attention, silently approving them. Ma tante repeated exactly the same phrases to each of them concerning his health, her own, and that of Her Majesty, who, thank God, was better today. Out of politeness, the guests concealed their impatience, but it was with a feeling of relief at having performed an arduous duty that they left the old lady, not once to return to her the entire evening.
******
Below is an excerpt from the same two paragraphs, this time translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (but I’ve that Louise did all the work):
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To each new arrival Anna Pavlovna said, “You have not yet seen my aunt,” or, “You do not know my aunt?” and very gravely conducted him or her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna Pavlovna mentioned each one’s name and left.
Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them cared about; Anna Pavlovna observed these greetings with mournful and solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her Majesty, “who, thank God, was better today.” And each visitor, though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not return to her the whole evening.
*****
Maybe these excerpts aren’t long enough to come to a conclusive conclusion, but I get the feeling that a translator can take a previous translation, move a few prepositional phrases around and throw in a few synonyms, and then claim he or she has created a new version.
Neither translator above could write a truly coherent sentence in the first paragraph. Whoever “emerged” or “sailed” into the room, I had to read both versions twice to figure it out.
I think the second translation is written a bit more dramatically, especially the first sentence in the second paragraph. So far, though, I haven’t seen enough differences to switch versions, so I’ll probably stick with the Ann Dunnigan version (if I continue reading at all).
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What do you think? What differences did you notice in the two excerpts? What translation of War and Peace is reputed to be the best? Does it even matter?
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It’s the oldest story in the world, 1990s style!
Man meets woman; man falls in “luuuvvv” with woman; man gets blindsided by reality!
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon !
The Shipping News by Annie Prouix is supposed to be a really good book. It received a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994. Several bloggers have mentioned it to me in comments recently.
I tried reading The Shipping News over 20 years ago because a guy in my writer’s group at the time was always raving about it. Despite my respect for the Pulitzer Prize and the guy in my writer’s group, I couldn’t get into The Shipping News back then.
Since The Shipping News has so much going for it, I figured I’d buy my own copy and try again. I found a paperback for $3.99 at a used book store. I’m a cheapskate bastard, so I was immediately attracted by the price, but then I inspected the cover.
Ugh! It was a movie poster cover, with actor Kevin Spacey staring wistfully in the upper left corner. I’ve been told that Kevin Spacey was miscast in the movie. I don’t want to imagine a miscast actor when I’m reading a book.
Plus, I pride myself on buying pre-movie copies of novels. Unfortunately, it was this copy or nothing. If I didn’t purchase this copy, I’d have to pay $10-$15 for a brand new paperback copy at B&M Booksellers.
The cheapskate in me said buy the book. The purist in me said put it back.
I compromised. I bought the book and tore off the cover. I’d rather have a coverless book than a post-movie copy.
Now I don’t have to look at Kevin Spacey whenever I pick up The Shipping News. Still, I need time to let the Kevin Spacey image fade from my memory before I begin reading. I spent my own money on this book. I’ve committed to giving it a fair chance now.
Just so you know, I ripped the cover off the book AFTER I left the book store. You never know how other book collectors will react to such aggression.
*****
What do you think? Did I make the right choice? Is a pre-movie copy inherently better than a post-movie copy of a novel?
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel, but a lot of people are uncomfortable reading it because of the preponderance of N-Words.
Of course, Huckleberry Finn doesn’t actually use the term N-Word; it uses the original version that rhymes with the word trigger. It uses the word that rhymes with trigger a lot. Not just once or twice, but a lot.
Replacing the word that rhymes with trigger with N-Word is ineffective because everybody knows what N-Word means and then the audience automatically thinks of the word that rhymes with trigger.
Some sensitivity readers might suggest that the word that rhymes with trigger in Huckleberry Finn be replaced by the word slave, but slave doesn’t start with the letter N, so it can’t be an N-Word.
A great replacement N-Word would be nice guy. Yeah, it’s two words instead of one, but it starts with the letter N, and it has a positive connotation. Everybody likes nice guys (even though nice guys get taken advantage of a lot).
And if you’re uncomfortable using the word that rhymes with trigger when chanting lyrics from a certain pop genre, the term nice guy can usually work (but that’s an experiment for another time) as a replacement.
In this excerpt, Jim (the nice guy that Huck hangs out with) is bragging about being possessed by witches:
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Jim was monstrous proud of it (being possessed by witches), and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other nice guys. Nice guys would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any other nice guy in the country. Strange nice guys would stand with their mouths open and look him all over as if he was a wonder. Nice guys is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire, but whenever one was talking and letting on to know about all such things, Jim would happen in and say, “Hm! What do you know about witches?” and that nice guy was corked up and had to take a back seat.(p. 14)
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I don’t know, maybe my solution doesn’t really help that much. Maybe I’ll leave Huckleberry Finn as it is. Sometimes my literary experiments don’t work out.
I bought The Sword of Shannara when I was in 7th grade and knew right away it was a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings. That doesn’t mean it was bad.
The Sword of Shannara was actually okay for a rip-off. At the time, it was a self-contained novel. The author wrapped everything up in one book. At least, I thought he did.
Somewhere along the way, the author wrote a bunch more Sword of Shannara books, and somebody who was not me (or I) bought them. Over the next 43 years, the author Terry Brooks made a bunch of money from his Tolkien rip-offs.
The writer side of me is interested in what Terry Brooks has to say about being an author. The reader part of me thinks… RIP OFF!!
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I wrote Sword (of Shannara) with no expectations. It was a first novel, so I didn’t know if I could get published, I didn’t know if anyone would read it, I didn’t know anything. So when it was successful, this led automatically to thinking about what I could do next, because there at least was a future here. I wrote a sequel, and then I decided to make it a trilogy, because even then, trilogies were in, and then I wanted to wrap the whole thing up.
Read more at… As the Shannara Saga Ends, Terry Brooks Looks Back…and Forward.
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On a side note, George R.R. Martin might look at Terry Brooks and think “43 years? That gives me 20 more years to finish Game of Thrones.”
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What do you think? Are rip-offs inherently bad? What is your favorite rip-off?
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The 1990s… a decade when kids still played outside without supervision and an average guy could approach an attractive woman without being called a creep on the internet.
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon and from the trunk of my car at various local bookstores… until parking lot security kicks me out. Buy it now while supplies last!
Years ago, a friend of mine was reading It by Stephen King while I was reading The Novel by James Michener.
My friend had never seen (or heard of) The Novel before, so he was curious.
“What are you reading?” my friend asked.
“The Novel,” I said.
“Is it any good?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t read It yet.”
“What do you think of it so far?”
“I just told you. I’ve never even started It.”
“You just told me you’ve been reading It,” he said, perplexed.
“No, I’m reading The Novel,” I said.
“That’s what I meant, The Novel,” he said. “Is it any good?”
“I don’t know. I was going to ask you if It was any good.”
My friend stopped talking to me about books. Now we just talk about the easy stuff, like religion and politics.
I wasn’t looking for something to criticize while reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, I promise. I’m not a Grammar Nazi. This just caught my attention, and if I can’t mention this on my blog, then where can I mention it?
The protagonist Cora and another slave Caesar had just eluded some slave catchers and found refuge with an abolitionist. Unfortunately, their friend Lovey had been recaptured. In this scene, the abolitionist explained the rumors of what had happened since they escaped.
*****
Cora and Caesar drank greedily from the pitcher Fletcher offered them. The host was unhappy to see the extra passenger, but so many things had gone wrong from the very start.
The shopkeeper caught them up. First, Lover’s mother, Jeer, noticed her daughter’s absence and left their cabin to make a quiet search. The boys liked Lovey, and Lovey liked the boys. One of the bosses stopped Jeer and got the story from her.
Cora and Caesar looked at each other. Their six-hour lead had been a fantasy. the patrollers had been deep in the hunt the whole time.
By midmorning, Fletcher said, every spare hand in the county and from all around enlisted in the search. Terrence’s reward was unprecedented. Advertisements were posted at every public place. The worst sort of scoundrels took up the chase (p.62 in my copy).
*****
Maybe I’m wrong, but when I read that, I thought that the exposition needed past perfect tense instead of simple past tense. Maybe, just maybe, the second paragraph should have said:
The shopkeeper caught them up. First, Lover’s mother, Jeer, had noticed her daughter’s absence and left their cabin to make a quiet search. The boys liked Lovey, and Lovey liked the boys. One of the bosses had stopped Jeer and gotten the story from her.
And then the fourth paragraph in the excerpt could have said:
By midmorning, Fletcher said, every spare hand in the county and from all around had enlisted in the search. Terrence’s reward was unprecedented. Advertisements had been posted at every public place. The worst sort of scoundrels had taken up the chase.
It’s not that big a deal either way. Or maybe it is a big deal. This book won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It’s not exactly a flimsy paperback bestseller.
What do you think? Should past perfect have been used in that situation? Does it even matter? Is this something that only a Grammar Nazi would care about?
I promise, I’m not a Grammar Nazi!
Short stories should be more popular than they are. They’re short, so they don’t take long to read. The writing tends to be more efficient than the writing in novels, so readers don’t feel like they’ve wasted their time with filler.
When I feel like reading but I don’t have a lot of time, I’ll sometimes grab an O. Henry short story. Critics today might call his stories too hokey. His characters spoke in unrealistically long and complicated sentences. The stories make references to stuff that doesn’t exist anymore.
O. Henry’s characters weren’t all that bright, but they used big words and spoke in long sentences. My question is… is this actually good dialogue? Here’s an excerpt from the short story “The Ransom of Mack.”
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One evening Mack spoke up and asked me if I was much apprised in the habits and policies of women folks.
“Why, yes,” says I, in a tone of voice; “I know ’em from Alfred to Omaha. The feminine nature and similitude,” says I, “is as plain to my sight as the Rocky Mountains is to a blue-eyed burro. I’m onto all their little sidesteps and punctual discrepancies.”
“I tell you, Andy,” says Mack with a kind of sigh. “I never had the least amount of intersection with their predispositions. Maybe I might have had a proneness in respect to their vicinity, but I never took the time. I made my own living since I was fourteen; and I never seemed to get my ratiocinations equipped with sentiments usually depicted toward the sect. I sometimes wish I had,” says old Mack.
“They’re an adverse study,” says I, “and adapted to points of view. Although they vary in rationale, I have found ’em quite often obviously differing from each other in divergencies of contrast.”
“It seems to me,” goes on Mack, “that a man had better take ’em in and secure his inspirations of the sect when he’s young and so preordained. I let my chance go by; and I guess I’m too old now to go hopping into the curriculum.”
*****
The dialogue remains like this throughout the rest of the story. In fact, almost all of O. Henry’s characters spoke like this in almost every story that he wrote (that I’ve read).
I mean, I kind of like this dialogue, but reading too much of it at one time can give me a headache.
But enough about me! What do you think? Do you like O. Henry’s style of dialogue? Would too much of it at one time get old? Most importantly, are the men’s observations about women accurate?
A few years ago I sold most of my books. At the time, it made sense. They were taking up too much space, and I wasn’t going to read most of them again. I was enjoying my main branch library and was reading (sampling) more books than I could ever purchase. I could even read/sample books on a bunch of different electronic devices.
Now all of the libraries in my area are only doing curbside. Curbside is great for grocery stores or food pickups, but it sucks for books.
Browsing for books is just as much fun as reading the books. When it comes to curbside, I can browse the libraries online, but I’m trying to cut down on screen usage. Too much of my life is spent staring at screens. My left eye has started to twitch when I stare at the screens for too long.
I don’t want my eyes to keep twitching. It’s a weird feeling, and it can’t be good for me. I’m no optometrist, but I’m pretty sure twitchy eyes are bad.
My eye doesn’t twitch when I read a book. So now I’m back to the book stores again. I guess it’s okay to spend a little money on books in order to get rid of an eye twitch. It’s a fair trade-off.
Unfortunately, I’ve purchased a couple books that I haven’t liked all that much. That’s the problem with buying books. Fortunately, there’s a yard library box in the next neighborhood, so I might exchange books there. Somebody in the area will like the books I’ve recently purchased but don’t like. Maybe the yard box will have some books that I’m interested in too.
I also want more books just in case the grid goes down. For a long time, I believed the grid would never really go down because there’s too much money involved. Now I believe that whoever controls the grid is more interested in power than money. The grid controller could shut everything down just to exert power. If that happens, I want real copies of my favorite books.
Maybe the grid will never go down. Maybe the libraries will open up again. I don’t know. But no matter what happens, I want my books. And I want to read without twitchy eyes.
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Enough about me! What do you think? How have your book reading or book buying habits changed in the last year? Do your eyes get twitchy when you stare at a screen too long?
Dysfunctional Literacy 