One Mind
I think books have many qualities that contribute to the entertainment they offer the reader. One of those things is their unpredictability. I want to discuss this part of writing here.
BEWARE: INDICATION OF SPOILERS OVER HERE. With that I mean things like: SPOILER and SPOILER died.
A book and a movie have many differences, obviously, but this one I view as an underrated difference: Books are written by one person, movies are thought out by a big group.
So imagine you're in a classroom. (I'm really going somewhere with this. Not just torture, I promise.) Imagine a group of people that have varying knowledge about different things, but they're all equally intelligent. The teacher asks you to fullfill an excercise that requires very various kinds of information. There are twenty students in the classroom and nineteen of them work together which causes one to have to work alone.
You should realize how different the outcomes will be. The group probably has a well thought-out plan and a logical result. They could discuss their ideas and all contribute some of their own personal knowledge to the project. The lonely student couldn't do this and relied completely on his or her own skills and knowledge. The result will be more extreme, because there was only one kind of opinion and point of view to work with, and it will be more impulsive, because there was no one else to protest againt crazy ideas.
That's the beauty of books: one mind has worked on them. Of course, the results aren't that obvious, but think about it. Would Allegiant have ended the way it did if more people had worked on it? Would SPOILER and SPOILER have died the way they did in Mockingjay? Would the Fault in Our Stars have been the way it is now?
But Mockingjay WAS marked as the worst in the series, right? And don't even get me started about Allegiant and how it drowned in critisism. So shouldn't we force our authors to discuss their plans?
As I said, it's not a black-and-white thing. Think about (for my fellow X-men fans) X-men: the Last Stand. Hated by everyone on the internet and in real life. Why? Wasn't it thought out well? Or were there just too many deaths too bare? Was it necessary for Days of Future Past to undo this movie? Was it that bad? Do directors really have that much say in the way the plot is worked out?
I don't know. I'm a random person who likes books and movies, but that doesn't mean I know sh!t about them. This spitting my brain out will probably never be read (all except two views of this blog have been mine. Google needs to do something about that!), but I don't care. (Okay, I do. Don't hate me.)
I admire the risks that authors take when they kill characters or place anti-climactic events in their stories. That makes waiting for a book to come out so exciting.
I loved the Lunar Chronicles so far.
Side note: If you don't know what the Lunar Chronicles are, Click here!
But the last book ended on an (even though adorable and quite solid) unsure moment. Now I'm waiting for Winter, the final book in the series.
Anyway, I've never really had to wait and be dissapointed about an ending. I spoilered myself intentionally for the Hunger Games series, accidentely for Allegiant and the Death Cure (REVIEW), saw the movie for the Fault in Our Stars and the Host before reading the books, and the other things I've read are either unfinished or didn't have exciting endings (like If I Stay and the Giver Quartet).
The books I'm currently waiting for:
1. Winter
2. The Winner's Kiss (the Winner's Curse and the Winner's Crime were awesome)
3. the Selection #5 (Honestly, the first three were fun but terrible and the Heir was just a nightmare. View my rude and unprofessional reviews HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. I can't help it, I have to know if SPOILER dies!)
All reviews linked below contain mayor spoilers for the book they talk about. You have been warned.
So am I scared about Winter? No. I have faith in Marissa Meyer to use that amazing brain she has to pull off a good story. And other than most of my bookreading friends, I have no trouble with character deaths if they are done well. (Kind of like Love Triangles, but character deaths aren't evil or poisonous.) For example: Mockingjay. Face it: SPOILER (we all know who I mean if I draw a pretty flower and eat some butter) had to die. The story wouldn't be complete if SPOILER hadn't died and if that event hadn't pushed SPOILER over the edge. (Okay, forget it. You all know who I mean, even the movie watchers. But since the odds of you not having been spoilered yet are one of the infinite numbers between zero and one, I'm not going to feel guilty.) And Allegiant. Oh, Allegiant. Okay, the info dumping was nauseating, but the ending was (in my opinion, just like everything else in this mess) perfect and meant-to-be (sorry IV).
And again, it was the writer's vision. Their crazy, one-perspective (or two-perspective, Veronica, whatever you want), psychopath, murderous vision. I'm just not raising my expectations too high for Winter, and maybe I'll be okay. With tissues and ice cream, probably, but I'll be okay.
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