I wouldn't say George's food descriptions are an example of describing the wrong things. They're meant to highlight the privilege of the nobility feasting while the poor suffer.
Describing the elaborate meals and pies at the purple wedding are one thing, but Tyrion liking his bacon burnt black or Sansa liking berries and cream are both descriptions that could easily be removed with no effect on the story.
Thats definitely a good point and you can really feel that with the contrast between the starving, rioting peasants and the upper class in ACOK, but tbh, I think the main reason is just that George likes food.
@@starwarsnerd100 I disagree. I think about my favorite foods literally all the time. The fact that so many of the POV characters think about eating a lot makes the characters feel so fucking real to me.
@@starwarsnerd100 I disagree. His is ultimately a story about characters and their development. What people eat and what people enjoy to eat fleshes out the characters in so many ways. Sure, the details can be omitted and the events will be the same, but so can Tyrion's descriptions of his family interactions and the descriptions of Catelyn's attitude toward Jon growing up
Ok, I'll bite, what does Tyrion liking bacon add to his character? I'll admit Sansa's tastes could emphasize she's still a child who loves sweets, but let's be honest not all of the food descriptions serve much of a world building or character building surface, there's a limit. Like other Martin isms such as the brutal violence, I'll accept "It serves a purpose to the story" to some extent. But I also think we'd be kidding ourselves to not admit that it's also because food and combat are the sort of things George likes to write about
"There was an adult beefswelling in his loins, and he felt his mouth open, holding, clinging to the girdershape of ecstasy." - Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
@@00Maximilian Um, no. Just no. Children of Dune came out in 1976, the same year as Interview with the Vampire. Kurt Vonnegut and William S. Burroughs had been publishing more explicitly sexual content for decades. The only American to ever actually be convicted under obscenity laws was Mike Diana, a comic book author, in 1991.
I think Franks lack of description helps his books age well. As we get more technologically advanced we can fill in the gaps with our imaginations. Whilst an overly detailed description could break our immersion... He describes the environment because it is timeless and he knows it well, whilst he leaves other things vague. I think that was probably deliberate...
That is a really good point, and definitely one of the reasons his books have aged as well as they have being in the very dating sci-fi genre. His technology feels genuinely fantastical because so much of it is up to imagination. That being said, Chani's hair is quite important, and I was genuinely taken back when I learned(in this video) that it was red.
I really love that about his books! At the start of Dune I was so confused, but realized he is telling his audience what they need to know, when they need to know. No superfluous exposition. Took me a bit to get into, but now I just love it. Dune is one of the only books I've re-read and never get bored of.
"Present your research in the form of dialog" Ah, the Hideo Kojima method. "Raiden, wait! You need to listen to an 8-minute long cutscene about behavioral memes before you go forward!"
I still can't tell if they're the same person. I feel like it has to be one guy, but the cadence is *just* different enough that I can't tell if it's because they're different people or because Alt Shift X has a script.
@@kaiju2296 been thinking about that and its my new favourit theory that they actually are two different people! In his Iceberg video schwift talked about brothers who try to be as different as possible and he mentioned shifts youtube channel and his as an example. He said it so naturally that it must be true, right?? :D
@@kingremus7544 in the early schwift episodes he makes it pretty clear that he's the same person But maybe they're just trying to throw us off the trail? 🤔
@@tubbstubbs.5311 Yeah I think it was episode 50 where he mid-sentence changed his phrasing and started talking about "that other guy". He's been so consistent eversince that I can't but believe him that they are two!
me too! even if they arguably don't add anything to the substance of the text - although in my opinion they do as they emphasise the decadence of the nobility and help highlight character journeys, especially with the turn to cannibalism in ADWD - the food descriptions add so much colour and sense. the books would be plainer without them
@@AlbertAlbertB. Sorry, but my comment is pertinent to a different discussion and I accidentally put it under yours. I deleted it to avoid further confusion.
This is so intense. 6 Bad Writing examples in and neither of them have a point yet. At the edge of my seat. Oh, and a video discussing two of my favorite book series side by side just might have made my day
@@AltSchwiftX The ones were they just don't score a point in the first half is just great. Especially if you have to sit there in the stadion in the cold and the rain.
Only in a ASOIAF could you consider white walkers killing the Night’s Watch rangers, beheading a deserter, death of the hand of the king, getting sold off in marriage, etc as a slow start to a novel. Ha
I think GRRM's logic with rape and realism in general is that he's trying to write a fantasy world that is still upheld by real-world logic. Just because dragons exist does not mean that humans are incapable of doing horrifcally evil things to each other when given the power to do so with little consequence.
@@mammamiaculpa book one. Tens of thousands of riverlanders were put to death or starved at his command. Entire settlements were completely wiped out and their populations murdered.
@Stinko De mayo "George didn't write a book". Can you further elaborate on what you meant by that? Perhaps not Frank. But George's "A Song of Ice and Fire" has sold over 90 million copies up to 2019. And considering it's not even finished speaks to the reach it has. It just means they and their work is well known, sir.
I think it’s a fun exercise if we keep in the mind that writing is very individual. Just another reason to talk about our favourite series. Of course GRRM isn’t a bad writer just because he has orphans running around.
Children=orphans 40:08 Everything happens at the same time 43:28 Present your research as dialogue 48:00 Commit to your genre 54:24 Fail to contextualise dialogue 1:04:26 Pick the wrong hero 1:05:00 Write autographical fiction 1:48:45 Narrate all as matter of fact tone 1:51:56 Thesaurus 1:57:00 Choose one character to bully 2:06:54 Signpoint your twist 2:08:43 Refuse to solve misteries 2:11:20 MAke your villain relly evil 2:15:15 Write outside the conford zone 2:24:00 Let yoye characters eplain themselves 2:28:49 Write yourself in a corner 2:51:57 Describe the wrong things 2:56:41
As a professional writer... a lot of these points are just fucking stupid. Like someone went "I'm gonna write 100 points!!!" And then... laboured to get 100 points by making a ton of shitty ones.
@@Dual_Ralle Dio is evil because of his messed up childhood. He was horribly abused and he viewed Jojo as a man of privilege- He was indoctrinated by his father to believe that privileged people are that way because their privilege is acquired at the expense of people like Dio and his father. Dio's character is developed to be evil, thus he isn't an example of a one-dimensional evil character.
@@guerilla_food one dimensionality isn’t dependent on a characters bg. It’s how they think and act, what motivates them plays a part but doesn’t dictate. Thanos isn’t multi dimensional because his motivation is to ultimately help the universe, but because he loves his daughter. Is caring toward her in a way that he isn’t towards the rest of the world. He has multiple dimensions
I think what was meant was "inorganic" love interests rather than "unlikely", because forcing a love interest is inorganic but the love interests in GoT are very organic but not socially acceptable/typical
How is Jaime and Cersei's love organic? It's not. It's just sick. If it were organic, there'd be far more brother sister relationships in the real world. There is nothing organic about loving your sister romantically. What other love interests are even in the story?
@@jaredcrandall9145 So? That doesn't make it organic. If anything, that proves it even less so, because they were only doing it to for some sick fetish of pure blood. So those were not organic at all.
@@kryptiqk2141 it is organic if you lived in medieval era in which there are few houses and you are not around many women that aren't peasants, and you are horny....
@@kryptiqk2141 It's organic because it makes sense how these narcissistic people who only value their family fall in love with mirror images of themselves, who are family. It has nothing you do with what is normal in everyday life, but how their specific circumstances give way to their relationship.
I feel like the bad writing form of "unlikely love interest" isn't anything to do with making the reader uncomfortable, but is mainly meant in the sense of "what on earth does X see in Y?". I never really felt like Jaime and Cercei's love was unlikely; it's explained fairly well in their POVs. Nyneave and Lan in WOT just comes out of nowhere though. like Why is a Warder head over heels for some abrasive villiage wisdom in the first book?
Funny, as somebody who finds women with “abrasive” personalities attractive, I can see it. Lan is stoic, strong and described by many throughout the series as “being able to have a staring contest with a stone and win”. Nynaeve is just as stubborn but more vocal about it. I see relationships in real life just like theirs. A strong man of few words and a strong vocal woman. 🤷🏻♂️ Nynaeve isn’t a stone to have a staring contest with, she’s a rolling boulder. She isn’t fragile. And someone like Lan who doesn’t need to prove his strength appreciates the way Nynaeve rises to “challenge” his stubbornness. This is just my opinion though and how I saw their relationship.
I don't think Nynaeve and Lan are out of nowhere. Nynaeve is hotheaded and and impulsive while Lan is stoic and controlled. It's an opposites attract thing, very common trope. My only issue is that it happens too fast. Half of their relationship's development happens in the first book.
To counter Dennis Villaneuve's point on the bad writing scale from "get out of bed and it's raining" I feel like the rain in dune's first scene is kinda the opposite of "glum" which is what I feel the bad writing trope is actually addressing. Like rain in dune, a book all about an extreme desert, kinda takes on a new meaning relating more to security and tranquility, and perhaps "traditional power/wealth" that comes from living on fertile farmland. Which serves to contrast the total lack of security and tranquility and the abundance of raw power to be found on Arrakis. Or something along those lines. At the very least, it's an extremely powerful visual demarcation between Arrakis and whatever planet the Atreities we're from In any case, idk if it's bad writing in this scenario.
Half the shots of Caladan in Dune 2021 heavily feature its oceans, the raining intro is 100% about emphasizing the wetness of Caladan vs. the desolation of Arrakis. I'd have to rewatch, but I think there isn't a single shot on Caladan that doesn't feature water in some way. Even the emissary scene takes place immediately after rain, as evidenced by all the standing water on the ground
1:25:07 Writing from multiple points of view within a single scene is actually one of the things I enjoy the most in Dune!! I love knowing what everyone is feeling about something at the same time.
I feel like a lot of these 100 bad writing things are bad themselves. Some are true, but others are a bit ridiculous. I think instead of "bad writing" it should be "bad writing if done badly". It all comes down to intent.
I mean that's true for all "writing rules", there's not one thing that's always good or always bad when writing. Even things like bad grammar has its place and time. These rules are more like general trends of literature, shitty low-effort writing tend to have more of these things.
I don't get how Cersei can be 'likable' and has 'good reasons' but Leto who is literally working on saving the entire species and suffers so greatly for his choice is not in any way sympathetic. I ADORE Leto for that specific person. He's quite literally my favourite character alongside Odrade for how fascinating they are.
Cersei is likable in a “I enjoy reading this character” not that she is morally likable or someone you’d want to be around irl. Also there’s good reasons for her actions as in we as readers understand why she acts the way she does not that she’s justified in any sense. At least that was my understanding of Shifts take.
@@dr_palpy9214 That’s how you and I would understand it. But we have to understand that there are people like Cersei in this world who are legitimately like here or find sympathy with her in some way.
@@Mcgif21I mean the emperor isn’t even morally upright in a tacky way. He’s this inscrutable aloof inhuman entity with a grand scale plan for humanity which he’s willing to do anything to accomplish. Plenty of villains have the same description and he really is the villain depending on your perspective even if he sacrifices himself for his own aims. But as cool and interesting as he may be, he just preaches the whole book in a holier than thou way which is true and fits his character but doesn’t really make him endearing
Cersei was a bit less cartoonishly evil on the show than in the book, but "likable" is not the adjective that comes to mind, and her "good reasons" in both books and the show tended to be on the "did not think this through" spectrum.
I think that "unlikely love interest" is meant to refer to if narratively it makes sense. Jaime is a likely love interest for Cersei because it makes sense with her narcissism, so although it's an "unlikely love interest" because it's unlikely that siblings would be in love/incest is rare (I hope), it's in character, it's not an unlikely love interest considering the character's personality. To me, this trope probably means something like "smartest, most beautiful/handsome, richest and high-achieving person falls in love with self-insert and bland john smith/jane doe because that's the author's fantasy".
I also think that the Targaryen argument Alt makes is really bad, because it's not like the Targaryen's just had an ungodly amount of incestuous couples for no reason. They were trying to keep the bloodline pure, which was actually a thing in real history. Like incestuous marriage is assumed to have been a doctrine in Zoroastrianism.
@@ciukilp I kind of agree, but imo George overdid it a bit with the Valyrians. If marriage between cousins was normal, and marriage between siblings happened from time to time, but was generally frowned upon in Valyrian society, it would make a lot more sense to me. Marriage between siblings being the norm just wouldn't work for more than a few generations. They would be too inbred to stay fertile, sane or even remotely healthy. The entire Targaryen dynasty would look like Charles II within a few decades.
@@felixsylvester4266 did George ever say incest was the norm in Valyria? Because I don't imagine you'd need to keep the bloodline pure in Valyria as there were several Dragonrider families. Also Valyrians are less prone to fall ill, maybe that includes inbreeding save for the madness part. Because there are a few cruel or batshit insane Targaryens. Like Maegor, Baelor and Aerys are the obvious ones, but some were insane enough to do anything for prophecies that they misinterpreted, like Egg with Summerhall or Brightflame (can't remember his first name) who drank wildfire, or even Rhaegar who almost ended his dynasty because he needed to fuck Lyanna and didn't even try anything diplomatic as far as we know
@@ciukilp I couldn't really remember if George outright stated it myself, but according to the Wiki it's like this: "In the Valyrian Freehold, it was custom among the drahonlords to marry brother to sister, or, if that was not possible, an uncle to a niece, or an aunt to a nephew. However, this was not often practiced by those who were not from dragonrider families."
@@felixsylvester4266 I don't like to take info from the Wiki, because it does use statements that George allegedly said on conventions in the 90s, so some of the info is hard to verify, but then again, George likes to include incest whenever possible
Concerning point three, starting novels too early, both authors are creators of worlds far-surpassing a single novel. They have to set up characters and situations. This isn't, say, Catch-22, a singular story encompassed by a singular book. Dune and GoT would be much different without the hashing out of it's subjects. Great video!
True, ASoIaF has to be a little slow at the start, and while yes "nothing happens" for awhile that isn't necessarily true, the story isn't about the walkers vs. Humanity that's only a small part of the story despite being the over arching threat, the real story is about the political intrigue and how these characters interact, so the first few chapters telling us very basic but necessary information is required of the story, Jon arryns death has to be told to us as new information as if he'd been long dead why would it be a plot point? Cat hating Jon is also a tad vital due to it being part of Jon's motivation to join the watch. Theres a big difference between starting too early and starting early enough that we care about the characters before they start their struggles.
George writes character focused narratives better. Frank often loses his characters to the world, which is such a louder and greater character than the characters themselves. And that’s not a bad thing…. It’s just a harder read because it creates a narrative din…. There’s just so much going on. In ASOIAF… there’s a lot going on but it’s only from the characters perspective. To that character… the only thing going on in the world is what they themselves know. So even though the world is massive and busy… for each person… the only know what they know. The world isn’t that big for the character. And it’s easier to digest
I think GRRM is able to balance the story on multiple characters better whereas Herbert is really only good at telling the story of a single character while his world and thought provoking concepts take center stage.
Fully agree. I want so bad to enjoy Dune. The world is so amazing, and the characters are so interesting, but I never get enough of a feel for them to latch to anyone in particular. There's no Tyrion or Arya or John to guide me through the massive changing world. That's how you get through ASOIAF the first time. Just following the story of the character you like. Then on your second read, you start to notice how deep he world is and how well things connect. On your third read you start to see the plot threads that foreshadow the big plot twists. On your fourth, you start to understand the themes.
Semicolons connect two related, independent clauses without a conjunction. They are stronger than a comma, but subtler than a period; they're very sneaky that way.
number 28 struck a nerve, I don't think all mysteries needs resolving; they're part of the world at large the dark tower is a great example, King decides in the final book that all mysteries and motivations needs to be tied up and I feel a lot of the charm and soul of the books disappears i loved the very ending, despite King warning about the ending, it was very fitting and fantastic but how he resolved Roland's motivation and the red king was incredibly lack luster. what always stuck with me through the readings is Rolands mysterious tenacity, the man has a quest and that's all, damn anyone who comes in his way
Tolkien did this too We never knew much of the lands beyond Middle-Earth and characters like the Blue Wizards and Tom Bombadil are utter enigmas without much answers you can force on them
@@ItsButterBean1020 That’s mostly because Tolkien himself didn’t even know the answers. He framed his writing as if he was uncovering/recounting the history of Arda, not inventing it, and unless he was completely confident in a detail he didn’t add it. He scrutinized every word he put to the page and had a habit of adding things in without yet knowing if he’d flesh them out later on or not. He spent the final decades of his life trying to fill out as much as possible with the stories that would become the Silmarillion, but he died before they could be finished. So who knows what was intentionally vague and what he would have eventually fleshed out.
I agree. In fact, I think it makes every single piece of fiction much more interesting, to have atleast one great mystery that remains unsolved. Nothing captures my imagination like that.
Yeah I agree 100%. I don't want everything to be answered. I do want to know the damn Night King's identity(or whomever was the 1st person to turn as we have no Night King as of it.Story will be incomplete for me without that bit.
Its like Tom Bombadil, I'm glad that Tolkien never gave a direct answer about who or what the fuck he is, he's just a weird lil guy whos older than dirt and feels weirdly out of place yet adds to the scope of the world
Currently listening to Dune on audiobook and he uses certain words A LOT And the point of Paul waking up with the rain is to show how common rain is on Caladan versus the sere desert of Arrakis.
I legit love Victarion. He is a terrible human being but he is also a product of his culture(which i find interesting to explore) and a total himbo. I love his chapters almost as much as those of other more “likable” characters at least for how different they are while still being in the same beloved GRRM style.
I really feel that with Dune people really seem to miss that the book is not about characters who are Arab Muslims it's about the descendants of Arab Muslims living tens of thousands of years in the future on a desert planet where it never rains. A lot of Frank Herbert stuff is the idea of these real world cultures and religious ideologies under new material and social forces and the forces and the sort of extreme forms they take as a result
In other words, the Fremen maybdescend from Muslims, but they aren't ethnically Arab. This reflects the current North African and Middle Eastern world, where most people speak Arabic but aren't ethnically Arab, or at least not predominantly. Less than 15% of Muslims are Arabs.
Haven't watched yet, but recently reread both of the authors. I would say that Martin is better at delving into multiple characters in one book. Herbert is more of an original thinker and creative.
thats interesting. I love Martin's ability to weave a tale, and have interesting ideas, and clever quips. his characters seem to have more flesh to them than Herberts.
@@xJBx72x hello friend. I'm making my comments from the original padishah emperor's lands; Turkey. which is what left from ottoman empire after westerners motivate arabic people to revolt and divide just because they want easier access to that juicy oil(spice melange) reserves. no giant worms here tho. cheers.
"suddenly explaining the whole plot" is like Martin's prime trademark in basically everything but ASOIAF. Nightflyers, In the House of the Worm, Sandkings, basically all his scifi work have that specific pacing issue.
I've never understood why some people get so hateful about using "fancy" words. I've had people say I shouldn't use certain words because some people won't understand what I mean, but of course people aren't going to know what they mean if no one ever uses them. Like, words are fun. They're great. Why do some people hate learning new words?
In the character names, I always thought that Herbert was using an apostrophe to represent a glottal stop like the aleph or ayin in Hebrew or alif and ayin/ghayin in Arabic. English doesn't have these consonants as standard sounds and so use of an apostrophe to represent them is standard.
Frank Herbert had a thicker beard. George does not. The title of Frank Herbert's Dune is one syllable long.(a symbol of chad status among authors) Georgie's "A-Song-of-Ice-and-Fire" is seven, count 'em, SEVEN syllables long! Frank Herbert is the Kwisatz Haderach of literature. A man literally bred for the sole purpose of writing a RELETIVELY COMPLETE, profound series of books. George's INCOMPLETE series of books, all be it a solid series, pales in comparison. (In my opinion.)
@@holysayingsofrobin4055 God Emperor fucked my mind... I never read anything like that in my entire life. So many Ducan Idaho's. A man tienes into a worm and then dying while being dismembered by his own simbiotic body. The concept of being someone but being at the same time somekind of hivemind with thousands of individualis living inside of you. And being human but at the same time not. The fact that Leto took the Golden path what made of him a tyrant who will never be forgiven but at the same time a necessary force and sacrifice so the humankind can keep surviving. I don't know man, crazy, grotesque, tragic, and awesome as nothing I ever read.
I believe that the two men as people are incomparable in their quality (Frank being pretty obviously the better professional writer and a more interesting person) but I believe that both stories are both of immense quality, just in completely different ways.
Most of the proposed "bad writings" we're testing against are incredibly basic. You get mixing tenses, grammar and punctuation errors, editing mistakes... no professional author would have those in any significant number. Most fanfiction writers don't, and they don't have an army of proofreaders and editors whose entire career is making sure there are no grammar and punctuation errors in your book. This was fun though :)
I really disagree about point number 15. I think the issue its trying to explain is when an author chooses a protagonist who they present (with their own language) as good, when infact they are bad. Cersei, for example, is relatable, despite being bad. Similarly, the god-emperor in Dune is not relatable, but also isnt presented as if he IS good. Similarly with Victarion, he is a bad guy who is presented objectively. If he was coded as heroic and good despite objectively being a raping, pillaging, murderous viking warlord, that would be the issue.
I would argue that every character portrays themselves as good within their own POV, so whether we like certain characters - and enjoy seeing them as protagonists (which I think are two different things), depends on other factors besides being portrayed as "good" or "bad". For example, Tyrion is an almost universally liked character because of his wit and humor and relatability, but he has done a lot of terrible things. So Martin either gets a point for describing all POV characters as "good" from their own perspective, or he gets a point for describing characters like Tyion as likeable even when they do terrible things. Either way, one point for GRRM
@@robbomegavlkafenryka6158 Very true. Different lords, of different houses, of different nations, had very different ideas of what a knight should follow. Same for the samurai.
@@Shiyaroku4869 but thats not the point, obviusly, most people are the heroes of theyr own stories, but George doesnt idolise or glorify from his own point of view in the writing all the terrible shit coded into his greyer characters.
I honestly love how one of the first chapters about Yueh is literally introduced by a quote from some dictionary that just goes like "Yueh, Wellington: briefly noted as traitor to Duke Leto" or something. Imagine watching Star Wars and the first time Darth Vader shows up there is just a little text in the corner saying "Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, father of Luke and Leia Skywalker, eventually killed the evil emperor".
Both of these guys are amazing but GM broke so many rules with GOT, as good as DUNE is along with all the following books (I know his son wrote the later ones) as a study of human behaviour and systems, it still treads familiar ground in character development and outcomes, no one ever knew what was going to happen in GOT. I’ve never read anything before that had me shouting at a book. For me it’s GM
No one ever knew what was going to happen in GOT...lol...neither did the author. Martin is just JJ Abrams, but he uses a random death as his mystery boxes. Martin sets up so much stuff, just like Lost, and just like Lost, most of it pretty much goes nowhere and means nothing to anything.
@@kryptiqk2141 Nah, there are plenty of indications he planned out the endings and pay offs. If anything, it's more that he has had trouble getting everyone to that point in the same amount of time and in a realistic amount of pages.
@@Ravenicus No you can't. You can look at an outline that is nothing like the story we are reading. It's basically an outline for an entirely different story, where Jon and Tyrion are in a love triangle with Arya. That shit is NOT the outline of ASOIAF.
I think the last part about Romanticising Places really highlights how best to use bad writing advice: By considering what you're writing and how you're writing it and ultimately doing the wrong things - on purpose. Following the book to a T wouldn't make you a good writer, but choosing which rules to keep and which to break might. I can't speak for Herbert, but Martin romanticising scenery that likely isn't very romantic to the reader makes sense: Westeros is cruel to us, but to many people inhabiting it it's all they've ever known. Of yourse they would find beauty in things we wouldn't. Limited third person POV means that we're not getting how Martin thinks about battle and violence and dirt and food scraps, but how his characters think about them. I find the "Romantisation" very purposeful.
Yeah, we don't get what Martin thinks about battle, violence, dirt, and food scraps, because he is a trash author that doesn't really have anything to say. He's just doing shit to do it without any purpose, that's why he had no outline, and does the dumb garderner approach. You all think someone's eye color matters, and GRRM doesn't even care about that, because he doesn't have anything to say. The novel is just to make money, not have a real point. And don't say there is a point to something that has no ending, so there is no way you could know there is a point. I know there isn't, because what has been written so far has, by the author's own admission, NO STRUCTURE.
@@kryptiqk2141 If you prefer reading stories where authors speak to you directly about topics they care about that have a defined endpoint, maybe fantasy is not the best genre for you. Have you considered reading memoirs? It seems to me you'd be more likely to find what you seem to be looking for in a memoir. How about John LeCarrés "The Pidgeon Tunnel"?
@@Shiyaroku4869 Nah, all other fantasy I've read doesn't have this problem. They actually have a point, that's why they decided to write the novel. Most people who write, regardless of genre, have a point. But I feel like just ASOIAF specifically doesn't. I won't read memoirs. Why would you even suggest that? I want the author to have a point so he can have an ending. I bet, and can pretty much see, that it is hard to write an ending when you don't have a point.
@@kryptiqk2141 I suggested it because it seems to me like the thing you enjoy in novels that you don't get from GRRM are personal morals. Now there absolutely are some fantasy authors that enjoy moralizing; for Herbert it appears to be the reason he wrote Dune in the first place (or take Pullmans His Dark Materials), but a lot of it is more of a "wouldn't it be cool if this existed?". Personally, I find that fun, but you don't seem to like it, hence I recommended a genre where the author is essentially a character in his own work - memoirs. If an authors values are what you are interested in, memoirs are an obvious choice.
@@Shiyaroku4869 I'm interested in fantasy and the views and values of fantasy writers. Not any person's values. I like the minds of those who do fantasy and science fiction. IMO Martin is the only fantasy writer that has no point. Tolkien had a point. Eddings and C.S. Lewis, had points. I've never noticed any fantasy or sci fi that is JUST wouldn't it be cool if this existed. Not even Martin. Unless it's wouldn't it be cool if incest were normalized multiple times in one story. That's the only unique thing he is doing, and I don't know if that is cool that it exists. LOL. I think Martin has a hard time writing the final books, because he never had anything to say, never had a point. I think not having a point, would make ending a story hard, because the story had no point in being told to begin with, so of course the ending/punchline would be hard to do.
@2:46:46 “He [GRRM] doesn’t burn through his plot, he gets lost in it. 🤔 A gardener getting lost in the weeds.” (Quite 😂 funny, given GRRM’s analogy about gardeners and architects)
He doesn't burn through the plot, nor does he get lost in it. He just doesn't want to advance it, because he'd actually have to make decisions that matter. He'd rather just spin wheels and meander forever like he's been doing for the past 2 decades. The plot did not advance in Feast and Dance.
@@kryptiqk2141 Wouldn't it be fair to say that at this point grrm's stance might be more like "i like the weeds how they are", making it unproveable if he'd actually be able to find a path? considering the amount of zealotry in his fanbase i guess he could be more motivated too.
I don’t know if it‘ll come up later but the cliffhanger endings of chapters including lots of death fake-outs are a bit much in Ice and Fire. They do keep me engaged but begrudgingly so.
It's silly and Jon's death is just insulting, because in no way did I ever believe him to be perma dead. Even after Ned and the Red Wedding, when Jon got stabbed I laughed and immediately said he's not dead. The show didn't even bother to stretch it out. He was back within an episode.
@@kryptiqk2141 That’s a bit disingenuous. Saying “he was right back in an episode” misses the fact that there was a whole season break in between. In all likelihood, Jon will come back at the start of TWOW so it’s pretty much the same thing.
Yeah, I think it kind of worked in the first times, but then George kept doing it and it lost any impact he might have wished For instance, even before the show catching up with the books, I don't remember to see a single person that actually believed that Jon would remain dead after the end of Dance
Bran's first chapter shows Ned as a Lord first and a Father second, plus the execution of the deserter / the truth (White Walkers are back) and finding the direwolves. All extremely important, especially the ignorance of the news of white walkers - It shows Ned placing duty / law above the actual right thing to do.
GRRM's gardening style is the dumbest writing style ever. It's actually just lazy, and an excuse for any nonsense he wants to do. How can you foreshadow if you don't plan or will change anything on the fly? He can't. Martin is the most disappointing writer ever. People like to ignore the truth, but Feast and Dance are absolute garbage. GRRM hasn't written a good book since Storm in '99.
I hold the very unpopular opinion he should have stuck the to the trilogy plot he originally came up with. Martin has this strong tendency to introduce more and more stuff that doesn't really add anything to the story besides making it more "epic".
Author: "Don't use orphans as a crutch to allow your child characters to do whatever the fuck they want so you don't have to deal with it" Schwift: "Orphans? Game of Thrones has orphans!"
I think generally GRRM writes well enough to get away with his flowery descriptions, they aren't overly repetitive, but he is close to getting a ding, sometimes he gives the most insignificant details, and the story can drag on and go quite slow, and you're right, Herbert almost goes in the opposite direction especially when it comes to character descriptions. With the pacing i think it's almost necessary with the scale of each story, Dune doesn't have as many characters but it's taking place in this vast interplanetary context and all sorts of strange scifi concepts you have to get to know to understand what's going on, and with GRRM there are of course many players in the Game of Thrones and you have to develop all the characters and understand their interplay, so they each start the stories teasing something epic that is to come but then switch to slowly building up the world and context necessary for the scale of the stories.
About picking the wrong hero: George Martin makes horrible persons likeable. I think every person in GoT has bad habits but that makes the charakters realistic. Jaimie got my favourite charakter in the whole book series. I think he is just missunderstood.
In general, don't use semicolons when you could use colons or commas instead. I think G.R.R.M. is guilty of just that. But I don't really think it matters that much.
I disagree with 11. The author is talking about the overuse of the word "suddenly" to explain events happening at once. It's being guilty of lazy writing. Neither authors overuse the word to explain events. It's terrible word use, not the quickness of events!
I think something to keep in mind when watching this, especially for aspiring writers, is that the book is not saying "if you do these things, you're a bad writer." On the contrary, these are examples of how conventional rules of writing are commonly broken by newer writers. Many writers--including GRRM and Frank Herbert, I would argue--are considered great because of the ways in which they bend and break the conventional rules and established etiquette of storytelling. To be a good writer is NOT to follow all the rules. It is to know what the rules are well enough that you can intentionally break them to convey your story more effectively.
It was SO FRUSTRATING listening to Schwift not understand the "suddenly" rule. It has nothing to do with pacing, it's literally about overusing THE WORD suddenly.
GREAT VIDEO! However, You not reading all of the Dune canon gave Herbert a better start. For example, he did in a way write himself into a corner. He had huge plans for the ending, but according to some, knew he would not manage to finish it during his lifetime. Also, in last books there are two characters that are basicly Herbert and his wife. But I like Herberts work a lot more than Martins, and I belive he is a much better writer, so I dont see the above as his faults.
I am really surprised by the fact that no one pointed out that Schwift misinterpreted the eleventh point (which is in fact not about the plot structure but rather about the overuse of the word suddenly whether it fits or not, which can be easily seen in the example) I don't know if anyone of them is particularly guilty of this and I can't be bothered to run a full search in their books, but it would've possibly change the outcome
Tyrion and Tysha is a textbook example of unlikely romance. "The innocent common girl falls for the ugly but kind outsider." Other unlikely ones I would say are Ashara falling for Ned, Rhaegar and Lyanna, and Daario and Dany.
@@arvaakuka8568 no, i mean why is a good looking girl falling in love with a dwarf less likely than, say, the one bastard among tens of thousands that's doing important stuff actually being the rightful heir to the throne. It seems a bit arbitrary. I see absolutely no reason why any of the things you mentioned are unlikely, and even if they were, unlikely things are the whole point of writing, otherwise every line of text would be a stereotype.
@@zakatalmosen5984 It's unlikely based on experience from our own reality. That's what unlikely means so I don't see how that's hard to understand. I didn't say a story shouldn't have surprising elements but the whole point of this video was to list cliches in writing and one of the cliches happened to be unlikely romances. So I wonder if you even watched it and what your point is.
Even though I consider Dune to be the better book series (I love its themes and worldbuilding), GRRM is a better writer, and I'd go even further than consider him the best fantasy writer at the moment, his prose is fantastic.
Controversial Opinion, Dune is a bad book, objectively, in its construction. The Princess Irelon excerpts spoil all the main plot points very early on in the dryest, least impactful way possible, so the rest of the book is merely waiting for things you already know happen to play out. Most of the action happens off screen, except for the incredibly contrived knife fights, which are the main form of combat for reasons that make no sense in universe (why can't bullets or explosives be designed to match the frequency, why can't a skilled fighter match the frequency with a more effective weapon, it's pretty bollocks). All technology is explained in long, tell don't show style dialogue or thought segments, as well as all political maneuvers (Jessica explaining Paul's brilliance any time he does anything is particularly grating), so that actions are never left to explain themselves. Character development isn't organic except for maybe Jessica (Paul doesn't develop, he just suddenly changes into a sociopath due to unlocking his powers, which seems to chemically alter his mind). The Harkonens are one dimensionally evil without depth, spice is a massive mcguffin that does whatever the writing calls for, and the Fremen likewise are more a plot device than a people, somehow having advanced tech without manufactures and incredible combat prowess without combat experience. The ending is rushed, the main villain is killed by a toddler (hyper intelligence or not, its silly and nonsensical, without any foreshadowing or plot development to support it), and everyone comes away looking like a terrible person for unearned reasons (why does Paul give no shits about his son dying? Magic did it). These are all things that any writing book or video will tell you to steer clear of, but for some reason Dune escapes criticism. Of course, Herbert had connections, and the book received awards and being considered for film adaptation prior to having significant sales figures thanks to people he knew personally, so it wasn't exactly an uphill battle to attain popularity. He himself was also critical of it, being his first novel, though the general consensus is that his later novels are worse, so I'm not sure his opinion is necessarily accurate. He also borrowed all of his major plot beats from middle eastern history (Paul is an amalgamation of Muhammad and Caliph Umar, the Fremen are Arabs, the Padishah is a combination Persian Shah and Byzantine Emperor, and spice is an amalgamation of the spice trade, hashish, and oil), so most of the plot isn't actually as original as people like to credit it with being. None of this is a mark of the times either, as earlier authors like George Orwell were already writing sci-fi in a very modern style by then. So yeah, Dune became popular in the sci-fi community on the back of unearned awards and tenuous links to Star Wars (they're really not very similar, space, deserts, and the saarlac are about where the similarities end, and you can find at least two of those in Arizona too), and has never been seriously criticized before a large audience.
On 15, my reading of Stickley's intent there has more to do with providing the correct viewpoint for the story you want to tell. You don't pick a primary viewpoint character of a customs exchange agent who only occasionally interacts with the epic fantasy plot of your books. Frankly, I don't see how you tell Dune's story from a different set of perspectives. The whole point of Dune is that it's inhuman to become a messiah figure, that progress is not a clear line, and the environmental costs to progress are often quite extreme.
@@RhodokTribesman I think it's a common theme from Oldstown to Mole's Town. But looks like Dany used the term once in A Clash of Kings before it was used 4 times in A Fest for Crows, so George did came up with it a bit earlier.
GRRM is the ultimate bad writer because he refuses to write the book he promised to write: which begs the question what other issues is he guilty of... like making the book too complicated and not sticking to his original loosed planned plot structure, or wanting to change certain things just because the show did them one way or fans guessed the answer to a foreshadowed mystery, and he became disillusioned about not being surprising or ahead of the game...when in reality it is impossible to avoid somebody figuring it out, and it is best just to stick to one's original plans and not let oneself be distracted. he is now placing priority on vanity projects that no one cares about while delusionally believing that the fans are worried that he wont contribute to whatever new spinoff show or whatever. He doesnt understand that WOW is the ONLY things people really care about, and he needs to finish it and Spring if he wants his other world building novels to matter. Otherwise, without Dream of Spring concluding ASOIAF, his entire oevre is going to be basically forgotten in 10 years. None of it will be satisfying without a culminating conclusion.
Schwift, I have a question: Have either you or the other guy ever seen the "Fire and Ice" movie (the one from 1983 where humans battle the impersonated ice-age)? I would love to hear your opinion on how intense GRRM inhaled that movie for his ideas xD And also: Great idea! Love the format and hope you'll continue!
I wouldn't phrase it as though "Frank Herbert refused to resolve" certain mysteries and ambiguities, he just didn't resolve all the mysteries, and it feels more present as a feeling of authentically inhabiting in the moment if time in this immense and densely rich worldbuilding and later; The God Emperor having a wholly complete and perfect knowledge experienced memory of every single human, first and last, past and future. And has known them. Intimately, and with all the means he uses for the "golden plan's," means.
J.K Rowling is terrible for using words with "ly" at the end as a shortcut instead of actually coming up with a following sentence, Saying something just like (eg) "said Ron distractedly" instead of say "Ron was distracted because etc etc" haha probably don't make alot of sense myself there but if you ever read them again, literally every few sentences just end with a lazy 'ly ending word, it's a kids book I know but if you notice it it becomes ridiculous, every book in the series is afflicted with it , happens hundreds of times and just feels like she couldn't elaborate further and took the lazy path out and felt like she could have done far better
@@starwarsnerd100 I mean I love them too, they were my childhood and they‘re great in a lot of ways but I definitely see the flaws in them now that I‘m more well read.
@@FidgetTheMidget8P young adult (I wouldn't expect children to read some of those thick ass later books), but whatever. Things like Avatar the Last Airbender or Batman the Animated Series are made for children but are critically acclaimed. Fiction can be well written or badly written no matter the age of the target demographic.
Haven't been able to watch any of your recent raised by wolves content yet because I'm trying to catch up in that show, so it was an awesome surprise to see this. Amazing stuff, thank you!
Idk wtf Marigoldandmuse was talking about how English is lacking in descriptors?? English is the language with LITERALLY the most descriptors out of any language. We outpace the next largest language (German) by 200k words. We actually have the MOST choices when it comes to descriptors, we are in no danger of losing a few.
She shat - PFFFFFFrrrrrrrr - and then - Pffffloooimb - shat some more. The more she - schhhhhhfffff - drank the more she pfrt pfrt pfrt pffffffRrrrrrrrt
I was also waiting for someone to point this out. Everyone in book two seems to think that she is not intelligent enough to be a Bene Gesserit and to laugh at her for being in the (to her) miserable position of being Pauls wife in name only.
unlikely love interest likely more means "our extremely boring, dysfunctional, and depressed girl who isn't very pretty nonetheless is seen as a golden and glorious angel by all the men of the prince's court." Cersei and Jaime are both extremely attractive people and both are essentially the epitome of what the other wants. They also have a convenient excuse in the Targaryens and have been pursuing a relationship since they were literal children.
@@bobbybee2975 Herbert's son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson wrote two follow-ups to Chapterhouse called "Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune" which were *supposedly* taken from notes Frank left behind for "Dune 7," but I take that with a grain of salt.
@@GoldsteinsBook yeah I love Dune as much as Lord of the Rings or ASoIaF but I don't like other people trying to finish the original author's story. If I'd have known the wheel of time was finished by another person before I started reading it I may not have started the series. Alas it may be good I'm just not interested in what i consider to be little more than fan fiction. If you or others enjoy I am happy for you all I just tend to dislike the results of such works.
I think the orphans thing should really count only the childs without parents when they're introduced, so it's just Danny, Jon, probably some of Robert's basterds, but it's not that many compared to the huge cast of a Song of Ice and Fire, I think GRR Martin is way more interested in parental conflict and trauma from parent's deaths, than in orphan's stories XD Like Danny and Viserys are orphans, but it's never really treated, it's just because they're the heirs of the deceased king. And Jon is technically an orphan, but he does not know it at the beginning. GRR Martin cast orphans but he don't really care, it's just because they're children of important characters of the past ^^
![An Evening with George R. R. Martin [CC]](/img/1.gif)
Ah yes, Samwell Tarly's "Fat Pink Mast" vs Leto Atredies' "Beefswelling"
The competition I have always been waiting for.
At least girls love pink. No girl loves "beefswelling"
@redryab20000 Speak for yourself. Lots of girls LOVE beefswelling!
Welp, thats enough internet for the day
This is not how I anticipated finding out Frank Herbert doesn’t snuggle after sex
But…that’s the best part of having sex!
@Alyssa Ravenheart first hand like the rest of us real men.
Seriously, that's the most selfishly male perspective I've ever heard on sex.
@@ralcogaming7674 Heh..you said "First hand."
@@meghanstanley1765 What a needless(ly/and) bigoted comment.
I wouldn't say George's food descriptions are an example of describing the wrong things. They're meant to highlight the privilege of the nobility feasting while the poor suffer.
Describing the elaborate meals and pies at the purple wedding are one thing, but Tyrion liking his bacon burnt black or Sansa liking berries and cream are both descriptions that could easily be removed with no effect on the story.
Thats definitely a good point and you can really feel that with the contrast between the starving, rioting peasants and the upper class in ACOK, but tbh, I think the main reason is just that George likes food.
@@starwarsnerd100 I disagree. I think about my favorite foods literally all the time. The fact that so many of the POV characters think about eating a lot makes the characters feel so fucking real to me.
@@starwarsnerd100 I disagree. His is ultimately a story about characters and their development. What people eat and what people enjoy to eat fleshes out the characters in so many ways.
Sure, the details can be omitted and the events will be the same, but so can Tyrion's descriptions of his family interactions and the descriptions of Catelyn's attitude toward Jon growing up
Ok, I'll bite, what does Tyrion liking bacon add to his character? I'll admit Sansa's tastes could emphasize she's still a child who loves sweets, but let's be honest not all of the food descriptions serve much of a world building or character building surface, there's a limit. Like other Martin isms such as the brutal violence, I'll accept "It serves a purpose to the story" to some extent. But I also think we'd be kidding ourselves to not admit that it's also because food and combat are the sort of things George likes to write about
Refuse to resolve mysteries? GRRM gets 100 points for that one
Not just mysteries but key plot points and story threads too 😂. Come to think of it, refusing to resolve the story full stop!
Lmao he’s going to take his secrets and books to his grave
@@derekli8757 man it's really looking that way ain't it? I thought ppl were just being difficult but here I am 7 years later and nothing.
@@dekuuchiha9990 when was the last boon released?
@@Liaison_Verequiem 2011 I think
"There was an adult beefswelling in his loins, and he felt his mouth open, holding, clinging to the girdershape of ecstasy." - Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
man i read that last week, definitely the weirdest sentence in the series
At least it’s SOMEWHAT subtle. i can hardly understand what’s happening, besides the erection
At least it's understandable, because when it was written, there were bans on explicit content in books.
Someone please explain this, I am so confused.
@@00Maximilian Um, no. Just no. Children of Dune came out in 1976, the same year as Interview with the Vampire. Kurt Vonnegut and William S. Burroughs had been publishing more explicitly sexual content for decades. The only American to ever actually be convicted under obscenity laws was Mike Diana, a comic book author, in 1991.
I think Franks lack of description helps his books age well. As we get more technologically advanced we can fill in the gaps with our imaginations. Whilst an overly detailed description could break our immersion... He describes the environment because it is timeless and he knows it well, whilst he leaves other things vague. I think that was probably deliberate...
Well said… I had not really thought of that.
That is a really good point, and definitely one of the reasons his books have aged as well as they have being in the very dating sci-fi genre. His technology feels genuinely fantastical because so much of it is up to imagination. That being said, Chani's hair is quite important, and I was genuinely taken back when I learned(in this video) that it was red.
I agree but that type of writing style isnt for me
@@Daemonussy That's fair enough
I really love that about his books! At the start of Dune I was so confused, but realized he is telling his audience what they need to know, when they need to know. No superfluous exposition. Took me a bit to get into, but now I just love it. Dune is one of the only books I've re-read and never get bored of.
"Present your research in the form of dialog"
Ah, the Hideo Kojima method. "Raiden, wait! You need to listen to an 8-minute long cutscene about behavioral memes before you go forward!"
That's the biggest reason I struggled to stay interested in his games they're just so long winded with their cutscenes
@@BuckarooBoya you're not supposed to play Kojima games for the gameplay, you play for the cutscenes
@@TheMasterblah I had no choice the games were cutscenes
@@TheMasterblah That is such a dumb way to think.
And I loved every minute of it. Kojima drops the hardest hitting cutscenes.
"Refuse to resolve mystery"? This video is guilty of this coz we never got a part 2 to know whose the worse writter
Please do more of these! Also wish to see Alt Scwift X vs Alt Shift X : Bad brother test
This would be most epic, a legendary debate. However I don't think alt shift X has the guts for this
I still can't tell if they're the same person. I feel like it has to be one guy, but the cadence is *just* different enough that I can't tell if it's because they're different people or because Alt Shift X has a script.
@@kaiju2296 been thinking about that and its my new favourit theory that they actually are two different people! In his Iceberg video schwift talked about brothers who try to be as different as possible and he mentioned shifts youtube channel and his as an example. He said it so naturally that it must be true, right?? :D
@@kingremus7544 in the early schwift episodes he makes it pretty clear that he's the same person
But maybe they're just trying to throw us off the trail? 🤔
@@tubbstubbs.5311 Yeah I think it was episode 50 where he mid-sentence changed his phrasing and started talking about "that other guy". He's been so consistent eversince that I can't but believe him that they are two!
I love the ASOIAF food descriptions, it's like goodfellas or the sopranos where you get to appreciate some delicious sounding food
@Jake I'm just surprised George doesn't have a skinny obsessed wretch called Gabagoolum
me too! even if they arguably don't add anything to the substance of the text - although in my opinion they do as they emphasise the decadence of the nobility and help highlight character journeys, especially with the turn to cannibalism in ADWD - the food descriptions add so much colour and sense. the books would be plainer without them
@@mammamiaculpa I agree! I also like hearing about medieval foods. Feels like he must have done a lot of research and I find it genuinely interesting
@Easttowest put the salad on the side. The *left* side. Otherwise, I send it back.
@Easttowest mix it with the relish!
George is certainly guilty of confusing dialogue sometimes. There are strips of dialogue that make it rather impossible to know who is speaking.
This was so common in "a knight of the seven kingdoms" my 1st read through was so confusing become of that.
@@tessierashpoolmg7776 what are you talking about?
@@AlbertAlbertB. Sorry, but my comment is pertinent to a different discussion and I accidentally put it under yours. I deleted it to avoid further confusion.
@@tessierashpoolmg7776 alright, cool
Currently reading the series for the first time and this is so true
This is so intense. 6 Bad Writing examples in and neither of them have a point yet. At the edge of my seat. Oh, and a video discussing two of my favorite book series side by side just might have made my day
It's like a football game where nobody scores for the first half hour haha
@@AltSchwiftX The ones were they just don't score a point in the first half is just great. Especially if you have to sit there in the stadion in the cold and the rain.
Only in a ASOIAF could you consider white walkers killing the Night’s Watch rangers, beheading a deserter, death of the hand of the king, getting sold off in marriage, etc as a slow start to a novel. Ha
@@AltSchwiftX where is part 2??
I think GRRM's logic with rape and realism in general is that he's trying to write a fantasy world that is still upheld by real-world logic. Just because dragons exist does not mean that humans are incapable of doing horrifcally evil things to each other when given the power to do so with little consequence.
They only problem is that goes a little too far at times, like he has a character literally commit casual genocide and never talks about it again.
@@robbomegavlkafenryka6158 who does that?
@@mammamiaculpa Tywin
@@robbomegavlkafenryka6158 when does he do that?
@@mammamiaculpa book one. Tens of thousands of riverlanders were put to death or starved at his command. Entire settlements were completely wiped out and their populations murdered.
When two infamous authors get to the point of being over analyzed by youtubers - they know they made it.
Right this is absurd,writing is for the individual,to use ones imagination,two ppl reading the same book can see two different scenes????
@Stinko De mayo "George didn't write a book". Can you further elaborate on what you meant by that?
Perhaps not Frank. But George's "A Song of Ice and Fire" has sold over 90 million copies up to 2019. And considering it's not even finished speaks to the reach it has.
It just means they and their work is well known, sir.
I think it’s a fun exercise if we keep in the mind that writing is very individual. Just another reason to talk about our favourite series. Of course GRRM isn’t a bad writer just because he has orphans running around.
Children=orphans 40:08
Everything happens at the same time 43:28
Present your research as dialogue 48:00
Commit to your genre 54:24
Fail to contextualise dialogue 1:04:26
Pick the wrong hero 1:05:00
Write autographical fiction 1:48:45
Narrate all as matter of fact tone 1:51:56
Thesaurus 1:57:00
Choose one character to bully 2:06:54
Signpoint your twist 2:08:43
Refuse to solve misteries 2:11:20
MAke your villain relly evil 2:15:15
Write outside the conford zone 2:24:00
Let yoye characters eplain themselves 2:28:49
Write yourself in a corner 2:51:57
Describe the wrong things 2:56:41
This comment needs to be pinned
@@catherinepoteat I agree!
There's nothing wrong with having a villian that's genuinely evil.
I think the issue is that 'evil' as a sole character trait is one-dimensional and uninteresting.
As a professional writer... a lot of these points are just fucking stupid. Like someone went "I'm gonna write 100 points!!!" And then... laboured to get 100 points by making a ton of shitty ones.
@@guerilla_food Dio. Like bruh, there's an endless amount of one dimensional villains that are fucking awesome.
@@Dual_Ralle Dio is evil because of his messed up childhood. He was horribly abused and he viewed Jojo as a man of privilege- He was indoctrinated by his father to believe that privileged people are that way because their privilege is acquired at the expense of people like Dio and his father. Dio's character is developed to be evil, thus he isn't an example of a one-dimensional evil character.
@@guerilla_food one dimensionality isn’t dependent on a characters bg. It’s how they think and act, what motivates them plays a part but doesn’t dictate.
Thanos isn’t multi dimensional because his motivation is to ultimately help the universe, but because he loves his daughter. Is caring toward her in a way that he isn’t towards the rest of the world. He has multiple dimensions
I trace George's rampant use of onomatopoeia back to his heavy comic book intake as a child.
I think what was meant was "inorganic" love interests rather than "unlikely", because forcing a love interest is inorganic but the love interests in GoT are very organic but not socially acceptable/typical
How is Jaime and Cersei's love organic? It's not. It's just sick. If it were organic, there'd be far more brother sister relationships in the real world. There is nothing organic about loving your sister romantically. What other love interests are even in the story?
@@kryptiqk2141 throughout history the elites have incest
@@jaredcrandall9145 So? That doesn't make it organic. If anything, that proves it even less so, because they were only doing it to for some sick fetish of pure blood. So those were not organic at all.
@@kryptiqk2141 it is organic if you lived in medieval era in which there are few houses and you are not around many women that aren't peasants, and you are horny....
@@kryptiqk2141 It's organic because it makes sense how these narcissistic people who only value their family fall in love with mirror images of themselves, who are family. It has nothing you do with what is normal in everyday life, but how their specific circumstances give way to their relationship.
I think it'd be fun to treat this as a challenge. Try to write a coherent story that breaks as many of these rules as possible in the shortest time.
Looks like schwift has pulled a George on us with this one
I feel like the bad writing form of "unlikely love interest" isn't anything to do with making the reader uncomfortable, but is mainly meant in the sense of "what on earth does X see in Y?". I never really felt like Jaime and Cercei's love was unlikely; it's explained fairly well in their POVs. Nyneave and Lan in WOT just comes out of nowhere though. like Why is a Warder head over heels for some abrasive villiage wisdom in the first book?
Funny, as somebody who finds women with “abrasive” personalities attractive, I can see it. Lan is stoic, strong and described by many throughout the series as “being able to have a staring contest with a stone and win”. Nynaeve is just as stubborn but more vocal about it. I see relationships in real life just like theirs. A strong man of few words and a strong vocal woman. 🤷🏻♂️ Nynaeve isn’t a stone to have a staring contest with, she’s a rolling boulder. She isn’t fragile. And someone like Lan who doesn’t need to prove his strength appreciates the way Nynaeve rises to “challenge” his stubbornness.
This is just my opinion though and how I saw their relationship.
I don't think Nynaeve and Lan are out of nowhere. Nynaeve is hotheaded and and impulsive while Lan is stoic and controlled. It's an opposites attract thing, very common trope. My only issue is that it happens too fast. Half of their relationship's development happens in the first book.
He's killing off mothers with death in childbirth more than fathers.
This feels like a brilliant observation I would make lol
fathers rarely die from childbirth
@@asaenvolk that’s not funny dude my dad died that way
@@TheDominionOfElites how?
@@niccolorichter1488 His dad obviously gave birth to him.
@@ranfan1820 magic or something...
To counter Dennis Villaneuve's point on the bad writing scale from "get out of bed and it's raining" I feel like the rain in dune's first scene is kinda the opposite of "glum" which is what I feel the bad writing trope is actually addressing.
Like rain in dune, a book all about an extreme desert, kinda takes on a new meaning relating more to security and tranquility, and perhaps "traditional power/wealth" that comes from living on fertile farmland. Which serves to contrast the total lack of security and tranquility and the abundance of raw power to be found on Arrakis. Or something along those lines.
At the very least, it's an extremely powerful visual demarcation between Arrakis and whatever planet the Atreities we're from
In any case, idk if it's bad writing in this scenario.
Half the shots of Caladan in Dune 2021 heavily feature its oceans, the raining intro is 100% about emphasizing the wetness of Caladan vs. the desolation of Arrakis. I'd have to rewatch, but I think there isn't a single shot on Caladan that doesn't feature water in some way. Even the emissary scene takes place immediately after rain, as evidenced by all the standing water on the ground
That's absolutely the case. Rain=Glum is an English trope, almost surely, due to the sheer amount of rain on the Island. In a dry climate, Rain=happy.
They're from Caladan :)
1:25:07 Writing from multiple points of view within a single scene is actually one of the things I enjoy the most in Dune!! I love knowing what everyone is feeling about something at the same time.
I feel like a lot of these 100 bad writing things are bad themselves. Some are true, but others are a bit ridiculous. I think instead of "bad writing" it should be "bad writing if done badly". It all comes down to intent.
Bullying characters is fun. Trauma builds character.
You're not supposed to take it 100% seriously. It's just for fun.
Wrong, it's SCIENTIFIC PROOF
I mean that's true for all "writing rules", there's not one thing that's always good or always bad when writing. Even things like bad grammar has its place and time. These rules are more like general trends of literature, shitty low-effort writing tend to have more of these things.
Not bad as in bad, bad as in cool, but not cool as in cold but cool as in good 👍
I don't get how Cersei can be 'likable' and has 'good reasons' but Leto who is literally working on saving the entire species and suffers so greatly for his choice is not in any way sympathetic. I ADORE Leto for that specific person. He's quite literally my favourite character alongside Odrade for how fascinating they are.
People don’t like morally upright people, they think it’s tacky.
Cersei is likable in a “I enjoy reading this character” not that she is morally likable or someone you’d want to be around irl. Also there’s good reasons for her actions as in we as readers understand why she acts the way she does not that she’s justified in any sense. At least that was my understanding of Shifts take.
@@dr_palpy9214 That’s how you and I would understand it. But we have to understand that there are people like Cersei in this world who are legitimately like here or find sympathy with her in some way.
@@Mcgif21I mean the emperor isn’t even morally upright in a tacky way. He’s this inscrutable aloof inhuman entity with a grand scale plan for humanity which he’s willing to do anything to accomplish. Plenty of villains have the same description and he really is the villain depending on your perspective even if he sacrifices himself for his own aims. But as cool and interesting as he may be, he just preaches the whole book in a holier than thou way which is true and fits his character but doesn’t really make him endearing
Cersei was a bit less cartoonishly evil on the show than in the book, but "likable" is not the adjective that comes to mind, and her "good reasons" in both books and the show tended to be on the "did not think this through" spectrum.
I think that "unlikely love interest" is meant to refer to if narratively it makes sense. Jaime is a likely love interest for Cersei because it makes sense with her narcissism, so although it's an "unlikely love interest" because it's unlikely that siblings would be in love/incest is rare (I hope), it's in character, it's not an unlikely love interest considering the character's personality. To me, this trope probably means something like "smartest, most beautiful/handsome, richest and high-achieving person falls in love with self-insert and bland john smith/jane doe because that's the author's fantasy".
I also think that the Targaryen argument Alt makes is really bad, because it's not like the Targaryen's just had an ungodly amount of incestuous couples for no reason. They were trying to keep the bloodline pure, which was actually a thing in real history. Like incestuous marriage is assumed to have been a doctrine in Zoroastrianism.
@@ciukilp I kind of agree, but imo George overdid it a bit with the Valyrians. If marriage between cousins was normal, and marriage between siblings happened from time to time, but was generally frowned upon in Valyrian society, it would make a lot more sense to me.
Marriage between siblings being the norm just wouldn't work for more than a few generations. They would be too inbred to stay fertile, sane or even remotely healthy. The entire Targaryen dynasty would look like Charles II within a few decades.
@@felixsylvester4266 did George ever say incest was the norm in Valyria? Because I don't imagine you'd need to keep the bloodline pure in Valyria as there were several Dragonrider families. Also Valyrians are less prone to fall ill, maybe that includes inbreeding save for the madness part. Because there are a few cruel or batshit insane Targaryens. Like Maegor, Baelor and Aerys are the obvious ones, but some were insane enough to do anything for prophecies that they misinterpreted, like Egg with Summerhall or Brightflame (can't remember his first name) who drank wildfire, or even Rhaegar who almost ended his dynasty because he needed to fuck Lyanna and didn't even try anything diplomatic as far as we know
@@ciukilp I couldn't really remember if George outright stated it myself, but according to the Wiki it's like this: "In the Valyrian Freehold, it was custom among the drahonlords to marry brother to sister, or, if that was not possible, an uncle to a niece, or an aunt to a nephew. However, this was not often practiced by those who were not from dragonrider families."
@@felixsylvester4266 I don't like to take info from the Wiki, because it does use statements that George allegedly said on conventions in the 90s, so some of the info is hard to verify, but then again, George likes to include incest whenever possible
Concerning point three, starting novels too early, both authors are creators of worlds far-surpassing a single novel. They have to set up characters and situations. This isn't, say, Catch-22, a singular story encompassed by a singular book. Dune and GoT would be much different without the hashing out of it's subjects. Great video!
True, ASoIaF has to be a little slow at the start, and while yes "nothing happens" for awhile that isn't necessarily true, the story isn't about the walkers vs. Humanity that's only a small part of the story despite being the over arching threat, the real story is about the political intrigue and how these characters interact, so the first few chapters telling us very basic but necessary information is required of the story, Jon arryns death has to be told to us as new information as if he'd been long dead why would it be a plot point? Cat hating Jon is also a tad vital due to it being part of Jon's motivation to join the watch.
Theres a big difference between starting too early and starting early enough that we care about the characters before they start their struggles.
George writes character focused narratives better. Frank often loses his characters to the world, which is such a louder and greater character than the characters themselves. And that’s not a bad thing…. It’s just a harder read because it creates a narrative din…. There’s just so much going on.
In ASOIAF… there’s a lot going on but it’s only from the characters perspective. To that character… the only thing going on in the world is what they themselves know. So even though the world is massive and busy… for each person… the only know what they know. The world isn’t that big for the character. And it’s easier to digest
I think GRRM is able to balance the story on multiple characters better whereas Herbert is really only good at telling the story of a single character while his world and thought provoking concepts take center stage.
Using… many… dramatic… ellipses…
@@willmungas8964 that's only in book 4 though. By that point, the editor was just thankful that a full book was finally submitted
Fully agree.
I want so bad to enjoy Dune.
The world is so amazing, and the characters are so interesting, but I never get enough of a feel for them to latch to anyone in particular.
There's no Tyrion or Arya or John to guide me through the massive changing world.
That's how you get through ASOIAF the first time. Just following the story of the character you like.
Then on your second read, you start to notice how deep he world is and how well things connect.
On your third read you start to see the plot threads that foreshadow the big plot twists.
On your fourth, you start to understand the themes.
Semicolons connect two related, independent clauses without a conjunction. They are stronger than a comma, but subtler than a period; they're very sneaky that way.
number 28 struck a nerve, I don't think all mysteries needs resolving; they're part of the world at large
the dark tower is a great example, King decides in the final book that all mysteries and motivations needs to be tied up and I feel a lot of the charm and soul of the books disappears
i loved the very ending, despite King warning about the ending, it was very fitting and fantastic but how he resolved Roland's motivation and the red king was incredibly lack luster.
what always stuck with me through the readings is Rolands mysterious tenacity, the man has a quest and that's all, damn anyone who comes in his way
Tolkien did this too
We never knew much of the lands beyond Middle-Earth and characters like the Blue Wizards and Tom Bombadil are utter enigmas without much answers you can force on them
@@ItsButterBean1020 That’s mostly because Tolkien himself didn’t even know the answers. He framed his writing as if he was uncovering/recounting the history of Arda, not inventing it, and unless he was completely confident in a detail he didn’t add it. He scrutinized every word he put to the page and had a habit of adding things in without yet knowing if he’d flesh them out later on or not. He spent the final decades of his life trying to fill out as much as possible with the stories that would become the Silmarillion, but he died before they could be finished. So who knows what was intentionally vague and what he would have eventually fleshed out.
I agree. In fact, I think it makes every single piece of fiction much more interesting, to have atleast one great mystery that remains unsolved. Nothing captures my imagination like that.
Yeah I agree 100%. I don't want everything to be answered. I do want to know the damn Night King's identity(or whomever was the 1st person to turn as we have no Night King as of it.Story will be incomplete for me without that bit.
Its like Tom Bombadil, I'm glad that Tolkien never gave a direct answer about who or what the fuck he is, he's just a weird lil guy whos older than dirt and feels weirdly out of place yet adds to the scope of the world
Currently listening to Dune on audiobook and he uses certain words A LOT
And the point of Paul waking up with the rain is to show how common rain is on Caladan versus the sere desert of Arrakis.
Yeah I thought the same thing. Villeneuve was justified with using the rain to visually contrast the desert of Arrakis
I legit love Victarion. He is a terrible human being but he is also a product of his culture(which i find interesting to explore) and a total himbo. I love his chapters almost as much as those of other more “likable” characters at least for how different they are while still being in the same beloved GRRM style.
And we will never know what happened to him
I really feel that with Dune people really seem to miss that the book is not about characters who are Arab Muslims it's about the descendants of Arab Muslims living tens of thousands of years in the future on a desert planet where it never rains. A lot of Frank Herbert stuff is the idea of these real world cultures and religious ideologies under new material and social forces and the forces and the sort of extreme forms they take as a result
The Fremen are like fucking Scottish or something in the books, with red hair
@@beepbop6542 Chani has red hair, or auburn. There are redheads in the Middle East and her father was an offworlder with auburn hair
In other words, the Fremen maybdescend from Muslims, but they aren't ethnically Arab. This reflects the current North African and Middle Eastern world, where most people speak Arabic but aren't ethnically Arab, or at least not predominantly. Less than 15% of Muslims are Arabs.
Haven't watched yet, but recently reread both of the authors. I would say that Martin is better at delving into multiple characters in one book. Herbert is more of an original thinker and creative.
thats interesting. I love Martin's ability to weave a tale, and have interesting ideas, and clever quips. his characters seem to have more flesh to them than Herberts.
herbert isn't an original thinker. his story is nothing more than lawrence of arabia with sci-fi sauce, and big worms and shit...
@@hakan1132 Martin isn’t an original thinker. His story is nothing more than Romance of the Three Kingdoms with fantasy sauce, big dragons and shit
@@xJBx72x hello friend. I'm making my comments from the original padishah emperor's lands; Turkey. which is what left from ottoman empire after westerners motivate arabic people to revolt and divide just because they want easier access to that juicy oil(spice melange) reserves. no giant worms here tho. cheers.
@@hakan1132 you got fucking owned lol sit down
I think frank is way more guilty of unlikely love interests. Martin's typically make sense and feel justified. Herbert's seem a bit convenient.
Nah man im a historian and women absolutely did die a lot in childbirth
Poor Princess Charlotte.
"suddenly explaining the whole plot" is like Martin's prime trademark in basically everything but ASOIAF. Nightflyers, In the House of the Worm, Sandkings, basically all his scifi work have that specific pacing issue.
I've never understood why some people get so hateful about using "fancy" words. I've had people say I shouldn't use certain words because some people won't understand what I mean, but of course people aren't going to know what they mean if no one ever uses them. Like, words are fun. They're great. Why do some people hate learning new words?
In the character names, I always thought that Herbert was using an apostrophe to represent a glottal stop like the aleph or ayin in Hebrew or alif and ayin/ghayin in Arabic. English doesn't have these consonants as standard sounds and so use of an apostrophe to represent them is standard.
Frank Herbert had a thicker beard. George does not. The title of Frank Herbert's Dune is one syllable long.(a symbol of chad status among authors) Georgie's "A-Song-of-Ice-and-Fire" is seven, count 'em, SEVEN syllables long! Frank Herbert is the Kwisatz Haderach of literature. A man literally bred for the sole purpose of writing a RELETIVELY COMPLETE, profound series of books. George's INCOMPLETE series of books, all be it a solid series, pales in comparison. (In my opinion.)
Frank actively worked on his books and completed his intended trilogy while George is trying to do anything but write.
@@theatheistbear3117 True. God-emperor was pretty cool, too.
@@holysayingsofrobin4055 God Emperor fucked my mind... I never read anything like that in my entire life.
So many Ducan Idaho's. A man tienes into a worm and then dying while being dismembered by his own simbiotic body. The concept of being someone but being at the same time somekind of hivemind with thousands of individualis living inside of you. And being human but at the same time not. The fact that Leto took the Golden path what made of him a tyrant who will never be forgiven but at the same time a necessary force and sacrifice so the humankind can keep surviving.
I don't know man, crazy, grotesque, tragic, and awesome as nothing I ever read.
@@federicorudolph949 Yeah. It was a mind-fuck, for sure. Lol.
I believe that the two men as people are incomparable in their quality (Frank being pretty obviously the better professional writer and a more interesting person) but I believe that both stories are both of immense quality, just in completely different ways.
Almost every rule of storytelling can be broken as long as it serves the story. That said, there are many things that are generally good practices.
Frank Herbert's prose is not his best quality, I'll say that much. Now to watch this three hour video.
Most of the proposed "bad writings" we're testing against are incredibly basic. You get mixing tenses, grammar and punctuation errors, editing mistakes... no professional author would have those in any significant number. Most fanfiction writers don't, and they don't have an army of proofreaders and editors whose entire career is making sure there are no grammar and punctuation errors in your book. This was fun though :)
I really disagree about point number 15. I think the issue its trying to explain is when an author chooses a protagonist who they present (with their own language) as good, when infact they are bad. Cersei, for example, is relatable, despite being bad. Similarly, the god-emperor in Dune is not relatable, but also isnt presented as if he IS good.
Similarly with Victarion, he is a bad guy who is presented objectively. If he was coded as heroic and good despite objectively being a raping, pillaging, murderous viking warlord, that would be the issue.
I would argue that every character portrays themselves as good within their own POV, so whether we like certain characters - and enjoy seeing them as protagonists (which I think are two different things), depends on other factors besides being portrayed as "good" or "bad". For example, Tyrion is an almost universally liked character because of his wit and humor and relatability, but he has done a lot of terrible things.
So Martin either gets a point for describing all POV characters as "good" from their own perspective, or he gets a point for describing characters like Tyion as likeable even when they do terrible things. Either way, one point for GRRM
Actually, that bit on Vic would make for an interesting deconstruction of how difficult cultures have different standards they hold their heroes to.
@@robbomegavlkafenryka6158 Very true. Different lords, of different houses, of different nations, had very different ideas of what a knight should follow. Same for the samurai.
@@Shiyaroku4869 Light switch brain take
@@Shiyaroku4869 but thats not the point, obviusly, most people are the heroes of theyr own stories, but George doesnt idolise or glorify from his own point of view in the writing all the terrible shit coded into his greyer characters.
I honestly love how one of the first chapters about Yueh is literally introduced by a quote from some dictionary that just goes like "Yueh, Wellington: briefly noted as traitor to Duke Leto" or something. Imagine watching Star Wars and the first time Darth Vader shows up there is just a little text in the corner saying "Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, father of Luke and Leia Skywalker, eventually killed the evil emperor".
Both of these guys are amazing but GM broke so many rules with GOT, as good as DUNE is along with all the following books (I know his son wrote the later ones) as a study of human behaviour and systems, it still treads familiar ground in character development and outcomes, no one ever knew what was going to happen in GOT.
I’ve never read anything before that had me shouting at a book.
For me it’s GM
No one ever knew what was going to happen in GOT...lol...neither did the author. Martin is just JJ Abrams, but he uses a random death as his mystery boxes. Martin sets up so much stuff, just like Lost, and just like Lost, most of it pretty much goes nowhere and means nothing to anything.
@@kryptiqk2141 Nah, there are plenty of indications he planned out the endings and pay offs. If anything, it's more that he has had trouble getting everyone to that point in the same amount of time and in a realistic amount of pages.
@@Ravenicus I don't believe that. He wouldn't have this trouble if he planned it out. That's what planning is. He didn't plan anything.
@@kryptiqk2141 Well, you're at the minimum categorically wrong, because you can actually google and look at his original outline for the entire story.
@@Ravenicus No you can't. You can look at an outline that is nothing like the story we are reading. It's basically an outline for an entirely different story, where Jon and Tyrion are in a love triangle with Arya. That shit is NOT the outline of ASOIAF.
I think the last part about Romanticising Places really highlights how best to use bad writing advice: By considering what you're writing and how you're writing it and ultimately doing the wrong things - on purpose. Following the book to a T wouldn't make you a good writer, but choosing which rules to keep and which to break might. I can't speak for Herbert, but Martin romanticising scenery that likely isn't very romantic to the reader makes sense: Westeros is cruel to us, but to many people inhabiting it it's all they've ever known. Of yourse they would find beauty in things we wouldn't. Limited third person POV means that we're not getting how Martin thinks about battle and violence and dirt and food scraps, but how his characters think about them. I find the "Romantisation" very purposeful.
Yeah, we don't get what Martin thinks about battle, violence, dirt, and food scraps, because he is a trash author that doesn't really have anything to say. He's just doing shit to do it without any purpose, that's why he had no outline, and does the dumb garderner approach. You all think someone's eye color matters, and GRRM doesn't even care about that, because he doesn't have anything to say. The novel is just to make money, not have a real point. And don't say there is a point to something that has no ending, so there is no way you could know there is a point. I know there isn't, because what has been written so far has, by the author's own admission, NO STRUCTURE.
@@kryptiqk2141 If you prefer reading stories where authors speak to you directly about topics they care about that have a defined endpoint, maybe fantasy is not the best genre for you. Have you considered reading memoirs? It seems to me you'd be more likely to find what you seem to be looking for in a memoir. How about John LeCarrés "The Pidgeon Tunnel"?
@@Shiyaroku4869 Nah, all other fantasy I've read doesn't have this problem. They actually have a point, that's why they decided to write the novel. Most people who write, regardless of genre, have a point. But I feel like just ASOIAF specifically doesn't. I won't read memoirs. Why would you even suggest that? I want the author to have a point so he can have an ending. I bet, and can pretty much see, that it is hard to write an ending when you don't have a point.
@@kryptiqk2141 I suggested it because it seems to me like the thing you enjoy in novels that you don't get from GRRM are personal morals. Now there absolutely are some fantasy authors that enjoy moralizing; for Herbert it appears to be the reason he wrote Dune in the first place (or take Pullmans His Dark Materials), but a lot of it is more of a "wouldn't it be cool if this existed?". Personally, I find that fun, but you don't seem to like it, hence I recommended a genre where the author is essentially a character in his own work - memoirs. If an authors values are what you are interested in, memoirs are an obvious choice.
@@Shiyaroku4869 I'm interested in fantasy and the views and values of fantasy writers. Not any person's values. I like the minds of those who do fantasy and science fiction. IMO Martin is the only fantasy writer that has no point. Tolkien had a point. Eddings and C.S. Lewis, had points. I've never noticed any fantasy or sci fi that is JUST wouldn't it be cool if this existed. Not even Martin. Unless it's wouldn't it be cool if incest were normalized multiple times in one story. That's the only unique thing he is doing, and I don't know if that is cool that it exists. LOL. I think Martin has a hard time writing the final books, because he never had anything to say, never had a point. I think not having a point, would make ending a story hard, because the story had no point in being told to begin with, so of course the ending/punchline would be hard to do.
I’m still waiting for part two 😪 coming back for a rewatch a year later :)
Yep.
@2:46:46 “He [GRRM] doesn’t burn through his plot, he gets lost in it. 🤔 A gardener getting lost in the weeds.”
(Quite 😂 funny, given GRRM’s analogy about gardeners and architects)
He doesn't burn through the plot, nor does he get lost in it. He just doesn't want to advance it, because he'd actually have to make decisions that matter. He'd rather just spin wheels and meander forever like he's been doing for the past 2 decades. The plot did not advance in Feast and Dance.
@@kryptiqk2141 Wouldn't it be fair to say that at this point grrm's stance might be more like "i like the weeds how they are", making it unproveable if he'd actually be able to find a path? considering the amount of zealotry in his fanbase i guess he could be more motivated too.
I don’t know if it‘ll come up later but the cliffhanger endings of chapters including lots of death fake-outs are a bit much in Ice and Fire. They do keep me engaged but begrudgingly so.
But if we are four books in maybe we dont need it so much anymore
It's silly and Jon's death is just insulting, because in no way did I ever believe him to be perma dead. Even after Ned and the Red Wedding, when Jon got stabbed I laughed and immediately said he's not dead. The show didn't even bother to stretch it out. He was back within an episode.
By time jon snow gets stabbed anyone paying attention the appropriate response is "oh no.... anyway"
@@kryptiqk2141
That’s a bit disingenuous. Saying “he was right back in an episode” misses the fact that there was a whole season break in between.
In all likelihood, Jon will come back at the start of TWOW so it’s pretty much the same thing.
Yeah, I think it kind of worked in the first times, but then George kept doing it and it lost any impact he might have wished
For instance, even before the show catching up with the books, I don't remember to see a single person that actually believed that Jon would remain dead after the end of Dance
I love when people make rules for writing. Stories are meant to be abstractions of real life, and real life stories dont have rules.
I LOVED the wolf chapters, some of his most evocative writing IMO
Fuck that, they are not even in the same category, Herbert is just better.
you know that if George were writing Chani he'd mention she was a red-head right away
1st point, neither author guilty of said point? Off to a GREAT start, I can already see why both are considered masters of the craft.
20 min in, utter fucking stalemate.
It’s basically a Cold War of staggering genius at this point. It’s almost overwhelming.
Bran's first chapter shows Ned as a Lord first and a Father second, plus the execution of the deserter / the truth (White Walkers are back) and finding the direwolves. All extremely important, especially the ignorance of the news of white walkers - It shows Ned placing duty / law above the actual right thing to do.
GRRM's gardening style is the dumbest writing style ever. It's actually just lazy, and an excuse for any nonsense he wants to do. How can you foreshadow if you don't plan or will change anything on the fly? He can't. Martin is the most disappointing writer ever. People like to ignore the truth, but Feast and Dance are absolute garbage. GRRM hasn't written a good book since Storm in '99.
I mean it makes for some interesting characters. But it’s also why GOT will never be finished
I hold the very unpopular opinion he should have stuck the to the trilogy plot he originally came up with. Martin has this strong tendency to introduce more and more stuff that doesn't really add anything to the story besides making it more "epic".
@@someobserver844 ya this is also true. While it is great it’s not as good as actually finishing.
Author: "Don't use orphans as a crutch to allow your child characters to do whatever the fuck they want so you don't have to deal with it"
Schwift: "Orphans? Game of Thrones has orphans!"
I think generally GRRM writes well enough to get away with his flowery descriptions, they aren't overly repetitive, but he is close to getting a ding, sometimes he gives the most insignificant details, and the story can drag on and go quite slow, and you're right, Herbert almost goes in the opposite direction especially when it comes to character descriptions. With the pacing i think it's almost necessary with the scale of each story, Dune doesn't have as many characters but it's taking place in this vast interplanetary context and all sorts of strange scifi concepts you have to get to know to understand what's going on, and with GRRM there are of course many players in the Game of Thrones and you have to develop all the characters and understand their interplay, so they each start the stories teasing something epic that is to come but then switch to slowly building up the world and context necessary for the scale of the stories.
Martin didn't disown his son for being gay so he automatically has a point
About picking the wrong hero: George Martin makes horrible persons likeable. I think every person in GoT has bad habits but that makes the charakters realistic. Jaimie got my favourite charakter in the whole book series. I think he is just missunderstood.
In general, don't use semicolons when you could use colons or commas instead. I think G.R.R.M. is guilty of just that. But I don't really think it matters that much.
The number of times Schwifty said “I think Frank is guilty” or I think he’s pushing it, etc with no sin needs it’s own video counter. 😹
I disagree with 11. The author is talking about the overuse of the word "suddenly" to explain events happening at once. It's being guilty of lazy writing. Neither authors overuse the word to explain events. It's terrible word use, not the quickness of events!
I think something to keep in mind when watching this, especially for aspiring writers, is that the book is not saying "if you do these things, you're a bad writer." On the contrary, these are examples of how conventional rules of writing are commonly broken by newer writers. Many writers--including GRRM and Frank Herbert, I would argue--are considered great because of the ways in which they bend and break the conventional rules and established etiquette of storytelling.
To be a good writer is NOT to follow all the rules. It is to know what the rules are well enough that you can intentionally break them to convey your story more effectively.
It was SO FRUSTRATING listening to Schwift not understand the "suddenly" rule. It has nothing to do with pacing, it's literally about overusing THE WORD suddenly.
I want more of your rants. Your people vs. individual rant was ramping up great
Yes, George. We get it! "Broke their/his/her fast" = "breakfast"! Very clever! But somewhat less clever the 50th time around!
I like the consistency of it. It just seems to fit.
You will get fast breaking paragraphs until you learn to love the lamprey pies and lemoncakes
As someone who has just recently started Dune, thank you so much for the spoiler warnings
Its a bunch of sand and visions and politics oooweeeewooooo
Where is the second part?!
GREAT VIDEO! However, You not reading all of the Dune canon gave Herbert a better start. For example, he did in a way write himself into a corner. He had huge plans for the ending, but according to some, knew he would not manage to finish it during his lifetime. Also, in last books there are two characters that are basicly Herbert and his wife. But I like Herberts work a lot more than Martins, and I belive he is a much better writer, so I dont see the above as his faults.
I am really surprised by the fact that no one pointed out that Schwift misinterpreted the eleventh point (which is in fact not about the plot structure but rather about the overuse of the word suddenly whether it fits or not, which can be easily seen in the example)
I don't know if anyone of them is particularly guilty of this and I can't be bothered to run a full search in their books, but it would've possibly change the outcome
"Don't not use double negatives" That stopped me in my tracks for a beat!
Other People: GRRM and Herbert are two of the greatest writers.
Alt Schift X: Let's find out exactly how bad they are.
Tyrion and Tysha is a textbook example of unlikely romance. "The innocent common girl falls for the ugly but kind outsider." Other unlikely ones I would say are Ashara falling for Ned, Rhaegar and Lyanna, and Daario and Dany.
lol why tho
@@zakatalmosen5984 Just explained it? It's a cliche writing trope.
@@arvaakuka8568 no, i mean why is a good looking girl falling in love with a dwarf less likely than, say, the one bastard among tens of thousands that's doing important stuff actually being the rightful heir to the throne. It seems a bit arbitrary. I see absolutely no reason why any of the things you mentioned are unlikely, and even if they were, unlikely things are the whole point of writing, otherwise every line of text would be a stereotype.
@@zakatalmosen5984 It's unlikely based on experience from our own reality. That's what unlikely means so I don't see how that's hard to understand. I didn't say a story shouldn't have surprising elements but the whole point of this video was to list cliches in writing and one of the cliches happened to be unlikely romances. So I wonder if you even watched it and what your point is.
Even though I consider Dune to be the better book series (I love its themes and worldbuilding), GRRM is a better writer, and I'd go even further than consider him the best fantasy writer at the moment, his prose is fantastic.
Controversial Opinion, Dune is a bad book, objectively, in its construction. The Princess Irelon excerpts spoil all the main plot points very early on in the dryest, least impactful way possible, so the rest of the book is merely waiting for things you already know happen to play out. Most of the action happens off screen, except for the incredibly contrived knife fights, which are the main form of combat for reasons that make no sense in universe (why can't bullets or explosives be designed to match the frequency, why can't a skilled fighter match the frequency with a more effective weapon, it's pretty bollocks). All technology is explained in long, tell don't show style dialogue or thought segments, as well as all political maneuvers (Jessica explaining Paul's brilliance any time he does anything is particularly grating), so that actions are never left to explain themselves. Character development isn't organic except for maybe Jessica (Paul doesn't develop, he just suddenly changes into a sociopath due to unlocking his powers, which seems to chemically alter his mind). The Harkonens are one dimensionally evil without depth, spice is a massive mcguffin that does whatever the writing calls for, and the Fremen likewise are more a plot device than a people, somehow having advanced tech without manufactures and incredible combat prowess without combat experience. The ending is rushed, the main villain is killed by a toddler (hyper intelligence or not, its silly and nonsensical, without any foreshadowing or plot development to support it), and everyone comes away looking like a terrible person for unearned reasons (why does Paul give no shits about his son dying? Magic did it).
These are all things that any writing book or video will tell you to steer clear of, but for some reason Dune escapes criticism. Of course, Herbert had connections, and the book received awards and being considered for film adaptation prior to having significant sales figures thanks to people he knew personally, so it wasn't exactly an uphill battle to attain popularity. He himself was also critical of it, being his first novel, though the general consensus is that his later novels are worse, so I'm not sure his opinion is necessarily accurate. He also borrowed all of his major plot beats from middle eastern history (Paul is an amalgamation of Muhammad and Caliph Umar, the Fremen are Arabs, the Padishah is a combination Persian Shah and Byzantine Emperor, and spice is an amalgamation of the spice trade, hashish, and oil), so most of the plot isn't actually as original as people like to credit it with being. None of this is a mark of the times either, as earlier authors like George Orwell were already writing sci-fi in a very modern style by then.
So yeah, Dune became popular in the sci-fi community on the back of unearned awards and tenuous links to Star Wars (they're really not very similar, space, deserts, and the saarlac are about where the similarities end, and you can find at least two of those in Arizona too), and has never been seriously criticized before a large audience.
On 15, my reading of Stickley's intent there has more to do with providing the correct viewpoint for the story you want to tell. You don't pick a primary viewpoint character of a customs exchange agent who only occasionally interacts with the epic fantasy plot of your books. Frankly, I don't see how you tell Dune's story from a different set of perspectives. The whole point of Dune is that it's inhuman to become a messiah figure, that progress is not a clear line, and the environmental costs to progress are often quite extreme.
we'll get part 2 when winds comes out
I liked how George found out the term night soil, and used it in like 3 different chapters in the same book.
Mainly during descriptions of King's Landing, right?
@@RhodokTribesman I think it's a common theme from Oldstown to Mole's Town. But looks like Dany used the term once in A Clash of Kings before it was used 4 times in A Fest for Crows, so George did came up with it a bit earlier.
GRRM is the ultimate bad writer because he refuses to write the book he promised to write: which begs the question what other issues is he guilty of... like making the book too complicated and not sticking to his original loosed planned plot structure, or wanting to change certain things just because the show did them one way or fans guessed the answer to a foreshadowed mystery, and he became disillusioned about not being surprising or ahead of the game...when in reality it is impossible to avoid somebody figuring it out, and it is best just to stick to one's original plans and not let oneself be distracted. he is now placing priority on vanity projects that no one cares about while delusionally believing that the fans are worried that he wont contribute to whatever new spinoff show or whatever. He doesnt understand that WOW is the ONLY things people really care about, and he needs to finish it and Spring if he wants his other world building novels to matter. Otherwise, without Dream of Spring concluding ASOIAF, his entire oevre is going to be basically forgotten in 10 years. None of it will be satisfying without a culminating conclusion.
Part 2 of this stream is the new Winds of Winter
The 1st Theon chapter (page 149) when he’s describing the stones with all the bird deposit specks 😂😂😂
Schwift, I have a question: Have either you or the other guy ever seen the "Fire and Ice" movie (the one from 1983 where humans battle the impersonated ice-age)? I would love to hear your opinion on how intense GRRM inhaled that movie for his ideas xD
And also: Great idea! Love the format and hope you'll continue!
I wouldn't phrase it as though "Frank Herbert refused to resolve" certain mysteries and ambiguities, he just didn't resolve all the mysteries, and it feels more present as a feeling of authentically inhabiting in the moment if time in this immense and densely rich worldbuilding and later; The God Emperor having a wholly complete and perfect knowledge experienced memory of every single human, first and last, past and future. And has known them. Intimately, and with all the means he uses for the "golden plan's," means.
J.K Rowling is terrible for using words with "ly" at the end as a shortcut instead of actually coming up with a following sentence,
Saying something just like (eg) "said Ron distractedly" instead of say "Ron was distracted because etc etc" haha probably don't make alot of sense myself there but if you ever read them again, literally every few sentences just end with a lazy 'ly ending word, it's a kids book I know but if you notice it it becomes ridiculous,
every book in the series is afflicted with it , happens hundreds of times and just feels like she couldn't elaborate further and took the lazy path out and felt like she could have done far better
Rowling is just not a very good writer in general. She‘s guilty of a lot of these things not just the adverbs and adjectives.
Despite jk going insane on twitter, I’ll defend those books as still holding up. But yeah they’re definitely guilty of this.
@@starwarsnerd100 I mean I love them too, they were my childhood and they‘re great in a lot of ways but I definitely see the flaws in them now that I‘m more well read.
They're made for children, I don't expect them to be super well-written.
@@FidgetTheMidget8P young adult (I wouldn't expect children to read some of those thick ass later books), but whatever. Things like Avatar the Last Airbender or Batman the Animated Series are made for children but are critically acclaimed. Fiction can be well written or badly written no matter the age of the target demographic.
Only a Brit can pronounce "Dune" with three syllables.
Alt is Aussie
Haven't been able to watch any of your recent raised by wolves content yet because I'm trying to catch up in that show, so it was an awesome surprise to see this. Amazing stuff, thank you!
Idk wtf Marigoldandmuse was talking about how English is lacking in descriptors?? English is the language with LITERALLY the most descriptors out of any language. We outpace the next largest language (German) by 200k words. We actually have the MOST choices when it comes to descriptors, we are in no danger of losing a few.
Part 2 when?
I just noticed that he reads comments from Glidus and even makes him a mod. Amazing
She shat - PFFFFFFrrrrrrrr - and then - Pffffloooimb - shat some more. The more she - schhhhhhfffff - drank the more she pfrt pfrt pfrt pffffffRrrrrrrrt
Lots of things in common. Beards, long established writers, and dying before their magnum opus is finished….
Yep. Absolutely.
Wait, am I the only one who thinks Irulan is getting bullied (number 26). I dont remember one good think that has happened to her.
I was also waiting for someone to point this out. Everyone in book two seems to think that she is not intelligent enough to be a Bene Gesserit and to laugh at her for being in the (to her) miserable position of being Pauls wife in name only.
32:22 I like how alt is trying to mock overuse of metaphors but then proceeds to verbally diarrhea similes
unlikely love interest likely more means "our extremely boring, dysfunctional, and depressed girl who isn't very pretty nonetheless is seen as a golden and glorious angel by all the men of the prince's court." Cersei and Jaime are both extremely attractive people and both are essentially the epitome of what the other wants. They also have a convenient excuse in the Targaryens and have been pursuing a relationship since they were literal children.
I love both series, honestly prefer aSoIaF over Dune, but unless or until George finishes his series he cannot be compared to those who have.
I want him to but dont expect him to
Technically, Herbert never finished Dune. He wanted to write a follow-up to Chapterhouse but died before he could.
@@GoldsteinsBook really? I thought chapterhouse was a.decent ending but would have loved to see a bit more. Too bad.
@@bobbybee2975 Herbert's son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson wrote two follow-ups to Chapterhouse called "Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune" which were *supposedly* taken from notes Frank left behind for "Dune 7," but I take that with a grain of salt.
@@GoldsteinsBook yeah I love Dune as much as Lord of the Rings or ASoIaF but I don't like other people trying to finish the original author's story. If I'd have known the wheel of time was finished by another person before I started reading it I may not have started the series. Alas it may be good I'm just not interested in what i consider to be little more than fan fiction. If you or others enjoy I am happy for you all I just tend to dislike the results of such works.
I think the orphans thing should really count only the childs without parents when they're introduced, so it's just Danny, Jon, probably some of Robert's basterds, but it's not that many compared to the huge cast of a Song of Ice and Fire, I think GRR Martin is way more interested in parental conflict and trauma from parent's deaths, than in orphan's stories XD
Like Danny and Viserys are orphans, but it's never really treated, it's just because they're the heirs of the deceased king. And Jon is technically an orphan, but he does not know it at the beginning. GRR Martin cast orphans but he don't really care, it's just because they're children of important characters of the past ^^
Please make a part 2 ❤