Posted by: @col-klink Something I forgot to mention about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is that I actually think the story might lend itself more to a movie because it's so, for lack of a better term, sports driven. Has anyone else ever read a book they thought would work better as a movie? For me, it's often the opposite. 

Actually, I'd put it another way:  Normally, would you prefer to watch sport live or read about it in a novel, or even in the newspaper, afterwards? Especially when you don't know the rules or which position is represented by which term? Of course, sport is a very major part of life, very much affected by politics from the very top, when international, to district and local competitions, or even inter-house sport at the lowest levels of secondary school-life.  And yes, Sport is also everything to do about competition, including in the romantic field, which is why the Christmas Ball is included as the second of the tasks in the TriWizard contest.  

@col-klink  I think my biggest problem with the teenage romantic drama was not so much that Harry initially had a crush on a girl who turns out not to reciprocate it, but that the one he eventually ends up with turns out to be a very bland and boring character who doesn't have anything particularly interesting about her and who doesn't contribute anything really essential to the plot.

I wouldn't have said that about Ginny Weasley, who featured prominently in Chamber of Secrets, the only girl in a family of seven offspring, with Harry's friend, Ron, being the sixth child. That is when Harry quite literally saved her life, imperilled by a "little black book",   which she found enclosed in one of her second-hand textbook purchases, I think it was. JK Rowling, herself, had a hard time with her first marriage to Jorge Arantes, the father of her daughter, Jessica, whom she divorced in 1994. But after she published the first four books of the seven she meant to write, from 1997 to the year 2000 (when Sydney staged the Olympic Games, and when in Sydney we went gaga over these events from the highest level of govt to the lowliest casual TV watcher), JK Rowling, herself, remarried on Boxing Day, in 2001, the year she met Neil Murray, an anaesthetist, whose day job is putting people to sleep, you could say. There is something to be said about characters who send you to sleep, maybe. That is to say, to be sent to sleep in a good way and for a good reason. 

From 2003, when Order of the Phoenix was published, the couple shared two children, 1stly a son, David Gordon Murray, then, again coinciding with the release of Half-Blood Prince, their daughter, Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray in 2005. I've linked with Wikipedia for this info, as well as to both Scribbulus, itself, an extension of Leaky Cauldron, and my own essay in the 5th issue, which I clearly wrote before the final 2007 release of Deathly Hallows. 

@varna  And I guess that even more, she needed one book for each of the school years (following the British school system). She couldn't really skip a whole year only because she had nothing to write about for that year.

Of course, you are right, but I also think she had planned out all of her series ahead of time, in a chart. Goblet of Fire was definitely a transition novel, before the three "coming of age" novels that remained to be finished. Not a very pleasant year for Harry, from Hagrid's monstrous "blast-ended skrewts", possibly a metaphor for grumpy 14-year-olds who need to live on something more nourishing than lettuce  , but who turn up their noses at home cooking, to what happened to Cedric, Harry's encounter with Voldemort at the end, & then being confronted with the culprit of his woes  .  

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

@col-klink  I think my biggest problem with the teenage romantic drama was not so much that Harry initially had a crush on a girl who turns out not to reciprocate it, but that the one he eventually ends up with turns out to be a very bland and boring character who doesn't have anything particularly interesting about her and who doesn't contribute anything really essential to the plot.

I wouldn't have said that about Ginny Weasley, who featured prominently in Chamber of Secrets, the only girl in a family of seven offspring, with Harry's friend, Ron, being the sixth child. That is when Harry quite literally saved her life, imperilled by a "little black book",   which she found enclosed in one of her second-hand textbook purchases, I think it was.

Just to clarify, Wagga, you've somehow attributed that quote to Col Klink, but I was the one who wrote it. Are you doing something odd with the quote options? (There's either the quote button at the end of each previous post if you want to quote it in your reply, or if you click and drag over any portion of someone else's post to highlight the part you want to quote, a "quotation mark" button should appear for you to copy that portion into your own post.)

Anyway, I stand by what I said. Ginny plays a significant role in book 2 when Harry saves her from Tom Riddle's diary, but we barely see anything else of her for several more books, until Harry suddenly realises he has stronger and deeper feelings for her than he's ever had for any other girls. And even after that, let alone before it, she doesn't really do anything important to the overall plot or show any memorable characteristics, other than being Harry's Official Love Interest. I just can't categorise that as good and convincing romance writing, sorry. 

Yes, Ginny does play a significant part in Book 2, because of Tom Riddle's "little black book". After that episode she sensibly lays low for a bit (or does she?), when Harry is already part of the Weasley household, having escaped from the Dursleys on the Knight Bus. In Book 4, she got to go to the Christmas Ball with Neville Longbottom, who asked her before Harry thought of asking her, himself. Neville rather enjoys dancing with Ginny, whilst Ron sulks about his old-fashioned outfit, & Harry sulks about Cho Chang dancing with Cedric Diggory. Ron & Harry go the ball with Padma & Parvati Patil, both of whom get disgusted with Harry & Ron, who had asked Fleur Delacour, before thinking of Hermione. Meanwhile Victor Krum, with a retinue of adoring teenage fans in the film, has taken a shine to Hermione, & thus gets to be a target of Rita Skeeter, who gets her sensationalist news with a particular sort of poisonous green quill & bugging through magical means.  

When Harry falls foul of Umbridge & breaks up with Cho Chang, Ginny comes into her own, not only getting caught sharing Easter Eggs with Harry Potter, in Madame Pince's library, * but also as part of Dumbledore's Army fighting against Voldemort. Ginny had other boyfriends: Michael Corner & Dean Thomas, but she is also brave & loyal to Harry, not even letting Hermione criticize him. 

* Yes, I've met TAFE students who wanted to picnic in the library & use mobile phones on loudspeakers where we worked trying to keep them in order. I don't think I'd ever be allowed to be anywhere near as rude to them as Madame Pince was to Harry & Ginny.  

@waggawerewolf27 Well, I still don't find Ginny very interesting as a character, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree there.  

Posted by: @courtenay

@waggawerewolf27 Yeah, but she's still not even remotely interesting as a character, so I rest my case.  

However many students I've met over the years, regardless of what they were studying or what courses they were doing, I've met very few who could have been classed as "perfect" . Ginny as a character is just a normal teenager, so I'll have to agree to disagree, & thus I also rest my case.

. 

Posted by: @fantasia

I'm such a story snob, and it took me a very long time to figure out why..... it's because I find that so many stories (books or movies or especially TV shows) have incredibly strong beginnings and middles, but then the writer(s) have no idea how to end it, so it completely falls apart.

*raises hand* Guilty!

Except it's not so much that I don't know how to end a story properly, as that I get tired of the mechanics of writing it. Much as I might be loving the plot and characters, I'm impatient in that final stretch, and just want to be finished, so scamp the ending in the most cavalier fashion.  (Or maybe I don't actually know how to write a satisfactory ending--that's also a possibility.) Finishing well is hard!

Congratulations on getting the nonfiction book done, even if it was a challenge, @SnowAngel! Sorry to hear reading The Dragon's Tooth didn't get off smoothly, but glad you've been able to get back into it and enjoy it.

@Col-Klink, I have read books that I felt would work better as movies before. I'm struggling to think of any specific books at the moment, but there have been some that have been written with too much meandering or not a strong-enough plot where the editing and tightening of the plot needed for an adaptation would really help. I also think there are some books that are written with a really strong focus on visuals and you do get the feeling they are intended to be movies in written form, if that makes sense.

I did read Tolkien's translation of Beowulf. For some reason, I really struggled with his prose translation - it was slow and I felt it hard to follow, which is odd because I really enjoyed the previous verse translation I read. On the flip side, I did rather enjoy Tolkien's commentary and his songs based on the epic. I've also worked through a few smaller, shorter books and am planning to start an autobiography I picked up on a whim at a recent book sale.

@ aileth  (Or maybe Idon'tactually know how to write a satisfactory ending--that's also a possibility.) Finishing well is hard!

I've been told that the best way to do university assignments, is to introduce the topic, explain the problems associated with the topic and what solutions might solve it. Then go on to give arguments for those solutions, and what arguments there might be to rebut those solutions. Then synthesize arguments, to arrive at a resolution & your opinion, then in conclusion, recap your arguments and your solution. Something like that. I'm not imaginative enough to write fiction, plus I've shelved too many to feel I could compete, anyway. Besides, the master's course I undertook, included a subject called Book publishing and selling, in which it was said, as many as 99% of books submitted for publication, especially novels, end up in cupboards unpublished, which I agree, doesn't sound encouraging. The course explained why it is best for a writer to get an agent to help prepare a book for publication, and to negotiate with the likeliest publisher who would be interested in such books. 

The way I was told, works also for debating, but maybe not for writing novels. Whodunnits seem to be easiest, when the point of the book is to find who did it, having sorted through the red herrings, why the crook would do it, and for the sleuth to explain how he or she arrived at the conclusions at the end. The difficulty seems to be, not arriving at the crisis, or how to resolve it by catching the crook, maybe in the act, but in dealing with what happens as a consequence. Does the sleuth get patted on the back? Does the crook repent in jail?  Or does the crook escape justice, somehow, at someone else's expense? 

Battles seem to be a good way of ending stories, not only to kill off the bad characters, but also others when there is nothing more to be said about them. If the protagonists die tragically, that would be the end of the story, anyway, in most cases, but did they die justly or unjustly? Or unsung & forgotten? Or did people respect them for what they achieved? Or was the hero or heroine so notorious that they are constantly in the papers for decades, sainted or damned by popular acclaim? JK Rowling said that she had to be ruthless with some of her characters, when she discussed writing novels, in an interview with Stephen King, the horror writer, as well as Salman Rushdie, that Leaky Cauldron told us about. I've long seen the hackneyed storybook ending "they got married and lived happily ever after" as a bit of a cop-out, when I know for a fact that doesn't happen in real life, either, for all sorts of reasons, incompatibility being among them. 

For myself, I am very guilty of reading endings, or even casually half-way through a book, before settling down to read it in its entirety to work out how the author arrived at the conclusions they did. Thus, I wasn't all that upset about the ending in The Last Battle, which I felt explained everything, as C.S. Lewis did with his other books. The one fan fiction I ever wrote about Susan, was to explain to myself what I thought might have happened to her, when people, married or not, do talk in their sleep from time to time . Whilst Neil Gaiman's short story about her, has Susan in a dying dream, having put down a book she was reading, then opening a door and "finding in the room, there was everyone who should have been there". 

@valiantarcher I have read books that I felt would work better as movies before.

There are also books which retell already released movies, such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and an Australian & Polish television show, Spellbinders: Lost between worlds, two I can think of offhand.

I finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix today. I was looking forward to this one since I knew it introduced Dolores Umbridge, one of the most popular villains in the series. But honestly, I was bored with most of the book. So much of it was about sports and exams and clubs and government inspections. Most of it was more like a school story with fantasy trappings than a fantasy with school story trappings and I'm not that into school stories. I did appreciate the ending with all its revelations though. I think Rowling is really good at beginnings and endings, not so much at middle and this book felt like it was mostly middle to me. 

I'm also getting tired of how in every book there's an obligatory subplot about one or two of the main characters (Harry, Ron and Hermione) being mad at one or two of the others. Those conflicts aren't badly written or anything, but I'm tired of reading them.

I think I need to take a break from Harry Potter for a while, but I don't want it to be too long of a break since I do want to finish the series, and I don't want to forget anything crucial about the mythology. 

@col-klink So much of it was about sports and exams and clubs and government inspections. Most of it was more like a school story with fantasy trappings than a fantasy with school story trappings

Yes, I suspected Order of the Phoenix is actually meant to make me feel the same as you did, when I've said its "Deadly Sins" theme was definitely Anger. How Harry Potter, himself, might well feel, when it seems that there has been a cover-up of some sort, from the ending of Goblet of Fire, and when Professor Umbridge (or Umbrage?) is so heavy with punishment and enforcing the rules, meant to stop Harry Potter, in particular, from speaking out. But courage, OoftP is definitely the longest book in the series, and the next two are a bit quieter. Especially Half-blood Prince, the next one. In my case, I'd read Order of the Phoenix once it was published in 2003, and had to wait until the next one, Half-Blood Prince, was published on 16th July, 2005, with Deathly Hallows finally released for publication on 21st July, 2007.

Yes, school education does seem somewhat more regulated in Australia & UK than is the case in USA, where final exams like the old Intermediate certificate and the Leaving School certificate of my day were usually external exams set by an Educational Department board, rather than internally by the school staff. I think that it is the same pattern in UK, and Rowling has made Hogwarts seem similar in organisation. Thus, the equivalent of my old Intermediate certificate exam, is the usual "O"'s, in UK, or Ordinary Wizarding Level exams or "Owls" in Hogwarts. Whilst the equivalent of my old leaving certificate in UK is the "A" level, determining who can go on to university or not, which becomes N.E.W.T's or Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests at Hogwarts.

No, C.S. Lewis wouldn't have wasted time on romances, but whilst J.K. Rowling might well have gone down the same route by her depiction of two of her teenager characters, it is not the fact of people arguing that is so damaging but how people are able to resolve their differences, what they learn from such arguments & eventually make up, that is the point, I think. 

In VDT, I thought the missing lords each stood for a Deadly Sin. Lord Bern for sloth, by staying at the Lone Islands, where Gumpas was sloth personified, permitting slavery to creep in. How could Eustace's experiences on Dragon Island, be anything else but greed? Whilst getting to Deathwater Island suggests Pride, when Lord Restimar turned into a gold statue. Lord Rhoop was likely tempted by Lust (or Desire) when he was lured into Dark Islands. As for the three, clearly Lord Mavramorn who said "mustard please", must have been the Gluttonous one, contented to eat dinner. Which Lord was it that picked up the stone knife? That suggests Anger. And what is left would have to be Envy, when another longed to go home. 

It is well worth checking out the Barnes & Noble editions of children’s books such as The Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss.  I think it is good for adults to revisit children’s classics and encourage their children to read them.  Today’s children need more knowledge of the great books that  their parents grew up with.  I recommend looking for these books in used book stores especially since they often are inexpensive.  

I wonder if C. S. Lewis read all of George MacDonald’s romances.  He considered MacDonald to be a much better preacher than a novelist so I wonder if he put up with all of the sermonizing.  He even edited a collection of quotations from MacDonald so that people could easily access his wisdom without the lengthy sermons.  I have only read the shorter versions of his romances, but I think his stories are still worth reading even if they are shortened.  I’m not sure of what Lewis would have thought about the editing if he were living today. He may have regarded it as tampering.  🙂

I finally have begun reading Anne of Green Gables by L.  M. Montgomery.  After seeing the 1985 television version many times I was curious to know what one of the books would be like.  It seems a bit more old fashioned than the TV series, although I think the producers did their best to make the program look authentic. I think Megan Follows probably was the best actress to play Anne, although I have not seen any of the newer versions of the story. It has been forty years since the first television version, and it would be difficult to make a better adaptation of the story. The book is an excellent read if you like something old fashioned.

Just read the fifth Murderbot book. As mentioned, it follows chronologically after six, and i think reading six first ended up being for the best, as i'm pretty sure i'm calling it quits here. Not because Network Effect is bad -- in fact, it's easily my favorite of the series -- but because it feels like a proper ending place, and i'm not convinced seven won't just be a return to bland formula.

If i hadn't left it at home, i would probably be finishing up my re-read of Piranesi. I liked but didn't love it the first time i read it, and that's true this time as well, but i think i'm liking it better. For some reason it felt like it was taking very long to progress the first time i read it, and not so much this time. 

At this point, i very much doubt i'm making my book reading goal for the year. There's a couple books/series i've been reading or re-reading but have stalled out on, and i'm not really sure why, at least in some cases.