Results of Ruminations

I love a well-told tale. One of the reason that I still unabashedly recommend Patrick Rothfuss  and his two novels to people is because Rothfuss knows how to tell a good story. Not only that, but he loves  to tell stories. Almost every question he answers in interviews comes in the form of a story. He's supped full of the bardic tradition and it exudes from him like an odoriferous wave of narrative--I would imagine. I haven't met him in person, so I can't say for certain. As an addendum, I would like to point out that the particulars of an odoriferous wave of narrative  and what that would smell like are beyond my experience, though I imagine it would entail nutmeg somehow. That just seems how it ought to be. Anyway, this essay isn't about Rothfuss. It's about how he got so good at stories: It was by watching Joss Whedon. You can learn all about Rothfuss' conversion story , but what he doesn't really go into detail with that post is why  Whedon is so gorra...

At writers' group tonight, we got to talking about the news that Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere (multi-book spanning cosmology) is being optioned and put toward film franchises. While this is cool news, it got me thinking about what Hollywood producers are aiming to get out of fantasy franchises. With the undeniable success of Peter Jackson's adaptations of  The Lord of the Rings , as well as the country's continued fascination with Game of Thrones , there's obviously a connection to well-rendered fantasy worlds that has mainstream appeal. I worry, however, that producers are reading the wrong message. For every Lord of the Rings , there are a dozen Eragon  or Percy Jackson  films. For every Game of Thrones , there's a slew of Legend of the Seeker -type IPs that get out there, flounder, and fade away. What's different? What sets apart some of the tentpole properties from the rest of the herd? First and foremost, the caliber of the stories has to matter. Whi...