A Lesson in Nudity and Violence from Game of Thrones

Recently I’ve become addicted to a new television show. Don’t worry, this happens like once a month. I’ll hear something is a good show and then I’ll troll the internet (mostly Netflix) until I find all of the episodes ever and then I’ll watch them all one after another until I feel guilty about having gotten nothing else accomplished. If it’s a good TV show, normally I won’t feel guilty about this until I’ve watched all the episodes.

So, right, recently I’ve become addicted to a new show. I don’t know, maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s a little show called Game of Thrones. It’s summer, so I’m home, and my parents saw me watching an episode. For anyone else that watches this show (which should be EVERYONE), you know that along with all of its amazingness, it also has a ton of violence and nudity. So my dad is standing there watching a second of this with me and he says, “So why exactly do you like this show?”

This is a reasonable question when he is watching a bit in which in one scene someone gets his throat slit and in the next scene two women in a brothel are getting it on. But it didn’t take me even a second to think about it before I answered.

The writing is amazing.

Part of this is probably because the author of the books this series is based on writes some of the episodes and is a co-producer so he has a ton of creative control (always a good thing). Part of this is probably because the main writers, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, have experience in both screen writing and in novel writing. This second part is the key bit. They both also write novels, which, when it comes to adapting a novel to the screen, seems utterly important to me but also utterly overlooked. Plus, I just finished reading David Benioff’s novel City of Thieves and it was incredible! So, you know, it’s good writing upon good writing upon good writing.

Okay, so fine, I like the writing. But there has to be more that attracts me to this than just the witty dialogue (although I could probably just listen to Tyrion talk forever). 

 

I think it also has something to do with the mix of violence/nudity and the extremely emotional connections we make to the characters. Game of Thrones is widely known to be that show that kills off everyone you like and never the people that you hate (which happens to be more than half the characters). This sounds evil, right? But it’s actually kind of brilliant. If you put those characters that fans hate in charge and always put the good guys as the underdogs, it is guaranteed that those fans will come back. They want to see their favorites succeed, but if they do, fans will feel satisfied and leave. So while all of us fans moan that Joffrey still hasn’t died and that not even Sansa deserved that, we all secretly kind of love watching all this violence and nudity and this horrible stuff happen. Not because it’s happening, but because we know that the best is yet to come.

Delayed gratification. All of our writing could learn a little from it. Or, at least mine could.

Bravo David Benioff. Bravo D. B. Weiss. But really. Bravo George R.R. Martin.  

New Beginnings (And a New Look)

Happy summer! Don’t think this is as big of a deal for something people that aren’t in school (or teach school), but for a college student, summer time means a ton more free time. And a ton more time for writing. With summer starting, I feel like it’s time for other new beginnings (which is why I changed the design of my blog to this cleaner look). Knowing my obsession with lists, you can’t be that surprised that I’m about to give you another one…

5 Things That I Will (Hopefully) Do This Summer

1. Blog once a week: Yikes. I just promised (kind of) to do that. But if I can’t do it during the summer, I’m never going to be able to do it during the school year, which is the ultimate goal. So yeah. Once a week. I promise. I hope. I’ll try?

2. Submit my work for regular editing: Geez, why do all of these sound so scary? Don’t get me wrong: I like editing and I even like being edited (sometimes). But committing to regular editing? It means that I am going to have people reading my stuff once a week for scrutiny. I am going to have to produce enough each week (and clean it up enough) to send it off to an editor. But it’s good. It is. It is. I just gotta say it to myself a few more times.

3. Start to combine my love of food and writing on this blog. I have a plan for how to do this, which I will express in a later blog post. The bottom line is, get reading for some recipes!

4. Finish my current WIP: Yeah. I’m in a hole and I know from experience that getting in a hole at this point in my WIP is bad news bears. So I have to push through whatever rut I’m in. And the best way I know how to do it is to just sit down and write.

5. Read 10 books: for fun. These last two words are the key ones.  I read plenty during the school year, and they are good books (er, most of them.). But this summer I want to read books that I pick. So far, I’m two books in and working on the third. I may be posting reviews as I go. Want to follow my progress and read with me? The first book of the summer was A Fault in Our Stars by John Green (amazing!) and the second was The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (love her). Currently? Delirium by Lauren Oliver. 

Do you have any summer writing/reading goals? Tell me about ‘em. And, if I stay good on my goals, I’ll be talking to you again really soon!

Success Kid: When Memes Apply to Real Life

Today, I finally got my query letter to the place it needs to be. For anyone else who’s had to write a query letter, you know what a great (and elusive) feeling this is. How great? This great:

Success Kid, how I envy your everlasting sense of victory.

Because I know that in a few days, I’m going to look at this query letter that I feel so proud of right now and think, “Really? That’s the best you can do?” At first, it’s disheartening to think that these feelings of inadequacy are an ingrained part of a writer’s life. But then I think, what if it wasn’t? Would that make me happy with the subpar? I don’t want that. I’ll take the feelings of inadequacy if it means I get to feel like Success Kid some days.

Critiques are a good example of this. Every day I walk into a workshop for my creative writing classes, I want to pee my pants  get really nervous. I’m anxious about what people might say about my writing. I’m anxious about coming across too harsh about other people’s writing. But mostly, I’m anxious about not getting that harsh feedback or not being too critical about someone else’s piece. If I went into workshop expecting nothing but compliments and giving nothing but smiles in return, I’d get nowhere.

I don’t want someone to tell me that what I have is perfect. Because nothing is perfect and I don’t want to settle. As writers, it’s our job not to take the easy way out and say, “It’s not getting any better.” So with this in mind, I’m going to enjoy this feeling of success today and then I’ll come back to the letter later and see what can be done. And I hope you do too!

If you want to check out the query letter for my WIP, you can find it under “The Writing Desk” up top. Have comments about how it can be better? Please, leave them in the comments! Want me to look at yours? E-mail me! Then we can all be Success Kids.