[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 72 KB, 633x348, 1381216240540.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4469547 No.4469547[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

ATTN: All /lit/izens who think they'll write the next incredible book about being in college/ living as a NEET / being a middle class regular guy.

Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHVqxD8PNq8

>> No.4469574

You know where this clip is from right? It's actually from a screenwriter who consistently proves that the opposite is true. The middle class regular guy still has potential as a subject, you just have to be a little daring.

>> No.4469577

>>4469574
Have you seen this movie? What the fuck do you think the ending is about?

>> No.4469623

Something Happened - Joseph Heller

>> No.4469642

>>4469547
I know the first two posts are already pointed this out,
but that scene was meant to be a jab against just those types of commercial screenwriters,
and not only that, but the character who has done well as a commercial screenwriter, but in a way that isn't writing some thing inane and dull, is extremely humble and takes the mans advice none the less.
But you do have a point, in this particular situation, that there are few frequenters of /lit/ who will sell books well or even write a novel in the first place,
but those themes are not neccesarily bad at all,
and if a book were written about those phenomena and I happened to read said novel, I would probably find it engaging, depending on the style.

>> No.4469646

>>4469577
The ending is parody, you idiot.

>> No.4469655

>>4469646
And the rest is what? Your actual life? The movie is a parody.

>> No.4469659

>>4469646
A parody of how shit it is?

>> No.4469691

>>4469655
>the movie is a parody
The entire movie is a parody, huh? Like Airplane or Scary Movie?

>> No.4469700

>>4469691
I think he means the entire film is a comedy. As in, not serious.

>> No.4469702
File: 82 KB, 1193x801, cat.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4469702

>mfw nearly all of /lit/ is like that
Writing about your life is the only acceptable way, right?

>> No.4469715

1. the guy in the video doesn't actually say why it's bad
2. >taking advice on writing from a Hollywood film (when it's doubtful whether Kaufman even agrees with it)
3. tell that to any modern writers who make it big not doing surrealism or genre fiction

>> No.4469727
File: 873 KB, 325x203, 1385395446024.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4469727

>>4469715
>1. the guy in the video doesn't actually say why it's bad
"first of all, you write a screenplay without conflict or crisis, you'll bore your audience to tears"
>2. >taking advice on writing from a Hollywood film (when it's doubtful whether Kaufman even agrees with it)
he doesn't but he ends up being forced into it due to failure
just sayan

>> No.4469729

>>4469547
>ATTN: All /lit/izens who think they'll write the next incredible book about being in college/ living as a NEET / being a middle class regular guy.


To the ones who really think of writing something like this: just give up or kill yourselves.

There is nothing more pathetic than books in which the main character is a middle-class writer struggling with meaning and with relationships in his life. Those kinds of books are written only for other writers and for literary critics and even the greatest of these (like Joyce Portrait) are only read by a very specific and small number of people.

Like Keats said: the poet is the most un-poetic creature of all.

>> No.4469749

>>4469574
>The middle class regular guy still has potential as a subject,

Of course he is. The problem is that a great majority of pseudo-writers make this “regular guy” a writer having writer problems in a writer world, and writers are simply not that interesting or fascinating to other people. Also: it shows a great deficiency in imagination and lack of knowledge of life the fact that everything you write is based on a character that is just like you facing just your fucking problems.

>> No.4469753

We live in the age of post-post-modernism, where the only attempts at meaningful discourse about the average white male would be to satirize it or to mock it, which above all else is still very much an untapped market.

>> No.4469754

>>4469727

>"first of all, you write a screenplay without conflict or crisis, you'll bore your audience to tears"

but my third point proves that wrong, since tons of writers since the modernist era have been successful by writing like that

>> No.4469768

>>4469753
>We live in the age of post-post-modernism, where the only attempts at meaningful discourse about the average white male would be to satirize it or to mock it,

Why do you say that? If you know how to write and present the subject you can pretty much captivate a lot of readers.After all white middle-class males are historically the greatest motor for development and evolution in human history, and the majority of great scientists and artists are members of this class.

I feel pity for those who write only about writers living in a literary life, but I feel even more pity for those who write about niggers living in a crime life in some jungle neighborhood trying to convey a message that the “government” and “the system” is the evil to be blamed (where I live this kind of stupid theme is being worked lots of times, and it’s just pathetic).

>> No.4469775

>>4469754
it doesn't matter whether or not you've can prove the reason wrong, "the guy in the video [does] actually say why it's bad"
You can't go around accusing essays of not not providing evidence because you can later show that the evidence was incorrect. The essay doesn't recognize you.

>> No.4469786

>>4469547
OP, having seen that movie myself, you should realize that the speaker isn't meant to be taken seriously.

>> No.4469805

>>4469768
While I agree with you, that development is easy for a token average white male, that usually consists out of the fact that he is often time a blank slate, an easy blank to project on to. This, of course, is relevant to how often easy it is either perceived or in reality to live as a average white male. It's a lot more interesting when writing like Catch-22 come out, rather than something like The Wolf of Wall Street. I may be a bit incoherent but hopefully you know what I mean.

Perhaps its best put, that an average white males story is about as interesting as a lifetime movie.

>> No.4469806

>>4469775

well, OK, you're right. I had originally meant he doesn't really provide a reason that isn't external to the work (as the part you quoted is more like an ad populum argument), but I didn't bother mentioning in exchange for the other point.

>> No.4469837

>>4469805
>>4469768
>>4469753
They're called men it's sexist to call them males

>> No.4469845

>>4469805
>It's a lot more interesting when writing like Catch-22 come out, rather than something like The Wolf of Wall Street.

This is the most retarded thing I have ever read

>> No.4469865

>>4469786

I think that he is meant to be taken seriously. The entire last act is an ironic fulfillment of the lecturer's rules.

>> No.4469876

>>4469547
read this and get back to me
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/literatureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf

>> No.4469890

>>4469865
>the entire last act is an ironic fulfillment of the lecturer's rules

Exactly, which is why I said he wasn't to be taken seriously.

>> No.4469942

>>4469890
I meant it was ironic in the sense that it goes against everything the film had built itself up to be, not in the sense of it being a parody of the rules itself. If I'm reading you right you're saying the final act is a mockery of those rules, but I saw it as a sincere expression of the abstract themes Kaufmann struggled with all along, basically meaning that form is inseparable from meaning, when for the majority of the film Kaufmann struggled because he wanted to keep a pure vision of the big picture, 'life, everything' etc but eventually he realises that he didn't even know what that was because it was so abstract by its nature, and for it to have any meaning had to be communicated in some sort of conventional form.

>> No.4469946

>>4469942
Point taken. I'll re-evaluate my position.