Jump to content

Does starting a series create an implied agreement that the series will be completed?


Ser Scot A Ellison

Recommended Posts

5 hours ago, john said:

I find (or found) Asterix funnier in English but that’s probably a cultural thing rather than a quality of translation thing.

Oh yeah, the English language Asterix is very good. The translator did an outstanding job of finding English versions of the punnish faux-Gaulish and faux-Roman names.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Same for the German versions. I never read a French original, though. But in German almost all names, except Asterix, Obelix, Idefix, Caesar and Cleopatra etc., have puns or silly (or sometimes sensible) meanings.

The other obvious point is of course that very few people read more than one or even one foreign language well enough to become immersed and appreciate language and style to the extent that they naturally do in in their mother tongue. (Of course, occasionally the slightly less automatic processing of a foreign language can sometimes also lead to more sensitivity for style.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/25/2017 at 2:39 AM, Jo498 said:

Same for the German versions. I never read a French original, though. But in German almost all names, except Asterix, Obelix, Idefix, Caesar and Cleopatra etc., have puns or silly (or sometimes sensible) meanings.

Asterix and Obelix are puns too.  Asterix is the star and Obelix makes menhirs (Gaulish obelisks), not to mention being built like a menhir too.  And Idefix -- Dogmatix in the English version -- is an obvious pun/wordplay too, although not linked to his character.  Only Vitalstatistix didn't translate well into a funny pun/wordplay.  (Unhygienix and Bacteria are my favorites among the Gauls)  Only actual historical figures don't have word play in their names.

My son and I on Saturday during a hike were batting around ideas for new Roman names in Asterix.  Dubious Choicus, Noxious Gasus and Mucus Bronchitus were his favorites -- as you'd expect at age eleven.

If you are getting English versions, then absolutely you must get the translation by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge.  There is another American version available that is not as good.  I was able to buy the proper version in the US from Amazon, but you have to check the publication details to make certain. 

This Gaulish tangent has redeemed the thread, btw. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To steer the thread slightly back towards its tracks, let me weigh in with my opinion.

I think the author is morally, but not legally of course, obligated to provide closure to their fans. There is an implied agreement that, whatever happens, the followers should get to know how the story goes in the end.

That being said, closure can mean a lot of things (maybe more/fewer/other things than I think, English is not my first language). It doesn't necessarily mean the author should crap out a sequel just for the sake of finishing a story, actually that should probably be avoided at all costs. It can mean the story gets its ending and the series is wrapped up nicely. It can mean the author makes it clear they are unable to finish it. It can mean a brusque and depressive "don't expect anything more from this series, I'm not", or "the trilogy is open-ended and book two provided that open ending". It can mean a news bulletin announcing the author's passing. Any of those would serve as closure, although some way less satisfying than others. But at least they all state, more or less clearly, which page of the story is officially the last one.

What should not happen, at any rate, is prolonged uncertainty. The series can be open-ended, but the state of the series should not be left hanging. If the author is unable to finish the work, and self-aware enough to realize it will not be done in the foreseeable future bar a drastic change of circumstances/motivation, that message should reach those eagerly waiting for more news.

An unfinish work can still inspire feelings in its readers. After turning the last page with words on it, it's up to the reader to imagine what happens next. That imagination can sometimes provide a better story than an uninspired author could. But the words "to be continued" imply that the story is intended to continue from the pen of the author, making the reader's imagination a less "authentic" provider of continuation. As long as a sequel remains a possibility, it will always mean the "official" story is still going on, unfinished.

 

TL;DR: There is no legal obligation to finish the story, or even a moral one. But if the author gives up on their work, they should be expected to let their fans know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To answer the OP's question, I wouldn't say that starting a series constitutes an "agreement", but I do think it creates a reasonable expectation that there will be some sort of conclusion. 

Failing to fulfill expectations typically carries some sort of consequence(loss of trust, etc), the severity of which depends largely on the circumstances by which the expectations were not met. If the author does not meet expectations for reasons totally out of their control, it's hard to imagine any sort of justified displeasure with the author. If on the other hand, the author just quits it's pretty easy to imagine people being pretty disappointed, and justifiably so in my opinion. And of course, there are a continuum of possibilities in between.

I'd also like to comment on fan interaction. Years ago,we had a attorney speak to a group of us (at a professional services company) about risk, and he told us that in the 30 years he'd spent at his law firm he'd never seen a medical malpractice case where the plaintiff said: "I really like the doctor, but I've got to sue him". The intended take away was that being personable and nice can go a long way towards understanding and soothing bruised feelings in a situation where something has gone awry. Many authors can not or will not finish what they started, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that much like the nice doctors who don't get sued even if they screw up, authors who are nice and good communicators tend to have far fewer people angry at them.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

 

authors who are nice and good communicators tend to have far fewer people angry at them.

 

I'm not to sure about that. GRRM's current reluctance to provide updates on TWoW stems from when he gave frequent, detailed updates during the situation with ADWD and just got grief and trolling in response.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

I'm not to sure about that. GRRM's current reluctance to provide updates on TWoW stems from when he gave frequent, detailed updates during the situation with ADWD and just got grief and trolling in response.

To be honest, his "frequent, detailed updates" for ADwD usually contained deadline announcements which were so unrealistic they could've been taken as trolling.

If you remember, in early 2008 GRRM announced on his website that there will be no further announcements until the book is done because of the grief some assholes posing as fans were giving him for missing self-imposed deadlines. The book came out three and a half years later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, GRRM was a frequent cominucator, but that didn't make him a good one on the subject. That doesn't justify the abuse he got from some quarters, but I understand the frustration, and I've seen it a lot less on authors who are honest and don't get false hopes up repeatedly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, baxus said:

To be honest, his "frequent, detailed updates" for ADwD usually contained deadline announcements which were so unrealistic they could've been taken as trolling.

If you remember, in early 2008 GRRM announced on his website that there will be no further announcements until the book is done because of the grief some assholes posing as fans were giving him for missing self-imposed deadlines. The book came out three and a half years later.

They contained ideas for when he might be able to finish. He did not give any tight deadline announcements at all until the January 2011 one (when he announced the release date) because when he'd even nodded at doing that, in the AFFC note, he missed it badly.

The problem of course is what he gave an update explaining what he'd been doing - "Did a Jon Snow chapter today, back to Winterfell tomorrow" or whatever - without giving any kind of big picture update or idea on when he might be done, people gave him shit for it. When he provided a page count and a possible completion timeframe, whilst prefacing it with, "this is not a hard deadline, I've been wrong before, this may be incredibly optimistic," people took it as a cast-iron guarantee written in blood and gave him shit for it when he missed it.

Hence, no updates for TWoW (or vanishingly few ones), a direct result of the behaviour he experienced previously. Personally it'd be nice to get a page count update, but then he did that for ADWD and it'd turn out to be wrong because some shift in the Meereenese Knot meant rewriting five previously "locked and done" chapters, so the value for that is also meaningless.

Entitled jerk fans are the reason why more and more authors, especially those who are not reliably fast or machines, are not giving detailed updates on what they're up to. Hell, Sanderson has started getting stick for the 3-4 year waits between Stormlight books and he gives the most detailed updates of any writer ever and produces several smaller books inbetween.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

GRRM is also an example of why fans can’t have nice things because he tries to do something silly and have a bit of fun (e.g. 12 days of Christmas) and fans go wild and draw all kinds of bizarre conclusions that WINDS OF WINTER IS COMING and then Getty pissy at him because their speculation is wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Werthead said:

They contained ideas for when he might be able to finish. He did not give any tight deadline announcements at all until the January 2011 one (when he announced the release date) because when he'd even nodded at doing that, in the AFFC note, he missed it badly.

The problem of course is what he gave an update explaining what he'd been doing - "Did a Jon Snow chapter today, back to Winterfell tomorrow" or whatever - without giving any kind of big picture update or idea on when he might be done, people gave him shit for it. When he provided a page count and a possible completion timeframe, whilst prefacing it with, "this is not a hard deadline, I've been wrong before, this may be incredibly optimistic," people took it as a cast-iron guarantee written in blood and gave him shit for it when he missed it.

Hence, no updates for TWoW (or vanishingly few ones), a direct result of the behaviour he experienced previously. Personally it'd be nice to get a page count update, but then he did that for ADWD and it'd turn out to be wrong because some shift in the Meereenese Knot meant rewriting five previously "locked and done" chapters, so the value for that is also meaningless.

Entitled jerk fans are the reason why more and more authors, especially those who are not reliably fast or machines, are not giving detailed updates on what they're up to. Hell, Sanderson has started getting stick for the 3-4 year waits between Stormlight books and he gives the most detailed updates of any writer ever and produces several smaller books inbetween.

You can call them whatever you want, but his "ideas when he might be able to finish" can and have been interpreted as deadline announcements by too many people for that to be a coincidence.

I am neither trying to justify the online behavior of some entitled jerks I'm in no way connected to nor am I attacking GRRM for not giving updates on his work. It's his work, he can do it at his pace. What I am saying is that I won't spend any money on any of his work or the stuff he's marketing through his website other than ASoIaF until he finishes the series. I'm sure that won't bother him all that much, and that's fine with me, too.

There are entitled jerks among every single kind of fans. It's either "why aren't you writing" or "why did you miss that goal/shot/touchdown" or "why did you do this movie/album/whatever this way and not that way". It's a part of being famous and having fans in the first place. There's no denying it's a shitty part but it can hardly be avoided. If someone thinks that fame will only bring them adoring fans they are extremely naive.

Just to stress one thing - I don't think that authors are under any obligation to give fans an update on how far along they are in their work but if they do give one, and especially if they give even a hint of a deadline, they should do their best to meet that deadline.

Sanderson is a completely different case than GRRM - he's very forthcoming and open about his plans. He states directly - over the next so many years I plan to write these books. If his plans change, he announces it at once. He's announced The Stormlight Archives as a ten book series right from the get go. No "this is a trilogy" then "oh, this will be seven books", and especially no "oh, you'll get it when you get it" attitude. There is no bullshit, no lying, no making excuses, no "I'm not telling you" games. If a fan can't take it, it's 100% fan's problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Baxus,

GRRM’s aspirational statement that he hoped to have ADWD out in a year was interpreted as a promise to publish in a year.  Is it an author’s fault when people fundamentally misinterpret what one of them says?  Saying you “hope” to accomplish something is not and has never been a promise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

 

You can call them whatever you want, but his "ideas when he might be able to finish" can and have been interpreted as deadline announcements by too many people for that to be a coincidence.

 

The only final deadline provided for ADWD was the one in January 2011. All of the other ones, including the one back in AFFC (although given it's official status in-the-back-of-the-book, I'm prepared to give people that one, even though that clearly wasn't a promise written in blood) were very heavily covered in caveats to hell and gone.

So in that situation he gave people exactly what they asked for - updates, explanations, page counts - and still got shit for it. So he's not doing that any more, and gets shit for that as well (in some cases, given the existence of an actual trolling community for the books, from the exact same people). In that circumstance, I think the "I'm not going to support an author unless he provides updates" argument collapses, when they've tried that and got nothing but grief for it instead.

Quote

 

Sanderson is a completely different case than GRRM - he's very forthcoming and open about his plans. He states directly - over the next so many years I plan to write these books. If his plans change, he announces it at once. He's announced The Stormlight Archives as a ten book series right from the get go. No "this is a trilogy" then "oh, this will be seven books", and especially no "oh, you'll get it when you get it" attitude. There is no bullshit, no lying, no making excuses, no "I'm not telling you" games. If a fan can't take it, it's 100% fan's problem.

 

I agree, but crucially he did say the Stormlight books were going to take 18-24 months each. There was a bigger gap between 1 and 2 because of finishing the Wheel of Time, and that was absolutely fine, but it's now been made clear that the books are simply going to take 3-4 years each. I think fans have some right to some disgruntlement with that as it pushes the completion date back from 2030-ish to potentially the very far side of 2040. That's a massive ask of your fans. It's also disappointing because it's not necessary: each of the Stormlight books so far could have been easily 300 pages shorter than they are and been improved for it, and in fact Sanderson did say back in 2010 that The Way of Kings would be the longest book in the series, which turned out not to be the case.

Still, Sanderson has immense reservoirs of goodwill I don't see being exhausted any time soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Baxus,

GRRM’s aspirational statement that he hoped to have ADWD out in a year was interpreted as a promise to publish in a year.  Is it an author’s fault when people fundamentally misinterpret what one of them says?  Saying you “hope” to accomplish something is not and has never been a promise.

Ok, we can agree on that. On the other hand, can we agree that authors should be extremely careful saying when they "hope" their book would be published, after having their fans wait for years for it?

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

I agree, but crucially he did say the Stormlight books were going to take 18-24 months each. There was a bigger gap between 1 and 2 because of finishing the Wheel of Time, and that was absolutely fine, but it's now been made clear that the books are simply going to take 3-4 years each. I think fans have some right to some disgruntlement with that as it pushes the completion date back from 2030-ish to potentially the very far side of 2040. That's a massive ask of your fans. It's also disappointing because it's not necessary: each of the Stormlight books so far could have been easily 300 pages shorter than they are and been improved for it, and in fact Sanderson did say back in 2010 that The Way of Kings would be the longest book in the series, which turned out not to be the case.

Still, Sanderson has immense reservoirs of goodwill I don't see being exhausted any time soon.

Every single fan out there who doesn't like the author's schedule is free to find some other author. The same goes for Sanderson's fans, GRRM's fans and any other author's fans.

As far as books that could be 300 pages shorter books and improved for it, I'd say that similar could be argued about any 1000+ pages book ever written. For example, the resolution to infamous "Meereenese Knot" hasn't really been all that worth the wait, has it? I mean, it's a general consensus that The Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons are of lower quality than their predecessors.

I think that the key here is that Sanderson keeps his fans up to date. Sure, he's going to miss some deadlines now and again, but you as a fan will be notified of it in advance. You can bet that Sanderson's not going to behave like a child and do the whole "I'm not telling" thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, baxus said:

Ok, we can agree on that. On the other hand, can we agree that authors should be extremely careful saying when they "hope" their book would be published, after having their fans wait for years for it?

Every single fan out there who doesn't like the author's schedule is free to find some other author. The same goes for Sanderson's fans, GRRM's fans and any other author's fans.

As far as books that could be 300 pages shorter books and improved for it, I'd say that similar could be argued about any 1000+ pages book ever written. For example, the resolution to infamous "Meereenese Knot" hasn't really been all that worth the wait, has it? I mean, it's a general consensus that The Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons are of lower quality than their predecessors.

I think that the key here is that Sanderson keeps his fans up to date. Sure, he's going to miss some deadlines now and again, but you as a fan will be notified of it in advance. You can bet that Sanderson's not going to behave like a child and do the whole "I'm not telling" thing.

Speak for yourself... I quite enjoyed AFFC.  I think it has a nice narrative theme and that it works quite well.  I admit to finding ADWD to be a more bloated work that could have used more editing.  However, neither book was anywhere close to “bad” and I like AFFC more than I like ACOK.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Speak for yourself... I quite enjoyed AFFC.  I think it has a nice narrative theme and that it works quite well.  I admit to finding ADWD to be a more bloated work that could have used more editing.  However, neither book was anywhere close to “bad” and I like AFFC more than I like ACOK.

The big Reddit survey last year I think is the biggest one that's ever been done and squarely put ADWD in 2nd place behind ASoS.

I think people are miscalculating how much better AFFC and ADWD read when you don't have to wait for them and when you can even read them spliced together.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

The big Reddit survey last year I think is the biggest one that's ever been done and squarely put ADWD in 2nd place behind ASoS.

I think people are miscalculating how much better AFFC and ADWD read when you don't have to wait for them and when you can even read them spliced together.

Spliced together and it's my favorite of all the books.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Werthead said:

 

So in that situation he gave people exactly what they asked for - updates, explanations, page counts - and still got shit for it.

Of course he did. People are assholes, and there will always be dissatisfied people no matter what you do. 

If comes down to a choice for the author about how they decide to interact with their fans. Do they:

(a) Continue to treat people the way they'd want to be treated, recognize that there will always jerks, and try to rise above the internet trolls, or...

(b) Let a vocal asshole minority dictate the sort of relationship they're going to have with their fandom by responding to the internet trolls and setting up an antagonistic dynamic. In this case, the 95% of nice respectful fans get treated in a way they don't deserve (frozen out) and the assholes get exactly what they want: attention, and an indication they're getting under the author's skin. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...