Sequelitis · 4:32pm Dec 17th, 2012
I saw The Hobbit the other day! Brilliant film! I was quite wary and very much prepared to dislike it after hearing a lot of middling comments about it, but ended up being completely blown away. Yes, it was very long, but it didn’t feel very long. I could have quite happily sat down and watched the new two films straight away had they been released (I did need to go for a wee halfway through though, and I have a strong bladder – let that be a warning to you when deciding on how big a fizzy drink you want to buy at the concessions stand!)
The film’s an absolute bloody joy to watch, pretty much everyone involved nails The Hobbit completely. Perhaps that’s the problem though. The Hobbit was a very different book to Lord of the Rings. Maybe the people who disliked the film went in expecting to see Lord of the Rings 4, when what they got was a much more fun adventure film. If The Hobbit was the same tone as Lord of the Rings, then half the characters would have been horribly dead by the halfway point. Rather than gritty fantasy we have fun fantasy, and it’s really refreshing. Doctor Who rides a sleigh powered by rabbits, the evil Goblin King is voiced by Dame Edna Everage, and once Benedict Cumberbatch pops up in the next film as Smaug, opposite Martin Freeman’s Bilbo, then I think we’ll get some very interesting edits of Sherlock!
Despite being a sequel that is a prequel to Lord of the Rings, coming after it helps it a lot. It expands Middle Earth in a lot of ways, and adds some interesting and fun twists on things. The actual structure of the film is very close to Fellowship of the Ring as well, which helps demonstrate the lightness of tone (for example, Gandalf vs the Balrog and Gandalf vs the Goblin King are at the same points in both films, and not wanting to spoil things, very different!) Ironically, coming after Lord of the Rings strengthens the Hobbit, whereas I think had it come first it might have suffered somewhat.
That’s the funny thing though. Yes, the Hobbit is released after Lord of the Rings. It’s a sequel. But it’s set before the events, so it’s a prequel. Really though, it’s neither of those. Because the book of the Hobbit was published first; Lord of the Rings followed 17 years later.
Imagine that. Lord of the Rings, one of the greatest achievements of modern English Literature (whether you like it or not, you can’t deny that), was a sequel (it was originally titled ‘The New Hobbit).
This is relevant because I’ve noticed a lot of ‘sequelitis’ encroaching on the site as of late. A week back, the entire feature box was jam packed with sequels or adaptions or alternate version of other people’s stories. There are sequels to sequels and stories with are pretty much carbon copies of others just with Rainbow Dash swapped for Fluttershy or whatever. A slim minority are good, but the vast majority are absolute rubbish, and yet people lap them up.
Look, I know how it works. You write a good story. Perhaps it’s called ‘Rarity loves Fluttershy’. It does well, really well. It’s your most popular story. You get thousands of hits on it, whereas before you got tens. You get addicted to the sweet sweet hit of success. You want that again, you don’t want to risk going back to being ignored. So you write ‘Rarity loves Rainbow Dash’. Sure it’s not as popular, but it still gets thousands of hits, and all you’ve had to do is swap out Fluttershy for Rainbow Dash! Then comes ‘Rarity loves Twilight Sparkle’ and again your built-in audience leaps for it, even if it is almost exactly the same. Soon you’re scraping the barrel with ‘Rarity loves Bloomberg’ but you know the saying, if you build it, they will come’.
Perhaps you’ve never had a hit but want one? What better way to get noticed than to write a sequel to someone else’s popular story? As we’ve noticed, people barely look at the names of the writers anyway; before they realise they’re reading an inferior copy of their favourite story they’ve already given you the coveted thumbs up. ‘My Roommate is a Small Village in the Algarve’ can leap up to number 1 before anyone realises it’s not the same writer as the original it’s aping.
Maybe you just have no ideas of your own. Thinking up stuff is hard, after all! Why not adapt an already popular film/computer game. Bioshock is popular, why not just write a story which is literally the plot of Bioshock with the characters names ripped out and pony names put in their place. Fans of the game will upvote it because they like the game, rather than actually liking the story. Again, instant fanbase!
You’ve written a popular story but are worried your readership has tailed off? Well, why not write a ‘sequel’ that is a barely disguised next chapter? Your fans will be all ‘oh, new story by FAMOUS WRITER’ and leap on it, pushing it into the featured box and making you even more famous! Don’t worry though, because your story can include the words “This story is a sequel to ‘The Adventures of Turnip, the Beige Triple-Horned Alicorn’ and will LITERALLY make NO sense if you haven’t read that already so you better read it now, bucko!” This will double your hits because people are forced to read your old stories to understand your nonsensical new ones!
This isn’t counting the opportunities to grab a popular fic, rip part of it out and replace it as your own. Cue the five million “My Little XXX” stories that infest this site.
I know it’s only fanfiction. I know. It doesn’t really matter. But come on, have some class! Just because you’re writing a sequel doesn’t mean you have to throw away literally everything you know about writing to eke out a poor carbon-copy of the original. Just changing a character is not enough reason for a story to exist; it needs to stand on its feet on its own merits, not hanging off a superior original!
It’s fine to write a sequel, as long as you do something with it! If I wanted to read the original story, I’d read the original story! A sequel should grapple with the original’s ideas, it should expand on the themes and ideas, take things in new and unique directions which you couldn’t do if there wasn’t a previous work. There’s nothing wrong with writing crossovers or adaptions as long as you add your own unique spin on things (because again, if you wanted to read the original, you’d read the original). There’s some fantastic fics out there which are based on films and games, but also lots of rubbish ones where lazy writers just do a cut-and-paste job with a few names.
There is something wrong with the idea of a sequel where you need to have read the original. That’s not a sequel, that’s another chapter. Even the most incompetent writer can reintroduce concepts (after all, the concepts were introduced for a first time!). There should be no occasion where a sequel cannot also stand alone. It’s also against the rules of the site to upload new chapters as new stories. If you find yourself writing the words “You need to read story XXX before you can begin to understand this one”, then you’re doing it wrong.
The same goes for readers too. Don’t just randomly mash the upvote/favourite buttons because you see a story that is a sequel to one you like, or is an adaption of your favourite film. Read it first, judge it on its own merits. ‘My Roommate is a Potplant’ might actually be written by an insane clown who lives on a graveyard and posts to fimfic by shouting “BEEP” down a phone loudly; just because it’s a sequel to something you like doesn’t automatically make it good!
Don’t lower your standards. Just because something is a sequel doesn’t mean it needs to be a boring retread. Silence of the Lambs is a sequel! The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is a sequel! They can stand on their own two feet! There wasn’t an announcement at the beginning of Wrath of Khan telling everyone to leave and watch Star Trek the Motion Picture before they were allowed to see that one!
Again, yes, I know it’s only fanfiction. But let’s have a bit more originality and effort put into things, on all sides. A story needs to have a reason for existing, and if that reason is “I want to get lots of hits with zero effort,” then you’re doing it wrong and you’ve become the Hollywood sequel-churning machine which you all hate.
Let’s do it right!
TL;DR: If you’re going to write a sequel, make sure it has a reason for existing beyond “I want to do exactly the same thing again”.
This blog is longer than a lot of chapters/stories. You're TL;DR edition saved me after floundering at the 1/3 mark or so.
But you're right, so very right. Excuse me whilst I write - Life and Times of My Roomate's X Pony 2
...disclaimer! ( they're good stories by and large dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Lyra2.png )
Well said.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is the LAST movie of the Dollars trilogy.
A example of a good sequel would be Where Loyalties Lie: Ghosts of the Past. It tells the continuing story of Rainbow Dash's 'life', the Honor Guard, intrigue, betrayal, that sorta stuff. It is sort of like what 'The Two Towers' was to 'The Fellowship Of the Ring'. They tell the same tale, but different stories.
*cough cough* Spike's X *cough cough*
Also, gah! I won't be able to see The Hobbit for another two weeks or so. Damn Christmas...
621845
It's still a sequel though! (I refuse to use the word 'threequel', it's awful)
621851People actually say threequel?
It is the second sequel.
What he said!
I didn't even notice the doc until you said it was him
i love it so much more now
621854
They do, generally the 'hip' media
Well, I have to say it is all true, including the parts about the Hobbit being awesome. (Felt like a movie about Gandolf being a bad ass), which was fine for me.
Yes originality is important and often falls flat to what is safe and popular. It is such a shame.
621862
621860The 7th Doctor to be exact. When Radagast was leading the Orc Hunting Pack around through the hills and inadvertently led them to the questers, I was like "Doctor! Wat r u doing! Bad Doctor! Stahp.
The more I see trends like this, the more I feel like a significant portion of the writers on this site don't want to write, they just want to be famous. They want to have a famous screenname on a website for pony stories.
I can understand the burning desire to have your stuff read and known and commented on, but what's the point of any of that if it's not your stuff really? What's the point of taking time out of your day to rewrite other people's stories almost verbatim? It can't be very fun, and you could spend that time doing so many other more enjoyable/useful things.
Popularity is nice, but you shouldn't write for it. Even if you don't get many readers (and you won't, at first, but with effort and patience and a good lot of writing you will build up a readerbase) what's important is that you're spending your free time writing things that you enjoy writing about, and things that matter to you. Ultimately, you'll look back on times you had fun more fondly than times you got one word comments directed at you by a bunch of guys on the internet.
On the subject of writing and writers you have a lot of sense.
I really like reading these blogs, they remind me that it is important to stay criticly but never to forget to be helpful for the ones who need it.
I'm really sick of this excuse. Peter Jackson's The Hobbit is a bad adaptation and a bad movie. The changes that he made so that there could be three Hobbit movies have taken away from what the story is about. The story is no longer about Bilbo, it's about Tolkien-verse. And just makes me want to go home and read his books instead.
If you don't believe me, watch these videos and then compare the book with the movie. You'll quickly see where the film went wrong.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to remember Peter Jackson as the genius who gave us this:
621946
I enjoyed it, and my friends who went with me enjoyed it (and they hadn't read The Hobbit) so it can't be that bad!
When it comes to adapting a book to the cinema, I'm willing to allow a lot of give. After all, the demands of a novel are far different than those of a book (and if I wanted to read the book, I'd read the book). V For Vendetta, for instance, I didn't like the original that much, LOVED the film.
sadly enough, those are some of th' biggest stories on this site.
‘My Roommate is a Small Village in the Algarve'
wat? I can't figure out which fic this is making fun of.
621961
I really feel that the changes they made weren't justified and they certainly did not make it a better movie. From the moment that the movie started I knew something was wrong. Then they took out the part where Bilbo is supposed to resist the call to adventure; it was a little thing, I know, but it made the story more human and relate-able. And later when they gave extra special attention to showing the ring fall to the cave floor, I knew that the movie had different priorities than the book.
622009
Well, to be fair, Tolkien himself rewrote part of the Hobbit to add extra emphasis to the ring! And Bilbo did an awful lot of call-to-adventure resisting! It has been a while since I've read the Hobbit, mind!
blueshift this blog post is longer than the story I posted yesterday
can you write a copypaste blog-sequel called "holy shit I can't believe all you guys just skimmed over this last time"
622024
I will just keep reposting but changing character names until it sinks in
"My Roommate is a potplant" sounds like an pleasant postmodern parody of pony-related prose.7
621973 It's "My Roommate is a Vampire"
622009 You have to remember that there are different versions of the book. There is the original one written by Tolkien, and there are the newer edited versions to cater to older readers. Originally Tolkien wrote The Hobbit for his children, that is why it feels more lighthearted than his other books.
621961
>not liking the original V for Vendetta
622070
I really didn't like it the first time I read it, I liked it a lot more when I read it the other week, but I feel that the film version is far better. Usually it's the other way round with Alan Moore stories, but V for Vendetta is the exception, I feel.
kepfeltoltes.hu/121217/clown_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.jpg
Why do you hate him?
I don't think "it's just fanfiction" is really an excuse for anything, and certainly not for half the tripe we see. Literature is art, and compromising artistic merit simply because it's based upon something else isn't right.
Um...no comment?
621826 Agreed.
Oh, man, Blueshift. This was one of the best blarghs I've read on FiMFiction! Very well said, great ideas all around. You even improved my opinion on the Hobbit film (which I was very impressed with, but didn't particularly love).
Thanks very much for writing this. I've had a lot of the same qualms bubbling under my lungs for a while, but I didn't have the British charm or LotR trivia necessary to bring it forth.
And I can take this seriously because I love your work! You definitely know what you're doing. I hope many people choose to be influenced by these words of wisdom. Arrivederci!
Just to play devil's advocate... Originality is a tricky thing. There's a lot of people who think that by writing fanfiction we're being too unoriginal. It seems to be hard to know where to draw the line. Is something original if it avoids tropes? But tropes are the structure of literature; they give the reader a reference frame. Besides, for every one you avoid, you're invoking another. Is something original if it's thematically different from its predecessor? But many readers say that their favourite sort of fic is those that feel like the show, and people do go into sequels expecting similar things to the prequel -- that's why they expect to like it.
Anyway. On topic (because this is what the topic really is):
I would totally read 'My Roommate is a Small Village in the Algarve'. You'd better be writing it, Blueshift.
Words of wisdom are spoken strongly in this blog post. Also, you have now convinced me to see the Hobbit. Usually I don't do this because I'm one of those cynics of movies based off of books. The original Lord Of the Rings was pretty good in my opinion, so I believe the Hobbit will live up to that merit. But I still do believe the books are better
.
Thank you so much for mentioning that sequel thing. Sick and tired of seeing that cut and paste formula used over and over again just to get readers. Do something original, out of the box, unexpected! Even with a crossover this can be done by choosing a crossover subject that has never been used before. Step off the beaten track and rush haphazardly into the forest of originality, and poison ivy (okay, its mostly poison ivy, so bring ointment).
Augh the Radagast stuff was so unnecessary it hurt. That entire third plotline should have been excised since 1. it didn't add much to the film 2. It wrecked the plot and pacing and 3. Most of it was just Peter Jackson improvising and not derived from the text.
622816
Yes but 4: Best Doctor Who
There's enough depth to avoid sequelitis.
But the only point at which I might be inclined to disagree is when you get a wonderful world built up and it would be a shame to not explore it further.
Just like the Silamarillion is totally unnecessary to the enjoyment of LotR, it's worth reading because it enlivens the world and gives interesting perspective on the things that have already been written.
tl;dr
but sure.
Also, make sure not to add 50 new chapters and drag your ending out because you want to keep riding the wave you're on.
Originality? on fimfiction? good luck with that.
622193 MOTHER OF SOLARIS
HE DOES EXZIST
>But come on, have some class!//
Haahahahahahaha.
There is just so much truth in this that I feel compelled to go shout it around the mountains.
I agree with most except one point - that a sequel that presumes one has read the original is just another chapter; if one tries to leap into basically any High Fantasy series midway through, you are going to be missing oodles of material. I suppose you -could- read A Song of Ice & Fire by picking up in book 3 or 4, but you'd be pretty lost without starting off with AGoT.
Same with wheel of Time. Lord of the Rings is in a special place since one can argue its all one tale in 3 volumes.
Heck, take some of the classics - trying to read Foundation's Edge or Foundation & Earth without having read the preceding books will leave you lost. Or leaping into Dune partway through. There's plenty of major sequels that don't hold up nearly so well if you try to read them without the preceding books first.
624292
This is partly true, but a lot of that is down to the problems of publishing stories. Yes, there are sprawling fantasy novels, but what's the alternative? Having a gigantic 3,000 page book published? Waiting ten years for the book to get published? Being able to whack something up online chapter by chapter changes the gameplan immensely. You don't get the excuse 'oh it will make my book too big' or 'I don't want to wait til the whole thing is finished before I publish it'.
Also fun fact: the original Foundation 'trilogy' was a published collection of eight of Asimov's short stories. Even the later ones did a pretty good job of recapping what the stories were about though. At the end of the day it wasn't a tricky concept to get your head around. (The only bit that confused me was when Asimov decided to make Foundation and Earth into a Robots crossover
)
623081
Oh god yes I forgot that. Have you written a popular one-shot? KEEP ADDING CHAPTERS!
624518
Or even a popular multichapter fic? I know! Instead of ending, we'll go on a side quest.
Personally I think there can be good reasons for dividing stories even if they do only make much sense in sequence. For example I switch main characters each story so it's a big change. The change from say Pinkie's perspective to Twilight's since I write in first pony is a big one. On the other hoof I always planned on making it episodic, and always labeled them as such so maybe it doesn't apply. It sure doesn't apply to making sequels due to popularity. Something has to be popular for that.
624517
Asimov had a peculiar way of writing, but I would counter with this - I read the Foundation series in Chronological order in-universe. I started with Prelude. A whole heckuva lot of stuff in Prelude & Forward ended up being rather confusing because of it, because looking back it was clear that if not intentionally, implicitly there was a bit of an assumption one had read at least Foundation, and probably far further. Eventually, it all came together, but!
Which is not to say it's not a goal with striving for. I'm fairly certain one could start with most Harry Potter novels in isolation and be alright. However, I merely contend that it's not necessarily -bad- writing to create a sequel that assumes the reader has read that which came before.
625053
Oh god, Prelude to Foundation. A book about an elderly mathematical genius and his super hot robot ninja girlfriend.
Self-insert fiction if ever I saw it!
EDIT: Or was that Forward the Foundation? They blur into one!
javascript:void(0);625127
It's been years since I've read either, but Forward is the one you are thinking of. I suppose I can see the criticism there. Never really thought about that.
Sorry for commenting on an old blog, but I just noticed this :
I take issue with that and here's why:
You brought up the Lord of the Rings trilogy in your blog. And, well, you should spot the issue right about now. See that word there? It's "trilogy." That means there are three books to tell one story. Three stories in one. You can't read The Two Towers and expect to know what's going on. The Fellowship of the Ring is required reading. But you just said that was doing it wrong. That's how many series work in the published world. You need to read book 1 before book 2. Why shouldn't the same concept work for fanfiction?
786248
Because books are physical objects and have size limitations. They also have temporal limitations. Publishing chunks of a book at the time could be seen as akin to publishing individual chapters at a time, so people can read the story as it progresses and the author has got a big chunk out. The difference being of course, when a book is printed, that's it. An online fic can be constantly added to with no size limitations.
786279
A fair point, but then there's the issue of massive word counts. If there's a story that gets regular updates with a word count of well over 300k, it's gonna be tough to attract new readers. They're gonna be intimidated.by the constant updates and massive word count. However, if it was instead a brand new third story in the series, with the first and second coming in at roughly 150k words each, it'd be easier to attract new readers. There may not be an actual size limit here, but there is a point where it makes more sense to make it a trilogy in order to bring in readers.