Just did a post on Stephen King.
May. 29th, 2025 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matt_zimmerMentioned George R.R. Martin. Think I'll do a post on him.
I don't know if Martin is the worst writer I have ever read / watched. Davie E Kelley is contender. But I kind of hate Martin for the same reasons.
The fact that he is as bad as he is and gets all the acclaim and fans.
In fairness to Kelley, critics have taken a second look at his earlier work and pretty much now believe what I did all along: It's shit. David E Kelley will never be nominated for another Emmy ever again, much less win a bunch of them. Tastes have evolved enough that people finally agree with me about this. He is past his sell-by date, and nobody is buying his bullshit anymore.
Nobody has dragged Martin enough though. His work is considered seminal (still) and any failings of the Game Of Thrones franchise seem to always be blamed on the showrunners of the adaptations.
Martin is the actual problem.
If you have never read A Dance With Dragons, I envy you. People were in an uproar over the Sansa Stark rape scene on Game Of Thrones, but the truth is the producers both greatly improved the scene and also sanitized it. Because they understood very well, fans or mainstream critics aren't gonna bother reading five books the way they followed the show, and showing that exact scene with Jeyne Poole verbatim would lose them ALL of the female fans, and MANY of the non-turdy male ones.
In my opinion, the rape scene of Jeyne Poole is the very worst thing I have ever read. It is the worst thing I have ever seen a professional writer write. The thing Ramsey says to Theon is SO disgusting I nearly threw the book across the room in anger. And it's played like a quip.
I said to myself "This guy still goes out in public. To fan conventions. And for some reason people ask for his autograph instead of throwing tomatoes at his gross ass." Reading that line makes me realize Martin would probably feel more at home than he does at conventions on the sex offender registry.
This sociopath "shared" that part of himself with the world and actually dares to still show his face in public like he's an author instead of a psychopath. How could anyone do that?
Not convinced?
Sure, Matt, ANY author can write a disgusting, unforgivable scene. You are as much of a hate-critic of Stephen King as a fan (to use a recent example). How can you define a writer by one scene, specifically one line?
Fine. Let's assume you are right and I give him a mulligan for it. But that's not the only reason he's a bad writer. And it might be a bit hard to describe why. But he's a bad writer because he doesn't remotely understand the craft, or how to do it correctly. You want to know why those last two Song of Ice and Fire books haven't been written and WILL never be written? Because Martin wrote himself into a corner there is absolutely NO way out of. Not with the huge cast of characters he has.
I read the first book, A Game Of Thrones, saw the impossible lift he gave himself, and wondered in curiosity how he'd pull something like this off. But Will Forte made The Last Man On Earth work week to week, and Martin was beloved, so I assumed the major flaw of the franchise wouldn't wind up hindering things too much. It did. It killed the franchise. I'm convinced it's why Martin can't finish the books.
It's each damn chapter being told by the perspective of a different character and going back and forth, often not getting updates about the fixes the characters found themselves in for a hundred pages at a time, ESPECIALLY in the later books. Making each chapter from the viewpoint of a different character was never going to work, but it would not have destroyed itself the way it did if he hadn't decided to completely up the number of characters given these viewpoint chapters to ridiculous levels.
I often quipped that people always die on Game Of Thrones because the writers write the hero into a big dramatic corner, and there is no other way out. It's a sign of writing weakness. And that's exactly what each viewpoint chapter in the last two books leading to tragedy / a maddening cliffhanger were like.
We often don't even know if the viewpoint chapter person actually SURVIVES the chapter, because it ONLY being from their viewpoint means the chapter is immediately over once they've been knocked out. And we have no way of knowing if they've just been killed. It's an idiotic way to tell a story.
Eventually things got SO bad because he CAN'T write his way out of the horrible cliffhangers of the viewpoint chapters in that last book. THAT'S why he'll never complete the saga. Because he had a brilliant new literary IDEA, by God, that was gonna change the way fiction is written for years to come, and never questioned his own genius, which is something you HAVE to do when you actually come up with a new trope. I bet The Un-Iverse's Narrator has kept me up more nights than Martin's Perspective Chapters did until he just fucking bailed. Because I knew what a fucking risk the Narrator was in being a kind of behind the scenes documentarian AS the story was occurring. But I thought of all the ways it MIGHT not work, and found workarounds. The irony? Nobody will ever copy the Narrator, despite it being a new way to tell a story, because very few people will read Gilda And Meek. And even fewer people will actually like it. The fact that it works is a secret very few people will actually know. I'm okay with that.
Martin decided to try an experiment writers never tried before. And locked himself into disaster. Forget the Jeyne Poole scene. Martin is a bad writer because he doesn't understand how writing works.
He's publicly complaining that House Of The Dragon apparently toned down a scene involving characters named "Blood And Cheese" (I'm not making that up) who apparently killed a baby when his mother was forced to choose him or his brother and she chose the brother.
First of all, that's just what fiction needs more of. Baby murder. But Martin, despite cutting his teeth on television, apparently has no idea that there are limits to what you can and can't do with child actors, especially on TV, especially on a budget. For something like that, compromises need to be made. Also needed to be taken into consideration is that TV watchers are usually more general audiences than hardcore bookworms, and their tolerance for horrible shit is MUCH lower. Probably because SEEING the horrible shit is far worse than reading it.
He similarly is outraged that in battle scenes on Game of Thrones the heroes don't wear helmets. It's because if they do, we can't tell who is fighting who! This common sense reason never occurs to him. Despite getting his start on television.
No, Martin is a bad writer on every level you can think of. What he is is a good con artist. He's actually convinced people the perspective chapter thing was a gamechanger in modern fiction instead of the idiotic thing that killed off his own damn franchise.
I am not a writing expert. I never went to college, and there are multiple typos and spelling errors in my work (which I have insanely made canon). But my advice for any writer not sure of what to do going forward?
Look at what George R.R. Martin has done. Don't do ANY of that. Do the opposite. Trust me, you'll be better than the most beloved modern fantasy writer in no time once you do that.
I don't know if Martin is the worst writer I have ever read / watched. Davie E Kelley is contender. But I kind of hate Martin for the same reasons.
The fact that he is as bad as he is and gets all the acclaim and fans.
In fairness to Kelley, critics have taken a second look at his earlier work and pretty much now believe what I did all along: It's shit. David E Kelley will never be nominated for another Emmy ever again, much less win a bunch of them. Tastes have evolved enough that people finally agree with me about this. He is past his sell-by date, and nobody is buying his bullshit anymore.
Nobody has dragged Martin enough though. His work is considered seminal (still) and any failings of the Game Of Thrones franchise seem to always be blamed on the showrunners of the adaptations.
Martin is the actual problem.
If you have never read A Dance With Dragons, I envy you. People were in an uproar over the Sansa Stark rape scene on Game Of Thrones, but the truth is the producers both greatly improved the scene and also sanitized it. Because they understood very well, fans or mainstream critics aren't gonna bother reading five books the way they followed the show, and showing that exact scene with Jeyne Poole verbatim would lose them ALL of the female fans, and MANY of the non-turdy male ones.
In my opinion, the rape scene of Jeyne Poole is the very worst thing I have ever read. It is the worst thing I have ever seen a professional writer write. The thing Ramsey says to Theon is SO disgusting I nearly threw the book across the room in anger. And it's played like a quip.
I said to myself "This guy still goes out in public. To fan conventions. And for some reason people ask for his autograph instead of throwing tomatoes at his gross ass." Reading that line makes me realize Martin would probably feel more at home than he does at conventions on the sex offender registry.
This sociopath "shared" that part of himself with the world and actually dares to still show his face in public like he's an author instead of a psychopath. How could anyone do that?
Not convinced?
Sure, Matt, ANY author can write a disgusting, unforgivable scene. You are as much of a hate-critic of Stephen King as a fan (to use a recent example). How can you define a writer by one scene, specifically one line?
Fine. Let's assume you are right and I give him a mulligan for it. But that's not the only reason he's a bad writer. And it might be a bit hard to describe why. But he's a bad writer because he doesn't remotely understand the craft, or how to do it correctly. You want to know why those last two Song of Ice and Fire books haven't been written and WILL never be written? Because Martin wrote himself into a corner there is absolutely NO way out of. Not with the huge cast of characters he has.
I read the first book, A Game Of Thrones, saw the impossible lift he gave himself, and wondered in curiosity how he'd pull something like this off. But Will Forte made The Last Man On Earth work week to week, and Martin was beloved, so I assumed the major flaw of the franchise wouldn't wind up hindering things too much. It did. It killed the franchise. I'm convinced it's why Martin can't finish the books.
It's each damn chapter being told by the perspective of a different character and going back and forth, often not getting updates about the fixes the characters found themselves in for a hundred pages at a time, ESPECIALLY in the later books. Making each chapter from the viewpoint of a different character was never going to work, but it would not have destroyed itself the way it did if he hadn't decided to completely up the number of characters given these viewpoint chapters to ridiculous levels.
I often quipped that people always die on Game Of Thrones because the writers write the hero into a big dramatic corner, and there is no other way out. It's a sign of writing weakness. And that's exactly what each viewpoint chapter in the last two books leading to tragedy / a maddening cliffhanger were like.
We often don't even know if the viewpoint chapter person actually SURVIVES the chapter, because it ONLY being from their viewpoint means the chapter is immediately over once they've been knocked out. And we have no way of knowing if they've just been killed. It's an idiotic way to tell a story.
Eventually things got SO bad because he CAN'T write his way out of the horrible cliffhangers of the viewpoint chapters in that last book. THAT'S why he'll never complete the saga. Because he had a brilliant new literary IDEA, by God, that was gonna change the way fiction is written for years to come, and never questioned his own genius, which is something you HAVE to do when you actually come up with a new trope. I bet The Un-Iverse's Narrator has kept me up more nights than Martin's Perspective Chapters did until he just fucking bailed. Because I knew what a fucking risk the Narrator was in being a kind of behind the scenes documentarian AS the story was occurring. But I thought of all the ways it MIGHT not work, and found workarounds. The irony? Nobody will ever copy the Narrator, despite it being a new way to tell a story, because very few people will read Gilda And Meek. And even fewer people will actually like it. The fact that it works is a secret very few people will actually know. I'm okay with that.
Martin decided to try an experiment writers never tried before. And locked himself into disaster. Forget the Jeyne Poole scene. Martin is a bad writer because he doesn't understand how writing works.
He's publicly complaining that House Of The Dragon apparently toned down a scene involving characters named "Blood And Cheese" (I'm not making that up) who apparently killed a baby when his mother was forced to choose him or his brother and she chose the brother.
First of all, that's just what fiction needs more of. Baby murder. But Martin, despite cutting his teeth on television, apparently has no idea that there are limits to what you can and can't do with child actors, especially on TV, especially on a budget. For something like that, compromises need to be made. Also needed to be taken into consideration is that TV watchers are usually more general audiences than hardcore bookworms, and their tolerance for horrible shit is MUCH lower. Probably because SEEING the horrible shit is far worse than reading it.
He similarly is outraged that in battle scenes on Game of Thrones the heroes don't wear helmets. It's because if they do, we can't tell who is fighting who! This common sense reason never occurs to him. Despite getting his start on television.
No, Martin is a bad writer on every level you can think of. What he is is a good con artist. He's actually convinced people the perspective chapter thing was a gamechanger in modern fiction instead of the idiotic thing that killed off his own damn franchise.
I am not a writing expert. I never went to college, and there are multiple typos and spelling errors in my work (which I have insanely made canon). But my advice for any writer not sure of what to do going forward?
Look at what George R.R. Martin has done. Don't do ANY of that. Do the opposite. Trust me, you'll be better than the most beloved modern fantasy writer in no time once you do that.
