What a year, a lot of crazy stuff happened. A lot of very, shall we say divisive, shows and films came out and I want to take some time to reflect on it all a bit.
The biggest fantasy and sci-fi shows of the year, or at least the shows that gained the most attention, failed to deliver and lots of people had lots of opinions on who or what was to blame. Yet this was a continuing trend from the past several years and thus deserves far more than a small blip here BUT I will provide my brief opinion on this. The writers, producers, directors and studios are to blame. They failed to create a product that had the mass appeal they believed. The audience is the market and if the market does not like your product, then the product does not provide what the market is looking for. Primarily this issue arises when some studio attempts some adaptation of some pre-established franchise. I firmly believe the reasons for this come down to a simple idea that there is a large audience base already present, the studio sees the adaptation as a safe bet thanks to this existing audience. The writers for these shows, however, all seem to have little writing experience and show signs of gross arrogance believing they can show the story better than the original author. Ultimately this leads to that existing fan base looking at the presented product with a highly critical eye, as too many changes will alter the story to something unrecognizable. That is a very simple breakdown of the topic and I will at some point provide a much more detailed discussion on the topic. At some point in January I will release my thoughts on the idea of what makes an adaptation in full using examples and demonstrations.
This idea of forgetting the pre-existing audience base is something that Wizards of the Coast should really learn from as they seem determined to alter both the business strategy of their main products (Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering) but also to alter their IPs into unrecognizable forms from those that gained the company such levels of success.
It was a tumultuous year personally for me, issues with my university and my program leading me to have to take a couple terms off. Plus the challenges of needing to translate several full texts that have not been worked on before occupied a lot of time and resources. Family issues in terms of drama and health crises abounded throughout the year that took more time and energy to resolve. My writers circle ended in an anticlimactic fizzle as the other members seemed to loose any and all desire to pursue writing.
It has not been an entirely bad year, especially on the personal front. I have recruited a new writers circle which shall start in the new year. And despite the lack of progress on the MA there has been much progress on several of my own pieces of fiction, a couple of which are getting close to seeking out publication. I have also worked on several rule sets for table top games, a couple rule sets for a Table Top RPG and a couple rule sets for miniature skirmish games. These games will lead to a new section on this site at some point in the year GadFlyGaming, or some such other name.
This whole debacle has given me George R.R. Martin syndrome. Far too many projects to work on to get any real progress done. As a consequence of this, or maybe as a cure, I have had to cut particular projects, let some stagnate and others stashed away in a secure place to be worked on at a later date. This whole blog/website has been one of those unfortunate projects to be set aside but I do still have multiple articles have/mostly written. In the coming year you can look forward to the following topics: Adaptations – what makes a good adaptation and why does it seem so hard to do so, The Rule of Cool – how a table top role playing game concept has begun to infest and ruin storytelling, Masculinity in Fiction – exploring the depictions of the masculine archetypes from a variety of fictions, Prophecy – how revealing the story before hand works, and others as well.
Anyways, that’s it for now. God bless and Happy New Year to you all.
Gadfly Fiction 