sperg about normal books here - it's like the comic books thread but without the pretty pictures

[liam dees]

Which brings me to some pieces of advice. For whatever art you are making look and find the best examples in that ecosystem and dissect and analyze what makes them great and try to learn from them. This will sadly ruin some of your enjoyment of those things, but in order to perform an autopsy you need a corpse and if you truly want to be an artist you will sacrifice some your enjoyment to make yourself better.

The other thing is you need to do is practice a lot. There are many many people that want to be artists and who work really hard and you need to beat nearly all of them. This means you need to make a lot of art. You need to constantly keep practicing for years or possibly even decades before you'll get good and certainly before you get great.

Golden advice, thank you Napoleon III!

 

[OrangeJuliusEvola]

I want to ask a potentially retarded question (Screw it this is totally retarded):

How? How do words on a page stick with people this much? And how do I, an aspiring artist hope to do the same with images? What abstraction of experience must I grasp totally to create an impactful story?

Bro, if you're looking at prose to try to figure out how to become an impactful comic storyteller, you're looking in the wrong direction.

Read a fuck ton of comics. Even ones outside the genres of your particular interest. The ones that stick with you storywise, go back to and read again. Then read it again, analyzing the elements of the story, dialogue and characters *and* the art and layout, and how it all hangs together. Apply you understanding to your own work. That should work a bit more in that regard.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

Have you gotten to the one that is about the mule and if so what do you think.

not yet, though i think im on that book now, but i havent reached that point in it

 

[soft breathing]

Convenience Store Woman is a fun read. It is absurd and humorous. The protagonist might be on the spectrum allegedly but its a fun weird read regardless. Also the cover is based.

If you liked the style of that book, you might also like "Earthlings" written by the same author or the novels written by Hiroko Oyamada.

 

[trekkor]

I recently read Earth Abides and it's one of the best post-apocalypse stories I've ever read. Very thoughtful portrayal of the difficulties in rebuilding civilization and if it would even be possible in modern times. Stewart's writing is incredibly engaging, he doesn't waste a single line and has a great sense of pace. Highly recommend, especially if you want something in the genre that is more slow moving and doesn't focus on violent conflicts.

I recently finished the Ring trilogy by Koji Suzuki, which includes the eponymous Ring, Spiral and Loop. It's one of the best and most bizarre trilogies I've ever read, given how it starts and where it ends up.

That series is wild in the sense that the genre shift is really surprising, though maybe not? The movies have really colored how we (and I hope it's "we" and not just me alone) view the overall story and at no point was I ready for the books to eventually end up as pretty much sci-fi instead of the expected horror. Though I guess with the first book putting a lot of emphasis on the idea of Sadako transferring her anger into technology, it was maybe logical to move towards the sci-fi angle. Interesting series still.

Someone already mentioned Birthday, which is a quick little read, but there's also a 5th book (or 4th, technically, since Birthday is a collection) called S (or sometimes Es:S). It more or less completely wraps up the entire series. Physical copies are hard as fuck to find at a decent price, but it's probably available somewhere online. There's also a 6th(5th) book that's a direct follow-up to Loop called Tide, but I understand it's never been translated into English. Some comment I saw on Reddit claimed the reception to S was mild, so they didn't bother translating the last book in the franchise.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

@Napoleon III

I’d argue the Hero’s journey is just an overly broad way of describing almost every dynamic story ever. You can pick out a character in any paragraph story and you have one typically.

 

[holyhandgrenade]

I've been fooled by Brandon Sanderson twice. Mistborn started out interesting and then got really fucking gay, then I was like Steelheart sounds interesting also let's check that out. Turns out the ending is either as bad or slightly worse than the ending to The Dark Tower series.

 

[the grey cat]

any good recommendations for a good book? want to kill some time by reading a book.

 

[Napoleon III]

I’d argue the Hero’s journey is just an overly broad way of describing almost every dynamic story ever. You can pick out a character in any paragraph story and you have one typically.

Sort of yes. And this is why Formulas are bad and you shouldn't use them. But this is a little like saying since all skeletons for all vertebrates are extremely similar skeletons don't actually exist. I use this metaphor because those broad overarching stories are the skeleton to a good piece of art.

 

[Oliver Onions]

That series is wild in the sense that the genre shift is really surprising, though maybe not? The movies have really colored how we (and I hope it's "we" and not just me alone) view the overall story and at no point was I ready for the books to eventually end up as pretty much sci-fi instead of the expected horror. Though I guess with the first book putting a lot of emphasis on the idea of Sadako transferring her anger into technology, it was maybe logical to move towards the sci-fi angle. Interesting series still.

Yeah I think the movies are responsible for general perception, I don't know if it was just the translation but I don't think there's any mention in the first movie about Sadako's curse actually being a tuberculosis mutation. The adaptation of Spiral flopping probably didn't help, causing them to abandon the original storyline in favour of Ring 2/0 which were just more spooky ghost lady. Although from what I recall Ring 0 is at least loosely based around the short story from Birthday about the acting troupe.

I think it's too bad, because personally I really like the Spiral movie, although it's less spooky and more existential, but they never could have adapted Loop any way since the big twist near the end hinges on something you can't really get around in a visual medium.

 

[McMitch]

I just finished reading The King in Yellow and I was a little surprised by the couple stories that have seemingly no connection to the play at all, other than being set in France among an artistic crowd.
The state funded suicide chamber was a bit surprising, being in NYC rather than Canada, but it was written at the turn of the 20th century.

Most things in that first story should be taken through the lense that the main character’s perception has been negatively impacted by a previous severe brain injury.

I was really into Michael Crichton’s novels when I was in middle school. Sphere still holds up as his best I think.

Jurassic Park is his best.

 

[2LtMashengo]

Most things in that first story should be taken through the lense that

I'll go back and reread it, though the lethal chamber didn't strike me as the product of a schizo brain like the crown, genealogy etc.; there was actually potential for something like that to exist at the time. Within Chambers' lifetime there were eugenics organizations agitating for (and secretly engaging in) the forced euthanization of the mentally ill, so the voluntary suicide chamber seems like something someone might actually propose as a compromise. The nationwide aspect definitely seems schizo, but New York was the east coast hub of eugenics, where California filled that role in the west.

 

[Local FloRida-man]

I was in the mood for some gothic horror and decided to read Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It starts out interesting, even if the twist is obvious, and the way everything collapses at the end is certainly interesting. That said the scariest part of the book is that I get the feeling Jackson sympathizes a little too much with Merricat... which rubs off on whoever keeps making the movie adaptations into thinly veiled feminist/lesbian analogies.

If anyone has any gothic horror recommendations I'm all ears. Nothing with vampires though, because those are for homos.

 

[Jason Wynn]

I was in the mood for some gothic horror and decided to read Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It starts out interesting, even if the twist is obvious, and the way everything collapses at the end is certainly interesting. That said the scariest part of the book is that I get the feeling Jackson sympathizes a little too much with Merricat... which rubs off on whoever keeps making the movie adaptations into thinly veiled feminist/lesbian analogies.

If anyone has any gothic horror recommendations I'm all ears. Nothing with vampires though, because those are for homos.

If you don’t mind Southern Gothic, Flannery O’Connor wrote some excellent short stories. Faulkner and Tennessee Williams are good as well.

If you want old school gothic, Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto is the granddaddy of gothic fiction.

 

[Local FloRida-man]

If you don’t mind Southern Gothic, Flannery O’Connor wrote some excellent short stories. Faulkner and Tennessee Williams are good as well.

If you want old school gothic, Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto is the granddaddy of gothic fiction.

Thanks, havent read much southern gothic sadly but I'll give Flannery O'Connor and Tennessee Williams a shot. Otrantos been on the to do list for a while. Had to read quite a bit of Faulkner in college and wasn't much of a really a fan of his characters. I tried to read Turn of the Screw in HS, but man is that prose rough...

 

[Jason Wynn]

Thanks, havent read much southern gothic sadly but I'll give Flannery O'Connor and Tennessee Williams a shot. Otrantos been on the to do list for a while. Had to read quite a bit of Faulkner in college and wasn't much of a really a fan of his characters. I tried to read Turn of the Screw in HS, but man is that prose rough...

For O’Connor I would suggest her stories A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Good Country People to start with. If you like those, you’ll enjoy the rest of her work.

Tennessee Williams, obviously give Streetcar Named Desire a read but The Glass Menagerie is his best work I think.

Faulkner is an acquired taste, I get it. But if you ever decide to give him another try, The Sound and the Fury is amazing. Turn of the Screw is a bit dense to get into, but if you want a history of where gothic fiction really took off it’s an interesting curiosity.

One I forgot to mention as far as Southern Gothuc goes is V.C Andrews.

 

[WhatInTheActualFuck]

For O’Connor I would suggest her stories A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Good Country People to start with. If you like those, you’ll enjoy the rest of her work.

Tennessee Williams, obviously give Streetcar Named Desire a read but The Glass Menagerie is his best work I think.

Faulkner is an acquired taste, I get it. But if you ever decide to give him another try, The Sound and the Fury is amazing. Turn of the Screw is a bit dense to get into, but if you want a history of where gothic fiction really took off it’s an interesting curiosity.

One I forgot to mention as far as Southern Gothuc goes is V.C Andrews.

Wait. Flowers in the Attic V.C. Andrews?

 

[Jason Wynn]

Wait. Flowers in the Attic V.C. Andrews?

Yeah, I actually had Flowers in the Attic in mind as my recommended novel by her.

Eerie secluded home, dysfunctional family, shameful disturbing secrets, abuse. It’s pulpy fiction for sure but very much in line with southern gothic

And the incest. Man that woman loved that trope.

 

[WhatInTheActualFuck]

Yeah, I actually had Flowers in the Attic in mind as my recommended novel by her.

Eerie secluded home, dysfunctional family, shameful disturbing secrets, abuse. It’s pulpy fiction for sure but very much in line with southern gothic

And the incest. Man that woman loved that trope.

No doubt. My mom was apparently a huge fan and as a kid that read literally every goddamned thing in the house, I read those books too. I hadn't thought about them for literal decades.

 

[Vecr]

How do you tell if a book is normal? Comic books obviously, manga, anything with too many illustrations, weird House of Leaves stuff. I assume it's a requirement that someone actually published the thing. My question is, how obvious does the book's basis on the author's mental breakdown have to be for it to no longer be considered normal?