L.B.: The Longest Day

Left Behind, pp. 227-308

The pattern in Left Behind is to skip back and forth between our dual heroes, so having just completed a scene with Buck, we're about to get to a Rayford scene. This is a common tactic in an story involving multiple protagonists and I don't think there's any one single way of doing this right.

There are, however, ways of doing this wrong, and this being LB, our authors have managed to find such a way.

By "wrong" I mean switching back and forth, arbitrarily and arrhythmically, in such a way that the reader is confused about when and where the action is taking place. These scenes do not need to follow a symmetrical, linear pattern, but if Mr. Smith is flying all over the world over the course of several months, then readers will be a bit confused if this account is interspersed with scenes of Mr. Jones in which he is always in his living room at 3 o'clock on Thursday.

Here's a rough timeline of the first full Monday of the Apocalypse:

1. Morning, Buck at JFK international arrivals (after a red-eye from Germany and breezing through customs with a fake passport).

2. Morning, Rayford & Chloe en route to O'Hare.

3. Morning, Buck & Steve at JFK and Central Park (trip from airport to midtown takes about 10 minutes).

4. Midday, Rayford & Chloe in Atlanta.

5. Afternoon, Buck & Steve at the U.N. for Nicolae's big speech.

6. "Rush hour late Monday afternoon," Rayford & Chloe touch down at O'Hare.

7. Afternoon, Buck & Steve at Nicolae's post-speech presser.

8. Evening, Rayford at home. He has driven from the airport to the suburbs, stopping for groceries on the way in less than an hour.

9. Evening, Buck & Steve at Buck's apartment.

10. Evening, Rayford & Chloe drive to the church, go shopping at Best Buy, and return home to talk to Hattie on the phone.

11. 11 p.m., Buck & Steve catch a cab to the Potters in time for Nightline at 11:30.

12. 11:30 p.m. in New York, 10:30 in Illinois, where Rayford & Chloe watch Nightline.

13. Tuesday, about 12:30 a.m., Buck & Steve at the Plaza.

14. Monday, about 11:30 p.m., Rayford & Chloe at home.

15. Tuesday, until about 1:30 a.m., Buck & Nicolae at the Plaza.

16. Monday into early Tuesday, Rayford & Chloe at home.

17. Tuesday, about 2 a.m., Buck returns to his apartment.

So that's 17 scenes played out over 81 pages, during which we have a half-dozen cab rides and phone calls, and we encounter law enforcement officials from four different agencies. But for all of that, surprisingly little happens.

The authors of novels don't have to worry about building sets for every scene, like they would if this were a movie, and they don't have to worry about scene changes, like they would if this were a play. Despite this luxury, it's still good for novelists to learn from the necessary economies of filmmakers and stage managers.

Several of the above scenes are redundant -- the sort of thing that wouldn't even pass muster as bonus material for a DVD. When looked at scene-by-scene in this way, it becomes clear that Left Behind is a published first draft. The authors didn't bother with any rewriting. They never even bothered with re-reading. Respect for craft and respect for your audience go hand in hand. Likewise, disrespect for craft and disrespect for your audience go hand in hand. The 81 pages outlined above ought to have been reduced to 40 or even 30 pages. It would have been easy.

Anyway, I needed to write out the timeline above for my own sake, to keep me from getting lost (like the authors did) in this Long Monday. Consider this one more entry in the vast catalogue of the many different ways in which Left Behind fails as a piece of writing.

Comments

[Izzy]

Re: Bujold, what other people have said. I love it, but each book is a separate story. Likewise Discworld.

Sandman, yeah, is a...whatever we're calling it these days. Which means it's shorter, and gets rid of the three-thousand-word descriptions of people we're never going to see again, Robert Jordan.

As far as Lackey goes, I really quite liked the Winds series, back when I was younger, or at least the first one. After that, I don't think I've been able to get into any of her Valdemar stuff. The Elemental-Magicians-in-Historical-Times series, on the other hand, is good trashy fun. (Although, really, "Reginald Fenyx?" *Must* we?)

[Helen]

Just wanted to second the comment about this being like a guide for young authors - it's certainly helped me think about my own writing. I wrote a story a few years ago in which some "engineers" (who conveniently do no engineering whatsoever) go back in time to the 1940s but despite it being during the Battle of Britain, absolutely nothing happens. The one plot twist consists of the discovery of aliens, because this would be more plausible, say, than a bomb landing or the "engineers" being taken for spies or something. LB makes me cringe similarly - they create a premise which should be thrillingly interesting, and make it practically dull. No one cares that Christians and children have vanished! People find UN trivia fascinating! Argh!
Took a look at the LB series in a bookshop recently and was amused to discover that most of the endorsements used neutral words like "Successful" or "popular" rather than "good", "exciting" etc. "Buy this book because other people have" rather than "buy this book because it is good."

[McJulie]

Sandman is a graphic novel first and foremost, no?"

Sandman is a comic book. COMIC BOOK. ...so why do we have to make up a new pretentious name for it...

No, Sandman was a series of comic books. Now, it is published as a series of graphic novels. Yes, it's the same material. But a comic book doesn't have a spine, and a graphic novel does.

Sure, some people use the term "graphic novel" as if it's some kind of quality marker, or descriptor of content, but that's mostly mainstream reporters who don't read comics anyway.

And, as far as storytelling goes, I think Sandman is more like a soap opera that broke the rules. It stepped into a field where perpetual storytelling was the expected norm -- where no series could ever really conclude the story, and end -- and it ended.

Anyway, I think the fact that somebody has to actually draw a comic automatically tends to protect it from the kind of endless noodling that pads out a words-only fantasy series.

Except Cerebus.

[Technocracygirl]

For the fans of Misty Lackey's original books (hey, I was a young teenager when I discovered Arrows and the S&S anthologies. What do you want?) I do recommend her recent-ish book about Alberich, Exile's Honor. Don't bother with the second one though. It just becomes the same blech that the rest of her recent stuff has been. Personally, I blame her husband. It just seemed like the more her husband got involved in the writing process, the more trite and tedious the books got.

[the opoponax]

"everybody knows a comic book is a magazine with sequential pictures, so why do we have to make up a new pretentious name for it because some people feel like they can't justify reading one?"

*ducks neatly out of the way of thrown acid, or shit, or whatever*

uhhhh, i didn't call Sandman a graphic novel because i'm a pretentious dickwad, i called it one because that's the format i thought it had originally been issued in. in fact *confession* i've never even read it. in fact, the reason i phrased my post in the form of a question was because, for all i knew, it had been a series of novels first after all and i was totally wrong on all counts.

jeez. chip on shoulder much?

[Jeff Weskamp]

Some of the above posts mentioned "world-building," so I thought I'd let you know about a fascinating and bizarre attempt at world-building that relies only upon visual artwork and no story at all!

In 1980, an Italian engineer and architect named Luigi Serafini produced a visual encyclopedia called the Codex Seraphinianus (inspired by the Voynich Manuscript). It describes an alien world where trees uproot themselves and swim across the sea, walking skeletons wear human skins to better blend into society, special plants grow into furniture, a man and woman having sex could possibly morph into a crocodile, etc. It is written in an unknown language and script, so all information must be conveyed through the artwork.

It is fascinating because no attempt is made to explain the strangeness of this unknown world. The strangeness is portrayed as absolutely normal. And that gives the Codex a haunting realism.

This website reproduces every page of the Codex:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cottoncandyhammer/sets/72157594263968563/

[the opoponax]

"walking skeletons wear human skins to better blend into society"

you know, if you think about it with the stoner part of your brain, this is what humans actually are.

[cjmr]

That, and "ugly bags of mostly water".

[Izunya]

Personally, I think part of the problem with Mercedes Lackey is that she likes her characters too much. It's a delicate balancing act, IMO. If you don't care about your characters at all, then they will make cardboard look three dimensional and wood look dynamic. (Like L&J.) But if you get too attached to them, then you might refuse to put them through hell. And if your characters don't have problems, then you don't have a story.

Izunya

[Hames]

I was under the impression, reading previous posts, that L&J are their own editors, remember that thing about how Jenkins (I think that's the "writer") writes 1,000 words in an afternoon, then rereads them the next morning, then goes on to the next 1,000 and never looks back.
I imagine the only contribution LeHaye (if that's the other guy. If not, switch the names as you read this) makes towards editing is to say "Come on, we need more UN trivia, and I don't think it's clear enough that Nicholae's in league with the Je... with the international bankers. And will you put a phone in there, for goodness sake it's been 25 pages since the last phone call!"
I actually do some Christian fiction writing myself, and as soon as I have enough free cash for envelopes, stamps and a copy of the Writers and Artists Yearbook, I'm going to work on getting them published. I find sometimes that I spend too much time on the same group and need to break it up, so I cut to the bad guys plotting. It's fun to write, and lets me drop hints about bad things still to come. And my Antichrist, in my humble opinion, is a lot better and more evil than Nick Pennines.
One last thing- I used to call comic books "graphic novels" all the time when I was a kid, to try and convince my mother to buy them for me, hoping she wouldn't realise she was buying me comics. Never worked.

[the opoponax]

"1,000 words in an afternoon, then rereads them the next morning, then goes on to the next 1,000 and never looks back."

yes. that's a drafting process.

usually, however, once you've done that long enough and actually gotten to the end of the thing, you then go back at some later point, re-read everything, and go through a process of extensive revisions until you're happy with the thing. this can take months, or even years. then, and only then, do you actually submit it to your editor, publisher, etc. at which point there is generally a whole nother round of revisions, which can go on for several more months, until gradually you are at the point where what you're going over is the typeset galley of what the book will actually look like.

what you don't do (but what it seems like Jenkins must do) is write that first draft, hit "spell check", then send it off to the publisher who has it directly typeset (or possibly read first by some total sycophant just to make sure there's nothing in there guaranteed to get them sued), at which point they skip to the part where you see whether you like the font and margins, look for typos, etc. there doesn't seem to be any revision process at all, not counting perhaps copy-editing (and even that is doubtful, because every page would have multiple suggestions from a copy editor about word choice, sentences being unclear, phrases constantly repeated, etc).

my understanding of LeHaye's involvement is that he's basically a name on the cover (Jenkins was a glorified ghost-writer before LB came out) and a sort of theological/scriptural advisor the way this probably came about for the first book is that LeHaye wrote out a detailed outline of Teh Endtimes Checklist for Jenkins, and was also there to answer questions about how this whole Apocalypse thing works, exactly. i imagine that as the books progressed and Jenkins became more familiar with all this stuff, LeHaye's role grew less and less. at this point, he probably does little or nothing aside from rubber-stamping the final proofs, doing press tours, and depositing his fat residual checks.

jeez. chip on shoulder much?

Oh yeah. There seems to be these assumptions in our culture about the hierarchy of story-telling media. It goes something like, plays are smarter than books are smarter than movies are smarter than television are smarter than Professional Wrestling is smarter than Letters to Penthouse are smarter than fanfiction is smarter than comic books are only slightly smarter than banging your head against a wall until you hallucinate. I've heard people who read any fantasy paperback that hits the shelves casually imply that people who read comic books are half retarded.

This relates to the discussion of ongoing series in that I encounter this attitude mostly (although not always) in people who have seen very few plays and read very few books. The more exposure you have to something, like an ongoing series, the more likely you are to encounter at least one episode that outright sucks. Even rabid Tolkien fans often have at least one part of the stories that they skip during their many fervent re-readings of the series.

As Left Behind proves, crap is crap no matter the medium.

[xaaronx]

No, Sandman was a series of comic books. Now, it is published as a series of graphic novels. Yes, it's the same material. But a comic book doesn't have a spine, and a graphic novel does.

Sure, some people use the term "graphic novel" as if it's some kind of quality marker, or descriptor of content, but that's mostly mainstream reporters who don't read comics anyway.

Though it runs counter to some market-driven current comics industry usage, I think that "trade paperback" or, better, "trade" is the best term for a collection of a serial collected into a bound volume of multiple issues. Some are truly graphic novels--Pride of Baghdad; 300; V for Vendetta--even though they were originally published in a monthly format and I find it entirely appropriate to use the term for them. Others are collections of story arcs from the serial publication, such as Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. Even series with an end in sight, such as Y: The Last Man, are not necessarily a graphic novel. I would, myself, place Sandman in this last category. Cerebus would also go here.

[cjmr]

*pauses from putting personal library into librarything (thank you, hapax)*

'trade paperback' is a kind of binding. 'Trade paperback' vs. 'mass-market paperback'. I actually have a couple of books in both 'trade' and 'mass-market' versions.

'Comic' and 'graphic novel' are genres (as far as I can tell, overlapping).

[Zingo Stertch]

I think some people imagine different things when you say 'comic' or 'graphic novel'. One is slightly immature and the other is "Pow! Bam! Not for kids anymore." Which seems like someone thinking a movie is something where big things blow up and cinema is where people look sullen in black and white. Me? I prefer 'bound piece of sequential art printed with ink on tree pulp’.

[MikailBorg]

Boy, do I get tired of hearing what lousy work Heinlein's later material was. Maybe he wasn't in top form at that point, but it's still better reading than almost anything you'll find in the SF shelves of Waldenbooks today.

And, darn it, I liked "Friday".

[McJulie]

I think that "trade paperback" or, better, "trade" is the best term for a collection of a serial collected into a bound volume of multiple issues.

But what about my Sandman collections that are hardbound?

"Graphic novel" is a term like genre terms, "horror" or "science fiction" -- it's for marketing purposes, and tells you mostly where to look for things in a bookstore.

Also, it tells people what to expect a little. If I rave on about this fabulous fantasy series Sandman that you *really do have to read* at some point I am probably going to mention that it is graphic -- drawn -- a comic -- something. I could say "it's a comic book" but there would be people who immediately pictured a single issue and would get confused. If I say, "series of graphic novels" I think the average person pictures the correct item.

It goes something like, plays are smarter than books are smarter than movies are smarter than television are smarter than Professional Wrestling is smarter than Letters to Penthouse are smarter than fanfiction is smarter than comic books are only slightly smarter than banging your head against a wall until you hallucinate.

Heeee.

Although, I'm not entirely sure you're right that plays are smarter than books -- as an English Lit major, I got the impression that plays, novels, short stories, poetry and essays -- as long as they were sufficiently "literary" in genre -- were considered roughly on par. (Although when it comes to plays, Shakespeare sort of wrecks the curve for everyone.)

Of course, the emphasis on literary-ness often meant that, unless the work was more than a hundred years old, anything too entertaining was right out. You know, fantasy is mindless tripe unless it's The Odyssy.

Even rabid Tolkien fans often have at least one part of the stories that they skip during their many fervent re-readings of the series.

I have read The Lord of the Rings, perhaps, twenty times, and each time I barely skim most of the poems and songs, except the funny one about trolls that Sam sings.

I have a friend who has probably read LoTR as many times as I have, or more, and she always reads the songs and poems. I think it's one of her favorite parts.

You don't have to think something is bad to be less interested in it.

[xaaronx]

"Comics" is a medium. "Graphic novel" is a form within said medium ( compare with "prose" and "novel").

"Western", "Science Fiction", and "Superhero" are genres.

"Trade paperback" is indeed a reference to the physical form of a colletion. I think, though, that "trade" is a useful way to think about these collections--when they need to be distinguished from comics in general--to minimize confusion. I could, for instance, say I recently read Brubaker's two Captain America graphic novels. These, however, are demonstrably different from, say, Watchmen and I find it useful and clear to use the term "trade". The term has already entered the vernacular--one speaks of "reading it in the trades" or "waiting for the trade""--and avoids crafting an equally clumsy neologism. And really, the few that are published in hardback merit using that separate term.

Not that any of this really matters all that much. I've just grown to hate the term "graphic novel" being bandied about for continuing serials.

[cjmr]

Of course, then there are graphic textbooks...

[Richard Hershberger]

Regarding "trade paperback", contrary to popular opinion this is not a physical format. Rather, it is a distribution category. Mass market paperbacks that don't sell are destroyed by the retailer. The front cover is stripped off and returned to the distributor for credit while the book itself is tossed in the dumpster. [pause for gasps of horror to die down]

Hardbacks are returned to the distributor, who either re-ships them to some other store or eventually they get farmed off to a remainder outfit.

Trade paperbacks are paperbacks that are distributed like hardbacks. They tend to be printed in a larger format and typically with somewhat better binding than mass market paperbacks, but this is a secondary, not a defining characteristic. They could in principle appear physically identical to mass market paperbacks.

[mcc]

Personally I use "comic book" and "graphic novel" interchangeably and have an enormous amount of trouble caring about which one may be more correct.

[the opoponax]

"plays are smarter than books are smarter than movies are smarter than television are smarter than Professional Wrestling is smarter than Letters to Penthouse are smarter than fanfiction is smarter than comic books are only slightly smarter than banging your head against a wall until you hallucinate."

you know, maybe it's because i live in the ivory tower that is the New York creative scene, but i don't find this to be the case at all. for instance i really don't think you'll find many people who would put fan fiction, or even very much current genre prose, above all comics. i also wouldn't peg theatre as more erudite than prose writing, even in the "classic hierarchy" sense.

of course you're right that there are hierarchies. some of those hierarchies are useful -- for instance, i would take it almost a rule that literary fiction is "smarter" than genre fiction. i'd say that poetry and in many cases short stories are "smarter" than novels (though this is unfair as those forms don't really have their "popular" counterparts). i would also say that plays are in general "smarter" than musicals, and that avant-garde and/or experimental plays are "smarter" than regular plays. in the same vein, i'd say that performance art, dance, opera and classical music performance are "smarter" than almost any theatre. and, i'm sorry, but almost invariably titles that are marketed as graphic novels are in fact "smarter" than titles that are marketed as comic books. there are similar divides in other forms -- site-specific installations are smarter than advertisements, dramas are smarter than sitcoms, etc.

of course, "smarter" doesn't necessarily mean "better". in fact, all i mean when i say one kind of thing is smarter than another kind of thing is that it's more erudite, intellectual, artistically innovative, etc. not that anybody who likes Oklahoma! is somehow less of a human being than those who would rather see Caucasian Chalk Circle.

"of course you're right that there are hierarchies. some of those hierarchies are useful -- for instance, i would take it almost a rule that literary fiction is "smarter" than genre fiction. i'd say that poetry and in many cases short stories are 'smarter' than novels (though this is unfair as those forms don't really have their 'popular' counterparts). i would also say that plays are in general "smarter" than musicals, and that avant-garde and/or experimental plays are 'smarter' than regular plays. in the same vein, i'd say that performance art, dance, opera and classical music performance are 'smarter' than almost any theatre. and, i'm sorry, but almost invariably titles that are marketed as graphic novels are in fact 'smarter' than titles that are marketed as comic books. there are similar divides in other forms -- site-specific installations are smarter than advertisements, dramas are smarter than sitcoms, etc."

I disagree with this entire paragraph, mostly because, despite the half-assed definition of "smarter" you give in the next paragraph, "smarter" is pretty meaningless here. Surely a bad opera is less smart than a good sitcom. Lots of performance art directly bypasses the brain, searching for a more visceral connection with the audience. Is this "smarter" than a George Bernard Shaw play, which seeks to engage your brain as much as your emotions, or is it good specifically because it is less intellectual? These kinds of hierarchies are stupid and dismissive.

Classical music is not automatically smarter than anything else. Surely you can't argue that a symphony performing Beethoven is more artistically innovative than a high school performing Brecht. If something is not particularly erudite or intellectual, but is plenty artistically innovative, like, say, the Cockettes performing in the spirit of fun, then is it "smarter" or less smart than an off-Broadway production of the Hottentot Venus that uses a proscenium stage and realistic set and casting? Is looking at Annie Sprinkles' cervix more or less smart than Verdi? I mean, it may be innovative, and to get anything out of the experience (other than a close-up view of a cervix) you definitely have to engage your brain to figure out what she's getting at, but HEY! Verdi's opera. Which makes it automatically smarter, apparently, because of all its "etc."

From a comics angle, Marvels is not smarter than Black Hole or Eightball, no matter how they do the binding. I find your hierarchy to be completely the opposite of "useful," because even if I agreed, I have no idea what I would use it for.

Opo - By the way, those first two rants about comics were by me. I failed to notice that my info was no longer remembered by my computer for some reason, and did not intend them to be anonymous. That first one was not to call you out or accuse of being a snob or anything. It just brought back the dozens of conversations I had all through high school and college that went

me: I read comics.
somebody else: Comics are childish and stupid.
me: You read Sandman.
somebody else: Sandman's a graphic novel.

So I'm sorry if you felt victimized by my displaced frustration with my judgmental childhood friends, but too often I have encountered people who think Neil Gaiman is some kind of genius yet wouldn't give Maus a passing consideration because it has talking animals.

[rob]

"of course you're right that there are hierarchies. some of those hierarchies are useful -- for instance, i would take it almost a rule that literary fiction is "smarter" than genre fiction. i'd say that poetry and in many cases short stories are 'smarter' than novels (though this is unfair as those forms don't really have their 'popular' counterparts). i would also say that plays are in general "smarter" than musicals, and that avant-garde and/or experimental plays are 'smarter' than regular plays. in the same vein, i'd say that performance art, dance, opera and classical music performance are 'smarter' than almost any theatre. and, i'm sorry, but almost invariably titles that are marketed as graphic novels are in fact 'smarter' than titles that are marketed as comic books. there are similar divides in other forms -- site-specific installations are smarter than advertisements, dramas are smarter than sitcoms, etc."

I disagree with this entire paragraph, mostly because, despite the half-assed definition of "smarter" you give in the next paragraph, "smarter" is pretty meaningless here. Surely a bad opera is less smart than a good sitcom. Lots of performance art directly bypasses the brain, searching for a more visceral connection with the audience. Is this "smarter" than a George Bernard Shaw play, which seeks to engage your brain as much as your emotions, or is it good specifically because it is less intellectual? These kinds of hierarchies are stupid and dismissive.

Classical music is not automatically smarter than anything else. Surely you can't argue that a symphony performing Beethoven is more artistically innovative than a high school performing Brecht. If something is not particularly erudite or intellectual, but is plenty artistically innovative, like, say, the Cockettes performing in the spirit of fun, then is it "smarter" or less smart than an off-Broadway production of the Hottentot Venus that uses a proscenium stage and realistic set and casting? Is looking at Annie Sprinkles' cervix more or less smart than Verdi? I mean, it may be innovative, and to get anything out of the experience (other than a close-up view of a cervix) you definitely have to engage your brain to figure out what she's getting at, but HEY! Verdi's opera. Which makes it automatically smarter, apparently, because of all its "etc."

From a comics angle, Marvels is not smarter than Black Hole or Eightball, no matter how they do the binding. I find your hierarchy to be completely the opposite of "useful," because even if I agreed, I have no idea what I would use it for.

Opo - By the way, those first two rants about comics were by me. I failed to notice that my info was no longer remembered by my computer for some reason, and did not intend them to be anonymous. That first one was not to call you out or accuse of being a snob or anything. It just brought back the dozens of conversations I had all through high school and college that went

me: I read comics.
somebody else: Comics are childish and stupid.
me: You read Sandman.
somebody else: Sandman's a graphic novel.

So I'm sorry if you felt victimized by my displaced frustration with my judgmental childhood friends, but too often I have encountered people who think Neil Gaiman is some kind of genius yet wouldn't give Maus a passing consideration because it has talking animals.

[Jesurgislac]

MikailBorg: Maybe he wasn't in top form at that point, but it's still better reading than almost anything you'll find in the SF shelves of Waldenbooks today.

Through most of his writing life, that would have been true: as Sturgeon famously noted. Heinlein wasn't in the 90% of crap. For one thing, he was always a terrific storyteller. But his politics were ghastly and hidebound: he remained, always, Terribly Progressive for the 1920s, right up until his death in the 1980s.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

too often I have encountered people who think Neil Gaiman is some kind of genius yet wouldn't give Maus a passing consideration because it has talking animals.

Which is even sillier than the usual amount of silly, because Sandman is full of talking animals. (e.g. the hedgehog in Worlds' End.) Hell, some of them are talking stuffed animals. (e.g. most of the supporting cast of A Game of You.)

I believe it was Neil Gaiman himself that was heard to say (I paraphrase from memory) "Graphic novels are to comic books what 'Ladies of the Evening' are to prostitutes." Tongue firmly lodged in cheek, of course.

[Jeff]

I would say that Sandman (as originally issued) was a combination of comic books and graphic novels. The six or so issues that comprise "A Doll's House" are intended to be read together and don't work well as individual issues. However, my single favorite issue (P Craig Russell's illustration of a tale of Baghdad) is definitely a stand-alone issue.

Maus, From Hell, Y and Fables are novels written in serial format (just as Dickens and others wrote); The Superhero-with-Tights almost certainly is not.

[aunursa]

my understanding of LeHaye's involvement is that he's basically a name on the cover (Jenkins was a glorified ghost-writer before LB came out) and a sort of theological/scriptural advisor

Author FAQ

Q: How do Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye work together? Who writes what?
A: The series was Tim LaHaye's idea. He asked Jerry B. Jenkins to write novels to fit his view of the end times. Dr. LaHaye is the biblical expert and prophetic scholar, while Mr. Jenkins is the novelist.

Q: How do the two of you work together when you live in different parts of the United States?
A: Jenkins—We each play a different role in the creation of the books. Dr. LaHaye develops a detailed biblical outline for each book. I do all the writing. I have the fun job of taking Dr. LaHaye's work-up and putting the characters in the way of these biblical events.

...

Q: How long did it take for you to write a book?
A: Jenkins—"When I'm on deadline and working all day everyday, I produce 20 pages. If that takes till noon or till midnight, I work till my alotted number of pages is done. It takes a day to edit and rewrite too, so you can do the math. That's fairly quick for a novel of this size, but I have the advantage of Dr. LaHaye's biblical framework and expertise, the biblical chronology, etc."

I was under the impression that a 'comic book' was an ongoing serial, where a 'graphic novel' was a book-like narrative, with a determined storyline and definite ending like a book.
At least, that's the definition I was given.

[mmy]

Does it strike anyone else as rather silly that Jenkins repeatedly refers to LaHaye as "Dr. LaHaye"? It reminds me of "The Thing From Another World" -- the scientists (men who have worked together for months) constantly address each other as Dr. This and Dr. That. "Dr. This, what do you think this is" "Dr. That, I think it is a superintelligent vegetable".

BTW, LaHaye holds a Doctor of Literature from Liberty University. Does anyone know if that is a honorary degree (please, please say it is). The books aren't exactly good advertisements for the writing ability of their authors.

[the opoponax]

"or is it good specifically because it is less intellectual"

did you miss the part where i said that "smarter", "intellectual", etc. has nothing to do with the subjective quality of the work, or the relative merit of the people who enjoy it? there is no "better" here. i'm not talking about "better". i freaking hate classical music and would rather listen to the Clash any day of the week. but, yeah, almost any beethoven is more "intellectual" than almost any pop, because more specialized knowledge is required to appreciate it. this isn't necessarily a good thing, in fact i think the fact that 'classical' music is so inaccessible is really silly and should be a reason people have less respect for it, not more. the Beatles are just as good, and you can get them without having a degree in music theory. similarly, most classical pieces are more "intellectual" than Shaw for that very reason. you can go see Major Barbara and "get" it just on the surface, for the performances, the story, the way that particular production is staged, etc. even if you don't understand the ideas behind it, or the history of social movements in the victorian era, or anything about Shaw and what he was trying to do with the piece.

for that matter, there is plenty of theatre (experimental/avant-garde, as i mentione upthread) which is much harder to "get" than Shaw (possibly even on the level of a classical composition or a performance piece), and which you need more specialized knowledge to be able to appreciate. this is pretty much what i meant by my entire above post, which you apparently didn't read or understand.

"Lots of performance art directly bypasses the brain, searching for a more visceral connection with the audience."

clearly you know nothing about performance art. having been in arty circles in NYC for the last 7 years, i have seen exactly one performance piece that required the performer to be naked and/or doing some overtly sexual thing. and everyone who was there knew it was half-assed undergraduate shite, and felt extremely uncomfortable during the entire thing. not because we were meant to feel that way as part of the piece, but because we knew how BAD it was and were all having a hard time keeping a straight face. and yeah, you're right that there is bad "intellectual art" and good "popular" art. i made no such judgement call.

[mmy]

opo

You have really opened a can of worms with your very "interesting" definitions of "intellectual arts". Much of what we now consider intellectual was open and easily accessible when it was first produced. In several hundred years it will be as difficult for people to understand The Clash as it is for people today to get all of the complexities of what we now call "intellectual".

I could go on and say that many people "get" something about classical musical pieces just as they "get" something from Shaw -- though I am willing to bet that they seldom get all of what the composer/author intend (or what the original audiences would have gotten).

You are, you realize, actually making an argument for bad theatre. If one theatre program produces a really bad version of a Euripedes play (and no one gets it) and a second perform a version that allows the audience to get a glimpse at its original meaning then is the same play suddenly less intellectual?

[aunursa]

the scientists (men who have worked together for months) constantly address each other as Dr. This and Dr. That.

Reminds me of Spies Like Us

"Doctor,"
"Doctor."
"Doctor,"
"Doctor."
"Doctor,"
"Doctor."
"Doctor,"
"Doctor."
"Doctor,"
"Doctor."
"Doctor,"
"and Doctor."

Bob Hope: "Doctor, doctor." Mumbles "Glad I'm not sick."

[the opoponax]

"If that takes till noon or till midnight, I work till my alotted number of pages is done."

ok, this might be a big part of why LB is so bad. i'm imagining Jenkins at his computer, noon on the friday before Memorial Day weekend: "ok, i've got 5 pages in the can... now wifey wants to leave for the shore by three, so, lessee, i type 60 wpm, 250 words per page, that means i should be able to get my 20 down by 1:30, 2pm if i stop to catch my story..."

note: writers need to submit manuscripts to publishers that have 250 words per page -- usually double spaced, 10pt courier, one inch margins.

"It takes a day to edit and rewrite too,"

ok, either he is actually lying, or he means "i spend a day editing and possibly rewriting at the end of each novel". or maybe he is confused about what "edit and rewrite" means -- spell check and a quick read-through to make sure you didn't have a psychotic break and write "all work and no play makes Jerry a dull boy" over and over. because if his 20 pages thing is true, and his 28 day thing is true, this cannot also be true unless he is an extreme insomniac. there is just not enough waking time in the day to write 20 original pages, completely revise yesterday's 20 pages in any kind of legitimate way, AND do all the things humans need to do like shower, pay the phone bill, eat, take care of unsightly bodily functions, etc.

i find that when the words are coming quickly and i have good notes, i can write about 1250 words in 4-5 hours. that's like 5 pages, Official Manuscript Style. in order to be able to write 20 pages and properly revise yesterday's pages, Jenkins would have to be able to get his thoughts down at least twice as fast as i can. and even then, he would only have a relatively small window of waking time to properly revise.

also, note that most authors spend more time revising than they do actually typing the original words of the first draft into the computer. it's pretty easy to get a first draft down in a month, if you plan well and really know the story and characters inside and out before you actually sit down at the computer. it's pretty much impossible to do that and go through the typical revision process in that kind of time -- you would have to not sleep.

[the opoponax]

In several hundred years it will be as difficult for people to understand The Clash as it is for people today to get all of the complexities of what we now call "intellectual".

i'm not arguing for an all-time permanent system of classification. i'm also not talking about Teh Classics vs. whatever possibly good or possibly bad stuff is coming out nowadays. whether something has been elevated to "classic" status doesn't really figure into what i said in my original post.

i know that, for example, Chaucer's work was popular and bawdy when written, but almost impossibly inaccessible today. though i still wouldn't class Chaucer as "smarter than" x other piece of writing, because once you translate the middle english and explain some of more obsolete references, Chaucer is at about the same intellectual level as most popular writing coming out today, or an even lower one. the Canterbury Tales are only hard to read because they are practically in another language. the same goes for Shakespeare, in my opinion -- get past the language barrier and it's a really good episode of The Sopranos in verse.

same for most of the greeks, for that matter. Greek tragedy is almost innately accessible -- you don't really have to know much about the conventions of Greek theatre, Greek history, philosophy, politics, etc. to understand the plays at almost the same level their original audiences would have. kind of like the Shaw example above.

but go see Jean Genet's The Blacks without knowing anything about Genet's work, the politics of the western world in the 20th century, the history of European theatrical and narrative conventions, French philosophy, what the Theatre of the Absurd movement was all about (not to mention a foundation in Dada, Surrealism, and Existentialism), etc. and it would be meaningless. therefore, at this point in time, Genet is "smarter" than Shakespeare. Genet may not be better than Shakespeare, or easier to stage than Shakespeare. but Genet is, right now in 2007 with humans doing what they do in the way that we do it right now, and art being what it is right now, a play by Jean Genet is less popularly accessible and more "intellectual" than anything by Shakespeare, Chaucer, or most of the Greek tragedians.

[the opoponax]

"If one theatre program produces a really bad version of a Euripedes play (and no one gets it) and a second perform a version that allows the audience to get a glimpse at its original meaning then is the same play suddenly less intellectual?"

um, no?

again, for like the zillionth time, "intellectual" does not mean good. it's not a value qualification, at all, just a simple observation. you have to think in a certain specialized way and know more background information to be able to enjoy Philip Glass over Kelly Clarkson, or Thomas Pynchon over Stephen King, or Jean Genet over Neil Simon.

i'm also not really so much talking about relative qualities of a given production. if you went to see a certain staging of The Bacchae and got a whole new angle on the meaning of Greek tragedy than when you saw it last year somewhere else, more power to you. what that means is that the production was more accessible, not that the play is any different.

i'm sure someone could put on Barefoot in the Park in such a way that it would transcend its status as a simple romantic comedy and twist it into some kind of high camp commentary on gender and sexuality in the 21st century, in a way that some auto mechanic from New Jersey who doesn't run in those circles, didn't have to read Derrida or Foucault in school, etc. wouldn't understand (whereas he saw the movie a few years ago and loved it). would that vault Neil Simon from "less intellectual" to "fantastically inaccessible specialized material"? no. because the words Neil Simon wrote, and the place Neil Simon was coming from in writing the play, are still the same. it's the production that is different. which i said nothing about originally.

[McJulie]

"intellectual" does not mean good. it's not a value qualification, at all, just a simple observation. you have to think in a certain specialized way and know more background information

So... "intellectual" entertainments are those which nobody actually enjoys, but they pretend to in order to appear intelligent?

I'd buy that.

(Although, now that I think about it, although I am not a big Philip Glass fan, I would rather listen to him than Kelly Clarkson...)

Seriously, I do think there can be a certain destructive second-guessing involved in whether something gets to be "intellectual" or not -- so that if we like something right off, without thinking about it too hard, we assume it must not be sufficiently intellectual.

I think that view is an incorrect inversion of something that is true, which is that many things that are really, really good, we won't like at first because they are too unfamiliar to us, or because they demand a level of attention we simply aren't used to giving. Similarly, some things that we like at first eventually wear out their welcome and become tiresome. Some things that young or inexperienced people like, more mature or experienced people won't tend to like.

But, even though it is true that Sartre might be slightly confusing at first read, it does not follow that anything sufficiently confusing must be intellectual.

[the opoponax]

So... "intellectual" entertainments are those which nobody actually enjoys, but they pretend to in order to appear intelligent?

well this isn't exactly what i was getting at. maybe i'm just horribly pretentious, but i genuinely like Genet, Glass, and Pynchon (and many of the people i've mentioned as being 'intellectual' upthread). you just need a lot more background information and the right way to approach the material. if you've only ever read Stephen King, Pynchon is going to seem boring and long winded and completely pointless, and you're going to give up after 20 pages and probably decide that anyone who claims to enjoy it is a liar. but if you have a whole education behind you that has given you the apparatus to like Pynchon, or at least to understand where he's coming from and what he's trying to do, and you've read other similarly inaccessible works of fiction, and you know what to expect and how to approach it, then you're more likely to enjoy it or at least have a basic respect for it.

and, again, this is not to say that Pynchon is better than King, or that Glass is better than Kelly Clarkson (who i happen to like). just that you have to approach them more intellectually and less intuitively in order to be able to "get" them.

[Ryan Ferneau]

I find a lot of rap music confusing with all its intricate slang that comes at you so fast, so I don't get why many people don't find it very intellectual!

[the opoponax]

actually, that's a good example of something that can be said to be "smarter" in a lot of ways than a lot of other pop that is out there. you do have to approach it in a completely different way. which is why most white people hate it so much -- it doesn't really speak to them intuitively, you have to have outside knowledge and a different approach, which you have to actually go out and learn in most cases. so according to my original metric, you could definitely say that hip-hop/rap is "smarter" than mass market "white" pop.

1. Visceral does not equal sexual. It means emotional, instinctual, or, according to my dictionary, "relating to deep inward feelings, rather than to the intellect." I.E. not intellectual.

2. You made the statement that performance art is always "smarter" than a play, then stated that the definition of "smarter" is "more intellectual." So I'm saying, much performance art is good precisely because it is not intellectual, thus creating a paradox. Candid Camera gags are definitely a form of performance art. I mean, they're definitely not theater. It's definitely not a play. You're definitely performing. What else would you call it?

3. I disagree with your assessment of classical music. It's probably true, as with a lot of art, that the more specialized knowledge you have, the more you will enjoy it, but no member of my family knows one thing about Tchaikovsky or classical music in general, and we still enjoy the Nutcracker every year.

4. Regarding Shakespeare and the Sopranos: just because the groundlings enjoy Shakespeare and the Sopranos does not mean those works don't have something to say besides ultraviolence and sex jokes. As McJulie pointed out, accessible does not equal not smart.

[rob]

Dammit, browser forgot my name again. That's me above.

[the opoponax]

"So I'm saying, much performance art is good precisely because it is not intellectual, thus creating a paradox. Candid Camera gags are definitely a form of performance art. I mean, they're definitely not theater."

and so i'm saying, clearly you know nothing about performance art.

"no member of my family knows one thing about Tchaikovsky or classical music in general, and we still enjoy the Nutcracker every year."

yeah, but would the whole lot of you voluntarily go to a performance of, say, Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring", or an evening of compositions by John Cage? you probably would not, or if you did, you would probably not really enjoy it. unless you are all actually really big classical music fans and have the kind of specialized knowledge that one needs in order to properly appreciate such things, in which case you've proven my point. sure, we can all agree that Pachelbel's Canon in D is a really pretty melody. but there's a hell of a lot going on in most 'classical' music, which is not going on in a Justin Timberlake album.

"just because the groundlings enjoy Shakespeare and the Sopranos does not mean those works don't have something to say besides ultraviolence and sex jokes."

i think you are reading things into what i've written here that i didn't mean to imply at all. i never said "take away the weird language, and Shakespeare is actually really dumb!" simply that most shakespeare is really intuitive when you see it performed -- you don't really need any special knowledge that isn't about language and a few historical references to understand shakespeare in the way it was originally meant to be understood. this is part of why i picked The Sopranos to compare it to, and not just any dumb TV drama. both Shakespeare and The Sopranos can be understood on a variety of levels. but just as you don't have to have a lot of special knowledge about the mafia, New Jersey, Italian culture, etc. to watch The Sopranos and see the universal themes used, understand on a lot of levels what is going on, etc, you don't have to know a whole lot of specialized stuff to understand Hamlet on a lot of levels just in the way that someone in Shakesperean England would have understood it.

[the opoponax]

this is going to sound horrifically snotty and probably prove everyone's inner point about what a horrible prat i am, but i think part of the reason you guys don't see what i'm saying is that a lot of you don't really know what i'm talking about.

there is A LOT of art out there that is extremely inaccessible and which really and truly can't be understood without certain kinds of intellectual approaches, specialized information, etc. really. i am not making this up. the fact that you don't know that this even exists, and your counter arguments are things like "but i totally understand The Nutcracker!" indicates that you're not familiar with the kind of stuff i'm talking about when i classify some art as "more intellectual" than other kinds of art. this is not to say that you're less intelligent than i am, or less of a good person, or any kind of value judgement. just that you haven't been exposed to the same stuff. to be honest, most of what i'm talking about as "more intellectual" i'm often not equipped to understand, myself. Joseph Beuys? totally lost on me. Miles Davis? i change the station when his stuff comes on.

but if you don't know that Miles Davis and Joseph Beuys exist, we're not having the same conversation.

[X]

rob

intellect and emotion are not opposite things that have to be traded off against each other. A really clever pun is a very intellectual exercise in word double meanings (intellectual) and makes you laugh (which is an emotion). Some art works a lot like that too. You can listen to the 1812 overture and get a buzz from the cannons and pace and such. But then if you are steeped in knowledge of classical music (like Tchaikovsky's audiences were much more so back in the day), then you can also decode all sorts of extra meanings from it. You can decode clever shifts in key and mode that evokes particular meanings, you can see how his slow section is actually an upside down slowed recapitulation by the trombones of a part of his fast section that had been played by the flutes, and when you do this, get a very visceral buzz.

I think this is what opo is talking about with intellectual art. There are some things where with training and exposre and sophistication you can start decoding (and therefore enjoying) levels that were previously opaque. That doesn't make it better or worse per se, it just means that some intellectual learning is what makes that peice of art appreciated.

[Bugmaster]

@opo/X:

So, can we sum it up as, "intellectual art is art which is inaccessible without a prolonged education, as opposed to non-intellectual art which is accessible to anybody" ? This is not a value judgement, because obviously inaccessible art can still be bad once you access it.

By this measure, Schubert, rap, abstract paintings, ASCII art, Caucher today, and video game webcomics would all be intellectual; whereas Stephen King, Chaucer in Chaucer's day, pop music, classical paintings and nature photography would be non-intellectual.

[X]

Bugmaster:

To me that about sums it up, although I think ASCII art is pretty accessible (hard to make, easy to look at: "oh, a flower, nice.").

There's also some interesting corollaries. Like when people start with an art form they tend to prefer the very accessible non-intellectual kind. You start listening to music when you're a teenager, and like whaver brand of 3 chord rock and major key harmonizing is currently fashionable. You start reading poetry, you like Edgar Allen Poe. Then after a whille of exploring whatever area, listening to it a lot, learning about it (in or out of school), Nsync starts to become really predictable and old, you already know what's going to happen before they do things, etc, and you want something more convoluted. So then people move on to college rock (no idea what the poetry equivalent there would be), and really get into the subtleties of your Wilco, or David mathews or whatever... or jazz, or something with more layers to it.
That doesn't mean they can't go back and peace out to the beatles sometimes too, but they start to enjoy something that is more of a "challenge" for them to process, and (in formal terms), you get into a much larger problem space with more room for really clever stuff, blah blah.

Maybe I'm totally wrong here, or maybe I'm belaboring art appreciation 101, but this always made a lot of sense to me.

[Bugmaster]

although I think ASCII art is pretty accessible (hard to make, easy to look at: "oh, a flower, nice.").

Well, this is a problem we will run into with all potentially inaccessible art. Is it enough to appreciate the fact that the shape looks like a flower ? Or, do you need more education to understand the techniques used, to be able to tell a hand-crafted flower from an auto-generated GIF2ASCII output, to appreciate the usage of only the standard 7-bit symbols (i.e., no pseudographics), etc. ? Most art is accessible on many levels, IMO, abstract art being the notable exception.

Anyway, the rest of your comment still implies that inaccessible (i.e., intellectual) art is better than accessible art. I am not going to say that you are right or wrong; I just wanted to point out this fact.

[X]

You're right about levels. Even going back to the 1812 overture example, there's plenty of accessible crashes and bangs which most people can pick up quickly, and there's also the deeper layers that you can uncover with skill development (yes, listening and understanding is a skill).

You can read in "better" if you like, but really, art doesn't have a value independent of the effect it causes in us (IMHO). So yes, if you build something with deep layers of clever complexity, then it will be highly entertaining and absorbing to someone with the skills to decode and toy with those levels of complexity, and boring to others. You can probably get more and deeper entertainingness with skill than you otherwise could, but these are subjective shades of joy within your own head, not universal moral worth.

BTW, here's the irony of this conversation: People who are more skilled at appreciating an art form do tend to be contemptuous of art that is too easy for them, because they find it unimaginative, prone to 'errors' in form, and stilted. Before you say that sounds like a snotty attitude, you better go back through the archives and check you didn't make any of these critiques on LB ;)

[rob]

Opo, you're absolutely right. That totally confirmed my suspicions. Believe me, I am quite familiar with experimental art, queer theory, edgy performance art, guerrilla theater, and many other less approachable art forms. I just don't think being less approachable makes them more intellectual. I spent four years studying theater and performance art. Reading plays, watching videos of crazy native rituals, and going to performances of Salia Nï Seydou, Buto, Bunraku, wayang kulit, and others, reading first hand accounts of African story circles, Irish folklore, and dead Russian pagan mythology. There is definitely a lot of performance out there that most people will never be exposed to, and much of it requires a lot of gear turning to wrap my head around.

My argument is not that I understand the nutcracker. My argument is that I enjoy it. Undoubtedly I would enjoy it more if I had a better understanding of it. I enjoy looking at flowers more the more I know about photosynthesis and the role pollination plays in the environment. I enjoy playing with my dog more the more I learn about the natural pack mentality that guides his behavior. This does not mean that flowers and dogs are more intellectual than anything else in this world.

I know that intellect and emotion do not have to be a trade off. Again, not what I'm saying. I'm saying much art deliberately attempts to bypass the intellect entirely. You should feel without even being aware of it. It's said that it should be perfectly acceptable to fall asleep during a Kabuki performance (and that's good, because I've fallen asleep during several), because the performance will penetrate anyway. I'm not the one trying to make the trade off. The artist is, by their own admission, deliberately trying to get you to stop thinking. In contrast to this, as mentioned above, a playwright like Shaw attempts to engage both your emotions and your intellect.

The difficulty of the material is totally independent of its genre and medium, and, even, whether it engages you emotionally or intellectually (or even physically). There are a lot truths out there that are very difficult to handle emotionally, even if we accept them intellectually, and these can make art just as impenetrable to the casual viewer as any detail of history or circumstance that might be required to appreciate Genet.

I totally agree that some art is more intellectual than others, but the very idea that the medium, in and of itself, automatically makes some piece of art more intellectual than another is fatuous and superficial.

For example, the American musical gets a lot of short shrift in American theater circles, because it is a popular form. But I would urge you to watch Oklahoma again. It's not just about singing and dancing. It's about the closing of an American era, and it uses the music, lyrics, and text to convey different aspects of the characters (as my professor said, "They say what they're thinking, they sing what they're feeling, and the music tells us what they want us to feel back"). It was extremely challenging to audiences at the time, but has since become the measure of American musicals. Many early critics felt it was too intellectual, and not funny enough to entertain casual theater-goers. But it was nevertheless a huge success, and revolutionized American theater. Yet you would have us believe it could not possibly be as smart as a play with no music, and yet is far less smart than a play with only music, which is basically what opera is. Green Go the Lilacs did not automatically get less smart when Rodgers and Hammerstein added music to it.

It's nice of you to go all self-deprecating to make us plebs feel better for not being familiar with your oh-so-difficult to grok artistic spheres. Now you can go on quietly congratulating yourself for being smarter than me, even if you don't listen to Miles Davis, even if your original hierarchy included poetry and novels, artisitc forms I believe the entire western world is familiar with. The best art, and I would argue that Miles Davis fits nicely in this category, can be understood on many levels. Like a flower, you can just enjoy the view as you stroll past, or you can peer deeply into it, down to the cellular level, witnessing the miracle of its myriad organelles creating a totally unique whole, or you can pull back and observe as its complex, even unpredictable relationships to its ever-mutating environment create a new and unexpected pattern. I believe much art, popular or not, falls into this category, and I believe the hierarchy you delineated above severely limits artistic appreciation, and over-simplifies those art forms' relationships to each other.