Based on the reviews from the festival, I can see that my two baits this month ("The Legend of Zelda: The End of Forever" and "The Witching Hour") and going to be heavily panned for length. They are the two longest baits that I have ever written. "The Witching Hour" is long because the book it is based on is actually 1000 pages long. and Zelda2 is long because I wanted to write it in the form of an Epic Poem. It isn't nearly as long as a real epic poem but it serves the purpose. It also let me be very creative with the writing process.
I am glad, however, that most of the reviews did understand the purpose of Zelda2's length and gave it a reprieve as such. I hope everyone else involved in the contest can do so as well. Now here comes a little rant so you should probably stop reading now if your not a fan of long baits...
OK. LONG BAITS.
Everyone who complains about baits being long needs to get over it. Some authors on the site write long baits because its just too hard for them to shorten up the story that they have nurtured. I'm one of them, obviously. Like movies, some baits NEED to be long because, if they weren't, they wouldn't have the depth or the power that they need. Now I know some people will say "Short baits can be powerful too". Damn right they can! But would you take "Gone With The Wind" and cut it down to a nice and manageable 90 minutes? If anyone replied yes to this, I suggest you go watch Norbit again and leave the contest while you're ahead.
Yes, some movies are extremely powerful even though they care short. Some movies would become boring if they're too long, and then there's some three hour long movies that you just want to last longer. I am a huge fan of long baits, if they are well written. I don't long baits that are long and boring. But I absolutely hate it when people simply don't like long baits because they are long. If you can't handle a long bait (one of my two baits this month is 1600 words long) how will you ever handle a 150 page screenplay?
So, as you can see, people complaining about bait length really pisses me off. I wont mention it on the boards, but I'll probably mention it on here again if need be.
NEXT RANT: Peopling simply saying "Not Very Baity" when reviewing a bait!
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8 comments:
Nobody says one word about The Godfather's time length. Why? Cos it's so effin' good. And that's the key. I critique length when what is said is unnecessary. A plot is like a string of scenes in a movie. And some scenes are deleted for a reason. That's my take on it. Great article.
I like long baits if they are concise. Recently I've been seeing that the longer baits aren't as concise as the longer baits in the past (Such as Jackrabbit). I haven't really written a very long bait since The giver, and The courtroom I left it up to the reader to imagine a lot of the meat of the movie (sort of like z did with The Valley of Ashes), but (assuming I don't send Sex Advice for September) in September I'll be having two really long baits, so I'm working on trying to make them as entertaining to read as possible.
I agree that people should stop judging their entire opinion of a bait just because it's too long, but there's the other side to this too. Like Bryce said, length shouldn't play a factor unless the length detracts from the story. For example, being a part of the Festival, I had to read quite a few long baits (including yours James). While some were able to get past this detail by being well written, others suffered because either the transition from paragraph to paragraph didn't work well or the bait's story wasn't good enough to justify the length. However, that doesn't mean a bait must be degraded for just length alone. Think of the many long baits that have gone on to win big awards (like Jackrabbit, Bootleg and Dominion). Are we going to say all those baits suck because they're longer than the usual bait?
So while I see logic for both sides of the argument, I have to agree with you James (especially since I often am a perpetrator of this). Great job writing the article also. Can't wait to see your comments on the next one (as I am also a perpetrator of that topic too).
On a side note, it's a bit ironic that your bait is called The End of Forever, since it was a very long bait. That's not saying it was bad, but many who are opposed to long baits will feel like that's what they experienced after finishing the synopsis.
James, I agree with most of what you said. "Flashes" and "Dominion" are two lenghty baits that I adore because they're creative and kept me interested. There are also some other long baits that I have really liked.
A long bait is very hard to write because it must keep the author interested. There were baits such as "God Hates What" and "Made in Taiwan" that were so long, I wanted them to end. I also stopped caring for the story.
In short, there are lenghty baits that are good and others that aren't.
Like everyone has said, I don't care if a bait is long, but its being long is another factor it has to overcome. My bait "Glitz" was love-it-or-hate-it, because some people thought that the length was okay because they liked the story, and some thought it needed to be cut. Like in the real industry, you need to cater to people's attention spans. You can have a movie like Schindler's List or The Godfather, where it's very long, but also very good. Or you can have a movie like Gandhi or The Shining that is very long, but (in my opinion) doesn't hold the viewer's interest. It's more of a gamble to write a long bait, but the rewards can be plentiful. But if you make your baits long just for the sake of being long, there is no chance that you will have success.
great discussion James, can't wait to see your thoughts on the next topic.
Length can be a good or a bad thing. Last month's "Our Father" was very long and it was my favorite of the month. "Jackrabbit" is also a good but long bait. But baits like "Sunray" (Is that what it was called?) from last month didn't need to be that long. It all depends if it needs to be long or not.
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