Garren Jacobsen
Auror
As I am sure some of you are aware there is a series out there on youtube called "everything wrong with." In this series the narrator man picks apart everything that is wrong with a movie. They have done Harry Potter, Avatar, and other movies. They take nitpicky details and use those nitpicks for laughs.
I want to ask in your consumption of entertainment media (books, movies, t.v. shows, etc.) what have you nitpicked and if you have nitpicked did it result in a new story, world, or something like that for your writing?
I have done this a few times and written about the following experience once. I nitpicked the book series of Harry Potter a bit on some of the logic. Especially as it relates to the magic and the world. One thing that really frustrates me is why didn't Voldy or some other wizard try to transfigure some of the air around their enemy into a nerve gas. Or why didn't Harry or Hermione think to have a back up weapon, like oh I don't know a shotgun/handgun, so that if they lost their wand they wouldn't be utterly helpless. Wizards, especially the ones steeped in the wizard world, wouldn't expect that and when they whipped it out and pulled the trigger blam-o no more bad wizard. But, to me, the most frustrating of all was the escape plan for Harry at the beginning of book 7. Dude's Voldy and company would expect you to use magical means of escape. Do something mundane like order a cab ya idgits. This would have worked really well if they had H.P. invisibility cloak his way to a neighbor three blocks away or so and transfigure into one of the residents while they were on vacation. Bah, so frustrating.
But this frustration helped me world build a place where the magical people weren't complete nincompoops concerning non-magic things. Which, in turn, helped me write my second novel.
So tell me, have you ever nitpicked something that helped you write something, or just nitpicked something because it made your brain itch?
I want to ask in your consumption of entertainment media (books, movies, t.v. shows, etc.) what have you nitpicked and if you have nitpicked did it result in a new story, world, or something like that for your writing?
I have done this a few times and written about the following experience once. I nitpicked the book series of Harry Potter a bit on some of the logic. Especially as it relates to the magic and the world. One thing that really frustrates me is why didn't Voldy or some other wizard try to transfigure some of the air around their enemy into a nerve gas. Or why didn't Harry or Hermione think to have a back up weapon, like oh I don't know a shotgun/handgun, so that if they lost their wand they wouldn't be utterly helpless. Wizards, especially the ones steeped in the wizard world, wouldn't expect that and when they whipped it out and pulled the trigger blam-o no more bad wizard. But, to me, the most frustrating of all was the escape plan for Harry at the beginning of book 7. Dude's Voldy and company would expect you to use magical means of escape. Do something mundane like order a cab ya idgits. This would have worked really well if they had H.P. invisibility cloak his way to a neighbor three blocks away or so and transfigure into one of the residents while they were on vacation. Bah, so frustrating.
But this frustration helped me world build a place where the magical people weren't complete nincompoops concerning non-magic things. Which, in turn, helped me write my second novel.
So tell me, have you ever nitpicked something that helped you write something, or just nitpicked something because it made your brain itch?
Troubadour
Maester
