SaveRana

That's a perfect metric for friendship. Thanks for putting that in my head.

Snowcrash... the book was great, which was part of the reason the ending was so disappointing. He set such a great stage, and then just crapped all over it.

As a wannabe screenwriter, and unpublished novelist, I can say that writing a book is a far easier task than writing a good screenplay. In a novel, you have all sorts of license to explore different perspectives, but in a screenplay you're limited exclusively to the objective present tense. Economy of language is second only to story: it must consistently remain fresh and engaging while still being direct and informative, without being over-written. Have you tried it? It's a bitch.

As a writer, do you follow any of the conventions of classical storytelling? I'm an avid reader as well as an amateur writer, but I analyze everything I write to death, often following the guidelines set by Aristotle, Joseph Campbell, and Syd Field. In my experience I've found that poorly reviewed fiction tends to break the rules of either style (strunk&white) or content (Joseph Campbell). Does this generalization apply?