jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,156
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Post by jen on Feb 17, 2007 18:15:13 GMT -5
How far do you think the BSC series were plotted and planned?
With Harry Potter, JKR spent 5 years planning the plot of the entire series before she even started writing the books. There are so many tiny, tiny details in books that foreshadow events in later books. The whole series is planned brilliantly.
The BSC is nothing like that. Some of AMM's letters in the backs of the books with new covers say things like "Oh, I wrote this book because many readers asked me to". And the introduction of Abby! "The readers asked me for a Jewish character, and others asked me for a twin, so I combined the two. And I let my readers name them!"
But there *is* some foreshadowing in the books. Stacey and the Cheerleaders paves the way for Stacey vs. the BSC. Robert's depression is mentioned in Stacey and the Stolen Hearts, before it gets a whole book devoted to it. Someone mentioned in another thread that Abby's and Jessi's interviews in Stacey's Movie is foreshadowing to them leaving the BSC.
So how far do you think the plots were planned in the books? Is some of the foreshadowing not really foreshadowing but just coincidence?
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digigirl02
Junior Sitter
The P is for Princess
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Post by digigirl02 on Feb 17, 2007 18:42:42 GMT -5
I think Mallory hates boys and gym kinda foreshadowed her trouble with school.
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
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Post by jen on Feb 17, 2007 20:10:53 GMT -5
That was about 50 books before, though. The Spaz Girl plot gets its own little timeline, starting at #122. I thought Mallory Hates Boys (and Gym) was unrelated to Spaz Girl, just because there are so many books between MHB(AG) and the Spaz Girl plot, where Mal *doesn't* have a problem with school.
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ktag
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Post by ktag on Feb 17, 2007 22:11:49 GMT -5
Probably several months. Haven't people said sometimes the lists in the back of the books have future books with the wrong titles? But yeah, it definitely seems more like a plan as they go series.
As for foreshadowing, I believe they did it for Mimi and when Stacey gets sick. Mostly "event" stuff...like Jeff moving back.
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digigirl02
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The P is for Princess
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Post by digigirl02 on Feb 17, 2007 23:09:48 GMT -5
That was about 50 books before, though. The Spaz Girl plot gets its own little timeline, starting at #122. I thought Mallory Hates Boys (and Gym) was unrelated to Spaz Girl, just because there are so many books between MHB(AG) and the Spaz Girl plot, where Mal *doesn't* have a problem with school. But it did kinda foreshadow Spaz girl a bit.
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lilafowler
Sitting For The Johanssens
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Post by lilafowler on Feb 18, 2007 8:56:42 GMT -5
I remember reading one of AMM's notes to the reader in the back of the new cover books that said that they considered a story arc that sent Mallory to boarding school, but then decided against it, so it's possible that AMM had her going away in mind when she picked plotlines for some books that came way before Mallory actually leaving.
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Post by liss31d on Feb 18, 2007 9:04:15 GMT -5
"I remember reading one of AMM's notes to the reader in the back of the new cover books that said that they considered a story arc that sent Mallory to boarding school, but then decided against it, so it's possible that AMM had her going away in mind when she picked plotlines for some books that came way before Mallory actually leaving. "
Poor Mal, Ann wanted to get rid of her ages ago!
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digigirl02
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The P is for Princess
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Post by digigirl02 on Feb 18, 2007 20:10:45 GMT -5
Just another reason Ann hates Mal.
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Post by sparklymouse on Feb 18, 2007 22:08:26 GMT -5
I think the books in the mid 20s flow together quite nicely. Just little comments made here and there that you wouldn't even think about if you didn't know what was comming next. A book or two before Emily Michelle was adopted, Elizabeth said something like "How will another kid fit into all this?" When Stacey came back for Mimi's funeral she said her parents were always fighting and two books later was their breakup. Stuff like that.
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alula
Sitter-In-Training
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Post by alula on Feb 18, 2007 22:41:12 GMT -5
I think in the AMM bio, she said that they (meaning Ann and the senior editors) planned out the books a year at a time, which actually sounds about right with what I know about other publishing/editorial timetables (although I don't know much about serial publishing schedules). The books aren't superbly edited or anything, but they're also not at the bottom of the heap, especially for a mass-market series, and that takes a decent amount of time, for getting the cover illustrations and writing flap copy and just getting the darn things printed and distributed.
So I do think they planned for "big" stuff--when Dawn, Stacey and Mallory leave, and so on. But knowing that, it kind of bugs me more that they couldn't simultaneously do the little stuff to bridge books together. Like the random African-American families who only ever appear in Happy Holidays, Jessi!
I don't know if it's as true for books, but I know that among TV writers and critics, it's been suggested that Internet fandom has made continuity and long-term series planning a much-bigger issue than it used to be, especially for anything that has multiple writers, just because you actually get fans who know the canon better than the writers, and obsess about it!
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Post by sugarmonkey on Feb 19, 2007 10:43:26 GMT -5
I don't know of any BSC fans like that
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wanderingfrog
Sitting For The Arnolds
Official BSC Archivist
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Post by wanderingfrog on Feb 19, 2007 14:05:38 GMT -5
I was going to mention the stuff about planning out the books a year in advance that was in the AMM bio, but since alula did, now I don't have to. I agree that the editing isn't as bad as we make it seem, because we are obsessive nitpickers, but there are a few big mistakes that are really, really stupid. I am thinking specifically of the "now-we're-sisters present" debacle, and Claudia claiming she'd never been stuck on an island before. (Hey, maybe that wasn't an editing mistake. Maybe it's just that Claudia is even dumber than we thought.) Re: foreshadowing, I reread Stacey's Emergency a couple of months ago, and it's some pretty strong foreshadowing of Stacey's Choice. (I should also mention that quite a few books leading up to Stacey's Emergency mention her being tired and pale and stuff like that.) This is kind of lame, though, because the plot of Stacey's Emergency isn't really "Stacey's in the hospital," it's "Stacey's parents are being jerks and putting her in the middle even though she's in the hospital." Then the plot of Stacey's Choice is "Stacey's parents are being jerks and putting her in the middle." So, even though I and a lot of other people think Stacey's Emergency is a good book, much of it is kind of pointless when fifteen books later, there is a book with the same plot except that Stacey's mom is sick in this one instead of Stacey.
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
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Post by jen on Feb 19, 2007 19:17:33 GMT -5
. (Hey, maybe that wasn't an editing mistake. Maybe it's just that Claudia is even dumber than we thought.) Heeheehee! How many books were written in a year? I feel I should know this, being an obsessive fan...
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Post by sotypical42483 on Feb 20, 2007 12:00:27 GMT -5
They released a new BSC book each month right? And then if you throw in maybe one super special and 2-3 mysteries a year...
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starrynight
Sitting For The Kuhns
The Royal Diner of Pizza Express
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Post by starrynight on Feb 20, 2007 12:55:08 GMT -5
I thought it was 2 books a month at one point....that's why they needed so freaking many peple working on the series.
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