LOST as a Novel

Well, I stopped watching the tv show as I couldn't be bothered with it. So, I'm guessing the novel wouldn't appeal to me, either.

jvc said:

Well, I stopped watching the tv show as I couldn't be bothered with it. So, I'm guessing the novel wouldn't appeal to me, either.

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ditto

I watched it a few times awhile back, but I got mixed up. I didn't like it at all, so I'm not sure I'd read the book.

I think LOST wouldn't be as confusing as a novel (one that exists in a parallel dimension where the TV show never existed), because the makers of the show were making it up as they went along and while you can write a novel that way, when you finish, you can read it, say "damn that's confusing" and revise it. You don't have to keep on adding chapters because your novel hasn't been canceled yet, or make up bad explanations for things you wrote in chapter seven. You can just revise chapter seven.
Also, when I read the interview with one of the show's writers where they admitted they didn't have any plan for what the mystery was, they were just making it up, is when I just gave up trying follow that show.

LOST used the best of what television offers as opposed to other mediums. And it did it really, really well.

I don't believe a novel could replicate it.

I loved the show. But no. It would never, ever work as a book.

A TV series often contains an amount of material more comparable to a trilogy of novels than a single novel.

katiemac said:

LOST used the best of what television offers as opposed to other mediums. And it did it really, really well.

I don't believe a novel could replicate it.

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I agree with that. Things like flashbacks for example work fine on TV, not so well in text.

Also I think the way characters are written differs if they are going to be in a book, where you might well see their thoughts, and on TV/film, where you'll never know their thoughts except from inference from what they say, do, how they look at each other. Looks, glances, reactions can all come over very clunky in a novel, it might take half a page to describe something an actor conveys in a glance and a hand gesture.

If I imagine Lost as a novel, I think of Steven King's The Stand, but without a great author, logical plot, and social commentary. And polar bears.

O, and me not reading the shit out of it. Thrice.

Dr.Gonzo said:

If I imagine Lost as a novel, I think of Steven King's The Stand, but without a great author, logical plot, and social commentary. And polar bears.

O, and me not reading the shit out of it. Thrice.

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Funny you say that; in an interview on one of the DVDs the creators mention The Stand as an influence - group of strangers forced to cope with catastrophe and learn to survive together. They're big Stephen King fans.

Aw, so many people dissing Lost makes me sad. It was so much fun.

Troa said:

oh wow. am i the only person that thought LOST was amazing? lol


but to back up LOST. Unless you saw it from beginning to end, you really won't understand it. Everything that didnt make sense in the beginning, all made sense in the end, it was beautiful.

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Nope I loved it but the second someone says they liked LOST the very first response usually comes from someone who proudly announces they gave up on it. Then someone also comes along explaining how the show didn't make sense, or someone who has never seen the show asks how you can possibly understand it. Just expect it. Personally I thought it was brilliant, but yes, not perfect. Pretty darn compelling and it held me right to the series finale. It wasn't confusing in the least as I never attempted to come up with my own explanations for things (I was lucky, the people who cared about the mysteries I think were the ones who gave up on it because they weren't getting enough answers and it seemed like they never would and gasp. . . with some answers they never did, but I was interested in the characters and their story arcs so never felt dissatisfied). Besides, why should I feel confused when they explained most everything eventually? I also thought the acting was fabulous, especially Michael Emerson, and anyone who gave up on the show Season 2 missed out on one of the best actors on television.

Anyway . .. point is, with LOST, always expect people to come around proudly announcing why they can't stand the show. Not that it isn't their right to do it of course, everyone is entitled to her opinion, but like with anything that is a phenomenon, like TWILIGHT for example, you will get vocal people in favour of a work of course, but that means you'll get a lot of vocal people not in favour.


To answer your question, I think it could work as a book, but I agree with the poster who said LOST is wonderful as it understands how to work within its medium. Any author writing it as a novel would have to play with that medium as well, but I think that could be very interesting.

junkfoodmonkey said:

Funny you say that; in an interview on one of the DVDs the creators mention The Stand as an influence - group of strangers forced to cope with catastrophe and learn to survive together. They're big Stephen King fans.

Aw, so many people dissing Lost makes me sad. It was so much fun.

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That isn't a surprise to me at all. Anyone familiar with The Stand can see its influence on Lost. I actually really enjoyed the first two seasons, and then the third started to piss me right off, so, I did what anyone with a remote is able to do: I changed the channel.

Troa said:

To those who have seen the tv drama, LOST. Do you believe that it could be written as a novel? would the time jumps and flash backs be to much for the reader to handle? it was confusing when just viewing it. I could not imagine reading something like that.

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I should imagine that with the right chapter and scene headings (e.g. date stamps) to help avoid too much confusion, it could work just fine.

-Derek

junkfoodmonkey said:

I agree with that. Things like flashbacks for example work fine on TV, not so well in text.

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Disagree. Flashbacks, like any other tool, work quite well when used correctly, whether in text or in film/TV.

I saw all of Lost apart from about five episodes of the last series. I thought it was terrible and the only reason I watched it was because I was recording it for my sister, Strider (we can't watch one chanel and record another). It made NO SENSE and the ending was the biggest cop-out imaginable which still made NO SENSE.
It was very much a victim of the way TV is made in the US. I'm too used to British TV where they tend to stop making programs when they feel they have no further to go.

As a book, it might work as a Michael Crichton-esque thriller if you got rid of the flashbacks. I think they'd be too extraneous for a narration but then...you lose what made Lost interesting to begin with as a TV show.

Lost was brilliant, and, yes, it would work as a novel. There's nothing wrong with flashbacks in novels. Good writers use them on a regular basis. Like anything else, flashbacks work well if done well, and don't work at all if done poorly.

Anything that can be done on TV can be done in a novel.

I didn't find anything about the series confusing, but I watched it from the first, and paid attention. It certainly shouldn't be confusing as a novel. Less confusing, would be my guess.

Lost was freaking awesome. That's all.

LOST does demand a lot of its audience, you really do have to pay close attention and put two and two together yourself. Not everything is explained to you (though some things are just blatantly so), but enough pieces of the puzzle are given you can solve it yourself. But truly, if you've paid attention, I honestly have no idea how people could think it didn't make sense. I understand people not liking it for whatever reasons, I even understand maybe one or two things getting a bit confusing, but if you give it the attention it requires (and I'm not talking spending hours after mapping out every little thing that was said, just a concentrated focus for an hour - we these days watch tv in a very passive manner so for some doing just that is actually quite a challenge), you should be able to understand it.

I devotedly watched the first two seasons and quite and Mr. Echo ?? The African guy died. It pissed me off and then all the time travel crap started and I wa like no, just no...

But I also know that there have been LOST spinoff novels featuring charcters not on the show ie one of the 50+ other survivors who are basically set dressing. It was not a good review either...

Toothpaste said:

Nope I loved it but the second someone says they liked LOST the very first response usually comes from someone who proudly announces they gave up on it.

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Well, I did.

I watched the first half dozen episodes, then missed the next three or four, or five. Then I just couldn't be bothered watching it again. The episodes I watched weren't enough to make me 'want' to watch it again, or stick with it. A personal choice. I believe at the time I was also watching Prison Break, which was an awesome show with great writing.

...but like with anything that is a phenomenon, like TWILIGHT for example, you will get vocal people in favour of a work of course, but that means you'll get a lot of vocal people not in favour.

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Isn't that the same with just about any show on television?

A lot of people loved 'The Office'. I did not. I can't stand Ricky Gervais. But that is just me (I just find him annoying). A personal choice. As is pretty much anything anyone watches on tele. You either love it with a passion, like it, not really bothered by it, hate it with a passion.

To answer your question, I think it could work as a book, but I agree with the poster who said LOST is wonderful as it understands how to work within its medium. Any author writing it as a novel would have to play with that medium as well, but I think that could be very interesting.

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Yep, any television show can be written as a novel. It would probably change. We were discussing Michael Crichton's The Lost World in the chat room yesterday. The movie really doesn't follow the book. It changed from one medium to the next. Now, I loved both the book and the movie. But that may have something to do with there being dinosaurs in them. And I love dinosaurs

Perhaps as a novel (Lost), I would like it more and it would be a great read. It would have to be done right, though. But that can be said about any book.

jvc - like I already said, I really don't care if people didn't like the show, or any show for that matter, it's totally a matter of taste. I too actually gave up on LOST mid season one, but was suckered back in with the cliffhanger finale and then stuck around (which is why I'm one of those rare viewers who'll say they thought the first season was meh but enjoyed the show much more from then on - yup even Season 2 down the hatch and the dreaded Season 3 the season of Michael Emerson awesomeness (my personal fav)). The only reason I brought up what I did was that I find there is a certain group of people who really dislike the series and like to, whenever someone wants to say something nice about it, demonstrate their superiority by pointing out that the writers didn't know what they were doing (half true), it didn't make sense (not true at all), or it lost them as if in the show losing them it lost the greatest of all television watchers and should be ashamed of itself.

I'm pretty reasonable. I know we all like different things. So I don't care if people want to discuss what they felt didn't work about the show, I actually think there were quite a few flaws in the show personally actually. It's a certain attitude that I am getting sick of, this pervasive "if you liked LOST then you are a blind idiot" (I once had someone argue that to like the show was like being one of the people on the street in the Emperor's New Clothes - nice). But I suppose it is just backlash to the love the hardcore fans have for it which can also be pretty grating.

In any event, I guess it's just a personal thorn in my side. Probably was being a bit sensitive to be honest in this thread. But it does come from a fair bit of experience.

(sorry for the massive derail people, in fact I think I'll leave now as I've already said: yes LOST could make a good book, but anything could make a good book if done right.)

I'm going to assume that anybody in this thread either knows how it ends or doesn't care so: SPOILERS!!!

But truly, if you've paid attention, I honestly have no idea how people could think it didn't make sense.

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Okay, so, in the final series we have the main narrative on the island and flash-sideways for what would have happened if the plane had never crashed, yes? Why was Ben a teacher? If the the plane had never crashed, he would still have been on the island with the Others.
And if the island is a form of purgatory, how does the Dharma initiative get there in the first place? Are they supposed to have died in real life and came to on the island with the idea implanted that they are there to build and perform psychological experiments and when they travel to and from the mainland, it isn't the mainland they are traveling to but a different point of purgatory where the implanted ideas of the experimentation are also true? And if you have to be dead to be born on the island, how can people from the island (the redhaired english one, Faraday etc) exist in the real world and effect it? Or were they never alive to begin with? Or are they all a figment created to help Jack and the other passengers come to terms with what goes on in their lives?
This is why Lost wouldn't work as a novel; we would NEVER get away with such convoluted plotting.

I may have to go and read Wikipedia for a while and remember what else annoyed me about that show.