Reading the book or seeing the movie first?

The Time Traveler’s Wife is coming out and I really want to see the movie. However, as an avid reader, I also want to read the book. My concern is which I should do first: see the movie or read the book. For me doing both is not a problem. The problem is while I prefer to have read the book before the movie; it makes me enjoy the movie less.

I love reading. To me, what makes a good story is when I see the movie play out in my head as I devour each word. I cast characters. I envision locations. I do everything that movie producers do, but in my head. Then, when I go to see the movie I always try to prepare myself. One, I know that the story, in plot and dialogue, will not be told exactly as in the book. Two, the characters will most definitely not look as I have envisioned them. Three, the scenes or moments that I think are critical will not be the same ones the writers and directors see as critical and therefore included in the film. And so on, and so on…

But even with all of my preparations the best reaction I have had to date is, “It wasn’t the fiasco I was expecting (Twilight, Stephenie Meyer).” The worst reaction I have had was, “That was such a horrible adaptation it makes me not want to read the writer again (Needful Things, Stephen King)." But there are some adaptations that differ from the books on which they are based but are still very good. The example for this is the Trueblood series on HBO based on the Southern Vampire series or Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris.

After watching the first season I proceeded to buy and read all of the books she has written. While my feelings about the books actually fluctuate (some I love and some I read just to get to the next one) so far, I do love the TV show better.

And maybe that’s the secret. Part of the problem of adapting a novel into a movie is that you have to force the story into something that’s told in roughly 110 minutes. Therefore many of the small subtleties are left out or butchered. Whereas with television, you have at least twelve to thirteen sixty-minute episodes over which to tell the story on HBO and other pay channels; on network TV you usually have a minimum of twenty episodes.

Well, I guess the verdict is when the adaptation is a movie, watch the movie first to minimize disappointment. If the adaptation is a television series, reading the book first is safe.

Sharolyn

Another year... another step closer to the future.

Posted by Victor

Over the past year, I've gone through a major transformation in how I view media.  As I've written elsewhere, I'm at the point where I no longer have the urge to hoard and own media that can sit on my shelves.  This past week, I took a dozen hardbacks to Half-Price Books.  Many of these were books I've been hauling around for years and years.  I felt a pang of regret upon letting them go, but that passed quickly.  I am now preparing to sell almost my entire music CD collection and another batch of books.

One of the reasons I'm feeling less anxious about parting with these books is the rumor of a 9-inch touchscreen iPod.  Already, a regular iPod and iPhone are gaining significant ground on the Amazon Kindle and the Sony eReader.  If the reading experience on a regular iPod is pleasant enough, a 9-inch touchscreen iPod will be the killer app that drives a stake in a large percentage of the paper book industry.

This 9-inch iPod won't be the ultra-portable device like a phone, but I really believe it can become the all-in-one media device we (well, I'VE) been waiting for.  One device that easily play music and movies, display e-books and pdfs and word documents, surf the web, and play hundreds of games... what's not to love?

But you're saying, "I've already got that!  It's called my laptop computer!"

But this will be different.  This will be the lightweight ultra-cool device that you carry around with you as easy as a notebook.  It won't be as powerful as a laptop, but it will be infinitely more fun.  You'll be able to use it anywhere at any time and have all your media available to you at moment's notice.

One industry that I think will especially benefit from a device like this is the rapidly dying comic book industry.  Already, you can't get most comic books anywhere except comic specialty stores.  And the prices on a single comic is about to jump up to nearly five dollars an issue.  Even considering potential collectability, it's not worth it.  The best comics are usually the independent publishers, or the self-publishers, and the cost for them to produce even small runs of an issue aren't financially viable.  But something like this large-format iPod will completely level the comic book playing field and make them a viable mainstream form of media.  If the only hard cost a comic creator has is for the art supplies, then they can lower the purchase cost for a digital issue to a reasonable rate, maybe even as low as 50 or 25 cents.  The upside is, the creator no longer has a finite number of issues he or she can sell (which is based on how many they can afford to publish).  Now, they can sell as many copies as people want to download.  Combine this with an iTunes-like store, and you have the rebirth of a new medium.

And not just traditional stand-alone comics, but comics with varying degrees of interactivity or motion.  I can easily envision a format where you at first only see the art, then advance the page or panel and it reveals each word or thought balloon in succession rather than having to have all of them crammed into the frame right from the top.

The one thing I think that will ultimately be the tipping point for a device like this 9-inch iPod isn't comic books or videos.  It's schools.  The first time a school or college makes their schoolbooks available digitally, it will be all over.  Imagine only having to carry one slim touchscreen around all day, rather than fifty pounds of books.  Once Apple worms its way back into the educational market (where it once was king, back in the 80's and 90's), the paper book industry as we know it today will be no more.  Raise kids on reading books and comics using a digital device, and they'll never get that connection to having to own a physical book.  Just like all of us no longer care about owning CD's or albums.  I've got my music on my iPod, and I could care less about the physical object.

Okay... I'm done rambling.  I predict that by this time two years from now, the big buzz topic will be how much the act of reading (for pleasure) has taken hold among our youth, because it will be cool and fun and convenient.

And for all of us that fancy ourselves writers, that's something to look forward to.

The Three Types of Writing (In My Book, At Least)

Or maybe more accurately, the Three Types of Reading. 

Over the past couple of years, as I have been examining the craft of writing a lot more intensely, I've also been taking a much closer look at HOW I read a book.  For myself, I've realized I'm able to classify the way I read books into three categories:

1. I love the characters and just enjoy spending time with them.  These types of stories are almost review-proof in that I'm not remotely looking for, or expecting, a work of art.  A book I'm reading now (and enjoying) is "His Majesty's Dragon" by Naomi Novik.  It's a very clever story imagining that dragons are a common part of the world and have been integrated into the military.  This series takes place during the Napoleonic Wars, and the dragons basically act as the Air Force.  The main character is a former Navy captain who discovers a dragon's egg and when it hatches, they bond, forcing them to become a dragon/pilot pair.  The story is interesting and clever, but early on I realized that the plot was secondary to the joy I felt from spending time with Lawrence and the dragon, Temeraire.  They are both such interesting characters that I'd like to know personally.  There are lots of logic issues that make you scratch your head when you really think about them ("How could the world have dragons and yet end up in exactly the same situation, historically, in the early 1800's that it was in without dragons?  Surely there would have been massive historical changes prior to that, right?"), but again these don't matter because the characters are so compelling.  And this fact surprises me because I'm nornally such a stickler for logic within the books I read and films I watch.
2. Sometimes it's just the World of the books that I love, and I don't care what characters are used to tell those stories.  Fantasy series are good for this, obviously.  I'll read any story set in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" world.  The world and setting are what make the plot and characters compelling.  However, this can backfire horribly when an author sets too many stories within the same world and uses the same characters to tell those stories over and over.  I can handle one or maybe two major world-altering events that utilize the same characters.  But when we're on our third or fourth or tenth trilogy where the same characters are having to save the day, it makes all the stories, past and present, seem like they were wastes of time.  ("If that last thing didn't wipe out the Dark Lord, then what was the point of that entire five book series I read?").   A series that did great at telling a variety of stories within the same universe, but didn't overuse any characters was Julian May's "Pliocene Exile" series.  It told what turned out to be a brilliant looping story over the course of many many generations and across millions of years.  Once a main character had had his or her story told, they were moved off the stage for the next figure to grab the spotlight.  
3. The third type of book I read is Author-based.  I read these books because I just like how the author writes, and don't care what the story is initially about or who the characters are or if it's in a world I know I'll likely enjoy.  There aren't many authors that I'll read whatever they come out with next.  Robert Charles Wilson is one.  He writes brilliant science fiction, with so far only one of his books being a sequel to a previous one.  I enjoy his writing style (even though it changes radically from book to book) and the ideas he comes up with.  A writer that I don't personally like, but one who seems to fit this same bill is Stephen King.  There are dozens of other major authors who fall into this category for people, but for me, there aren't many that I'll buy their next book sight unseen.  On the flipside, two of the authors I listed above, George R.R. Martin and Julian May have written many books outside of their 'universes'.  But I have zero desire to sample any of those.  I want these authors to just write within the worlds I've come to be fascinated with.  Likewise, I'm not overly interested to see what Naomi Novik does after her Temeraire books.  I wonder how the world will embrace J.K. Rowlings' non-Harry Potter books she writes in the future?  To me, it seems like the world fell in love with her characters and her world, and unless she writes more stories set in that world, I can't imagine her fans will be interested.  A book I'm reading right now, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's "The Shadow of the Wind" is perhaps the most beautifully written book I've come across in a long time.  It's a joy just to read, regardless of what's going on with the plot, or what character is currently on stage.  I can't wait to read what he comes up with next, regardless of what it's about.
   

 As a writer, is it possible to PREDICT how your book will be perceived?  How many authors set out to write something meaninful or filled with epic ideas, but come to discover that the reader could care less about those ideas and instead just love the characters, regardless of the story they are being surrounded by?  I know there are some writers that have gotten stranded within the series' they've created and have to stay there if they want to keep being able to write for a living.  No one cares about their other stuff. 

Obviously some authors get away with different combinations of these. 

What about you?  What if you ended up achieving incredible success with one of your first stories and it turned into a career of writing successful sequels?  Would you be happy continuing to write within that universe, using those same characters, for the next twenty or thirty years?  What if you wanted to tell other types of stories, in other genres with other characters, but your fans turned a blind eye to anything else you wrote?  Would you continue to write stuff no one wanted to read, or would you go back to the tired characters and world and tell yet another story set there? 

I don't know if I could do what some of these writers do.  I've got so many story ideas and so many characters that I think it would feel like the worst kind of prison to have to stay confined within such a narrow range of storytelling, regardless of how lucrative it might be.  As much as Rowling has benefitted from Harry Potter, I can only imagine that she's thankful to be rid of him for at least a little while. 

But... I guess I'll cross that bridge if I'm ever able to find it.

- Victor DiGiovanni