# Has Film Changed How we Write Fantasy?



## mirrorrorrim (Nov 27, 2011)

A couple months ago, I was talking to a group of co-workers about The Lord of the Rings. One of them had just finished listening to the books on CD, and she made the point of how much better she thought the movies were. I was surprised to find that most everyone in the group agreed with her. Many had started reading the books, but just handn't been able to bring themselves to finish them. These people praised Peter Jackson for taking out all of the boring, superflous elements of Tolkien's story, while keeping the powerful core.

I remained silent during the exchange, but in my mind I strongly disagreed with them on the relative value of the two stories. I love The Lord of the Rings movies. I saw all three several times in theaters, and many more times since they've been released on DVD and Blu Ray. I feel Peter Jackson created as good an adaptation as I could imagine. But for all that, there are so many wonderful facets of the book that he necessarily had to leave out–Fatty Bolger, Glorfindel, Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, the Scouring of the Shire, all the songs, and so many other things that, small and large, made Middle Earth such a vibrant, living world. It surprised me that no one else in my group felt the same.

Since then, I've often pondered on that conversation. With all Peter Jackson cut out, the core of the story _is_ still present. Does that mean all the rest really is unnecessary? With Tolkien, it's my instant reaction to say no, but looking at it objectively, that's probably largely due to the fact that I knew and loved his writing for so long before the films were released. When I read other classics, such as Les Miserables, I can't help but feel that tens and even hundreds of pages are completely irrelevent to the story, and that the book would probably be better if they were cut out. I'm pretty sure most modern editors would agree, and unless Tolkien were self-published, I don't doubt that large sections of his novels would have died on the cutting-room floor. In fact, once his works all become public domain in 2050 or so, I won't be at all surprised if we see an abridged version, much like we have with many of the older classics.

In a movie, the director has between one and four hours to tell the audience his story. It doesn't matter if he shot six hours or six hundred hours of film–he can only keep as much as will fit within that accepted window. Because of this, not a single shot is wasted, and every scene fits as an important component of the director's overall vision. If something doesn't serve a purpose, no matter how nice or creative or nostalgic it might be, then it just isn't included. As audiences, that's what we've come to expect.

Has this also translated itself into the way we read books? Is that why my co-workers so preferred the films to the books? And if it is, then what does that mean for fantasy writing? How have we as writers needed to alter our work in order to satisfy a world that has been raised on films for more than two generations? How, if at all, do we need to alter it further? And are there other aspects of films, besides those mentioned, that have changed what people expect when they read a book?

Honestly, I'm a little worried, as one who loves Tolkien's style, that I might write something that follows his pacing too closely, and that is unpalatable to the modern reader.

Thanks in advance for your responses.


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## Lord Darkstorm (Nov 27, 2011)

Movies are not books.  Simple as that.  While I do praise the LOTR movies for following the books fairly closely, for a movie, the simple truth is they aren't the same.  I just finished reading Starship Troopers, which I hadn't read in a decade or two, and as I read it I kept coming back to the simple question...where did the movie come from?  Talk about two different stories.  

Tolkien wrote his stories for people of another age, one without a cable channel for everything, sometimes two.  How do you expect someone to know what a swamp looks like if they have never seen one?  Or tall mountains?  Tolkien, and many other older stories, had to provide far more visuals than we do today.  Why should I spend several paragraphs describing a computer?  You know what a computer is, what it does, all I need to do is make clear any differences from what you know to what isn't the same.  

If movies provided a tenth the story depth a book does, I might actually find myself watching more movies and reading less books.  They don't.  The difference is time commitment, a big point to me.  I can waste a couple hours of my life and watch a movie, I'll use the horrid rendition of harry potter and the order of the pheonix, which ranks up with my all time worst movies ever.  Hours of my life I can't get back.  Now, if the book had been as horrible as the movie (which it wasn't) then that would have been several days of reading time plus the other reading time from the prior four that I would have been cheated out of.

Ok, I haven't watched a hp movie since that one, see no reason too, but most movies I watch I have very low expectations of.  But the same can't be said of a book, it has to have a depth a movie will not have, can't have.  We might not have as much detail as before, but we will still get good stories that have depth and power.  Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear are two I'd put up as recent novels that have writing so good I'd set them beside Tolkien and find them just as good.  

Where we go wrong is the copy cat syndrome.  It happens in books, music, movies, and anything else that is successful.  How many kids in wizard school were being tossed out after Harry Potter became a success?  Or new vampire novels when twilight took off?  I have a few hundred books on my bookshelf that never needed to follow in the wake of another writer, some great, some just enjoyable.   

As much as I don't care for the kindle...or any other device chained to a store, it has gotten more people reading...and to me, that is an excellent thing.  So while the movies will still be there, I'd not worry too much about them.  How many movies based on books have even come close to really representing the book?  How many deviate so badly you have to wonder if the movie producer/script writer even read the original book.


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## Shadoe (Nov 27, 2011)

I love books and I love movies. I can't rate one higher than the other because they're different ways of telling a story. It's easy to recognize that what works in a book can't exactly work the same in a movie and the same holds true the other way.

What works in a book changes. The classics that we look back on are very different in their content from books that are written now. They did contain lots of what we now would call excess fat. At the time, that excess fat was entirely necessary to tell the story. Now, though, we have a visual medium that lets us see what then needed to be described in detail. Also, it helps to understand that at one time, books weren't there just to tell a story, they were there to give an experience to the reader. The more words they had the better - and longer - the experience. Now we have lots of experiences in our lives. We don't need longer books to keep us occupied, we just want the story.

So yes, movies have changed our needs in books in that we need less description and more getting to the meat of the story. And no, it's not just movies that have done it to us. We've all become more worldly, more experienced.

We should also understand that there are lots of people who simply don't like to read. They would much rather watch a movie and get the gist of the story than read the book and have to wade through so many pages over the course of weeks in order to get the story.


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## Elder the Dwarf (Nov 27, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> I'll use the horrid rendition of harry potter and the order of the pheonix, which ranks up with my all time worst movies ever.  Hours of my life I can't get back.  Now, if the book had been as horrible as the movie (which it wasn't) then that would have been several days of reading time plus the other reading time from the prior four that I would have been cheated out of.



Really?  I didn't mind the fifth movie, even if you had to deal with Umbridge the whole damn time... the sixth movie is another matter entirely.  By far the worst of the movies.

As for the actual question, I worry about the same thing, as I like more descriptive writing.  However, I don't think it is impossible to publish a book like that, although it would be much easier if you had a name beforehand.  Publishers would probably be much more lenient with a author that already had a following.


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## Lord Darkstorm (Nov 27, 2011)

> Really? I didn't mind the fifth movie, even if you had to deal with Umbridge the whole damn time... the sixth movie is another matter entirely. By far the worst of the movies.



Let's see, the guy playing Dumbledore should have read the books to figure out how his character should have been acting.  The real breaking point is when the half rate Umbridge blows a hole in the room of requirement...you know, the one Harry spent half of book six trying to figure out how to get into?  And the battle was a major let down, as was most of the other action.  Just bad.

Still, after reading the reviews of the latest remake of connan, I think I'll just keep on reading and writing and not worry about what the movies are doing.  Honestly, the movie writers are so out of good ideas it's almost pathetic.  How many remakes have they tossed out in the past few years?  While some were pretty good, it doesn't imply they have many new good ideas coming out of the movie writing arena.  Good novels I can still find a lot of, good movies are not so plentiful.


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## Steerpike (Nov 27, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> Still, after reading the reviews of the latest remake of connan, I think I'll just keep on reading and writing and not worry about what the movies are doing.



The funny thing about Conan is that there is good source material on which a movie could be based. Howard's ideas are out there, and available for the filmmaker. But they nevertheless chose to come up with some half-baked story line of their own and go with that instead.


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## Leuco (Nov 28, 2011)

Fantasy (and fiction in general) has changed greatly since the days of Tolkien. Readers are not as patient as they used to be. It used to be common practice to describe a scene in great, tedious detail, but you can't really do that with today's audience. The canon of writing has been transformed to reflect the fickle, easily distracted, modern reader. Books are competing now with video games, movies, TV, and facebook. That is why more and more authors are starting novels with gimmicks: starting at the end with the climax or with some really cheesy lines like, "It was a terrible day the first time I died." There's this tired pattern in writing now. You find it in all of the more popular fictional works.

Personally, I find this pattern rather frustrating because it's become so common place. It's like we're begging readers to keep reading. I've read many how-to writing books where they encourage authors to minimize their details. An example would be if you are describing a field, it's OK to just call it a field, because most readers will automatically visualize a generic field (or perhaps something specific and personal) in their mind. There's no sense trying to use prose to describe the setting. Readers can infer and use their own imagination to fill in the blanks and then move on to the next scene. 

Now, as for movies and their role in the new "abridged" form of writing, I think writers really are emulating film. After all, when someone reads, they do form their own moving pictures in their mind. It's only natural for authors to make it easier for the reader to imagine things like a movie. I suppose that's why most popular works today are written at a fifth grade reading level. 

Anyway, that's just my late night opinion. Thanks for posting an interesting thread.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Nov 28, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> Tolkien wrote his stories for people of another age, one without a cable channel for everything, sometimes two.  How do you expect someone to know what a swamp looks like if they have never seen one?  Or tall mountains?



In 1954, when _The Fellowship of the Ring_ was published, movies had existed for more than fifty years, TV was invading homes the world over, and there'd been this invention called photography for the better part of a century, wherein pictures of places like swamps and mountains could be found in things called books, often kept in large buildings called libraries. I don't think the cultural public was quite as image-impoverished as you seem to think.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Nov 28, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> Honestly, the movie writers are so out of good ideas it's almost pathetic.  How many remakes have they tossed out in the past few years?  While some were pretty good, it doesn't imply they have many new good ideas coming out of the movie writing arena.  Good novels I can still find a lot of, good movies are not so plentiful.



Remakes are the result of mainstream movie production being in the hands of giant risk-averse multinational conglomerates; it has nothing to do with the writers. Writers write what sells, and what the studios are buying are sequels, remakes, and adaptations.

Despite that, there are plenty of fresh, original movies that come out each year, they just usually don't come from the big Hollywood studios.


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## Shadoe (Nov 28, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> In 1954, when _The Fellowship of the Ring_ was published, movies had existed for more than fifty years, TV was invading homes the world over, and there'd been this invention called photography for the better part of a century, wherein pictures of places like swamps and mountains could be found in things called books, often kept in large buildings called libraries. I don't think the cultural public was quite as image-impoverished as you seem to think.


Movies had existed, yes, but people didn't go to movies every day of their lives, as they do now, in the form of television. Television itself was still in its infancy and the concept of 24-hour variety programming hadn't been invented. Most people didn't even have a television. For those who did, it was still a very limited medium. There was still a large segment of the population who never went to movies. Books were still more accessible for most people. People still didn't travel unless it was really, really important, so seeing those places was still outside of most people's experience.


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## JCFarnham (Nov 28, 2011)

The simple fact is that (some) people reading a novel expect to get the same kind of satisfaction in the same way as they would for watching a film. Seems like they expect everything to be as direct as a visual medium is. And indeed, Films have changed the way authors write. I'd even say that some stories read like they should be on film (I've even read of some books being praised for how cinematic they are! That just seems odd to me).

Largely, the population is lazy, so if they can even be bothered to read a book, they want it to be easy, with everything told up front and as little filling in the blanks as possible ... I also think this might be why you get a lot more description of characters as "beautiful", or "ample" than you used to. Traditionally if a character was beautiful, it would first have to matter to the story, THEN it would be described, if at all, and properly mind you, not by rely on boring words like "pretty", or whatever.

I have a small anecdote on the introduction and proliferation of television. Both my parents (born '53 and '60) can remember their "first television". That shows you just how long it took for the medium to catch on in some areas. In the time Tolkien was writing, we have to remember he was working to a tradition, he was writing to some extent like writers in the 50 years prior to him, like how now days (more so than him) we write to the traditions of writers passed. He would have seemed fairly old upon publication anyway, no matter how ground breaking he was. We also have to remember how damn long it took for him to get anything published. People just didn't want to know!

Anyway, that's getting a touch off topic now, so..

Yes. Visual Media have changed the way we write. Especially fantasy what with a great tradition of fantasy video gaming and so on.


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## Devor (Nov 28, 2011)

Tolkein was a phenomenal writer, but there's elements of his work which are a little dated.  People used to read novels, in part, to learn, and with the myriads of competing media and the broadening of the reading market, that's no longer really true.  So the areas in which Tolkein takes time to educate his readers, or even areas where Tolkein crafts his story hoping to educate his readers, feel clunky and superfluous, boring, even tiring to a modern reader.  If people want to learn, they go to the computer, they don't pick up a novel.

Novels have also moved away from description somewhat in response to TV and Film, much as paintings started to become impressionist in response to the photograph.  We can see clear details on the screen, and we read now more to invoke our imaginations than anything else.  Mileage may vary, but in general authors no longer spend three and a half pages telling you what a single character or a room might look like.

Lastly, there's elements to some stories, Tolkein's in particular, to which film is just a better medium.  The Battle of Helm's Deep comes to mind.  Tolkein used a number of scene jumps and dialogue to tell us how the battle was progressing.  Jackson let us watch it straight through.


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## Steerpike (Nov 28, 2011)

Devor said:


> Novels have also moved away from description somewhat in response to TV and Film, much as paintings started to become impressionist in response to the photograph.



Interesting. Yes, with impressionism we see a move away from trying to compete with what the camera can do, and instead to do something the camera cannot. 

With a lot of modern writing, I feel like the approach is to try to emulate, to some extent, the cinematic experience. Other works go in a different direction and would be hard to approximate on film. Which approach do you prefer?


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## Devor (Nov 28, 2011)

Steerpike said:


> Interesting. Yes, with impressionism we see a move away from trying to compete with what the camera can do, and instead to do something the camera cannot.
> 
> With a lot of modern writing, I feel like the approach is to try to emulate, to some extent, the cinematic experience. Other works go in a different direction and would be hard to approximate on film. Which approach do you prefer?



In paintings, I hate Impressionism and prefer the Thomas Kinkade approach (somebody will criticize me for saying so, so be it).  I think he creates something that is grander and greater and more fantastical than the photograph.  By comparison, I think Impressionism feels in many ways lesser than the photograph, if that makes sense.

In the same way, I prefer descriptions that feel more powerful than a visual image, and often the way to do that is with the language that you use.  You can activate a description by using a lot of verbs and verb-like adjectives.

Instead of,

"A dusty lampshade sat on the lamp, and a red hue lit up the room."

I might try,

"A red lampshade, dressed in dust, sat atop the lamp, captured most of its light and released only a glow to brighten up the room."

That's a bad example because it has nothing to do with the characters or story.  But the faintest detail can feel like an active element of the mood, even by itself.  That's what I prefer.  Use the detail to a greater effect than you can do in the movies.

((edit))

I don't usually edit after someone else has posted, but this is really an awful, awful example.  I'm not even sure it exemplifies the point.  I want to use a better one, and the only one I can think of off hand as a common reference is from my own writing (which I hate referring to).  I posted an entry in the Trigger challenge, about a guy badly dressed as a vampire on Halloween, with ketchup smeared on his neck as blood.  Later in the story he's trying to impress a girl, and he pathetically rubs off the ketchup, and "His blood felt dry."  It has the double meaning of referring to the ketchup and to his own nerves.  In a movie that scene moment would just be awkward, but the way it's written I think you can "feel" it, if that makes any sense.

That's the sort of detail I prefer to see in writing.  The way something is written can make even something mundane more meaningful than the visual elements alone.


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## Lord Darkstorm (Nov 28, 2011)

One thing you don't get with a movie you do with a book...internal thoughts and feelings.  Some movies have tossed in mental thoughts, but they don't work as well in a movie as they do a book.  So, while we might not get the same level of description as there used to be, the way a character feels is only felt through the words of a novel.


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## Erica (Nov 28, 2011)

I'm not a good person to ask here. I'm the kind of person who will be vaguely disappointed if the latest novel by a favorite author is much less than 500 pages. I tend to get hooked into stories by characters and the world itself, so short, tightly plotted stories always leave me feeling like someone offered me a light snack when I was hungry for a four course meal.

Now LoTR is still the trilogy that nearly other fantasy work (high fantasy at least) is compared to in some way. It is the classic. That doesn't mean everyone loves it or that modern writers should try to emulate it. Many things about the story are dated. No sex or even sexual tension (they added some hot scenes between Aragorn and Arwen in the movie, but in the book you got the impression that those two did no more than walk in the woods together and end their dates with a handshake), no strong language (and I'm sure orcs at least swore back then) and no female characters to speak of except for Eowyn and the two elves, and those were all very minor and somewhat stereotyped. But he did an amazing job of creating interesting reluctant heroes in the hobbits, a well drawn world and culture and a fascinating story.

For my part, I liked all the side stories in LOTR and was disappointed that they didn't put Bombadil etc in the movie, even if I knew why they cut that stuff out. And with the HP movies, I kind of wondered if people who only saw the movies and didn't read the books were wondering why we were supposed to be so sad about Dobby dying. After all, in the movies, they cut out everything about the house elves after HP II even to the point of re-writing the story so that other characters did things Dobby was supposed to have done. I'm not sure why they decided to cut all that out, as it seems like they wouldn't have lengthened the movies by much if anything. I liked that whole subplot in the book, and actually wished that JK Rowling had put in more about the reasons for their enslavement/masochism in spite of being so powerfully magical. But maybe I'm strange.

Seems like most of the novels in the genre are still fairly long and involved (even YA novels like Harry Potter and Eragon have a lot of pages and side plots), but then, it might be a selection effect on my part here. My eyes may not be 'seeing' shorter books crammed between the thick ones on the bookstore shelves.


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## mirrorrorrim (Nov 29, 2011)

Erica said:


> I'm the kind of person who will be vaguely disappointed if the latest novel by a favorite author is much less than 500 pages. I tend to get hooked into stories by characters and the world itself, so short, tightly plotted stories always leave me feeling like someone offered me a light snack when I was hungry for a four course meal.



I never really thought of it that way, but I think I'm the same way. I tend to fall in love with the characters of my favorite books, and I always want to know more about them. I think the parts I enjoy most are those times when the characters are simply living their lives, either before, after, or during an interlude to their big adventure. In such periods, I feel that I really grow to know the characters, and it makes me care so much more for them when they _are_ facing mortal perils.

For example, in L. E. Modesitt's _The Order of Recluse_, my favorite part was a section in the middle where the main character became an apprentice furniture-maker. In Terry Goodkind's _The Sword of Truth_, I loved that a long duration of book six focused on the main character becoming a normal artisan in a city; for me, this became the highlight of the series. 

I feel that my own writing reflects this preference. My characters are everything; plot points primarily exist to help my characters grow, develop, and change. Seldom will I write an event into the story simply for its own sake.

In movies, you seldom get peaceful moments like that. Or if you do, such scenes usually make up the entire film, and you don't get much of an actual story arc. I think the fact that books can have both is one of their greatest strengths.

This leads me to a related question I'd like to add to those already present in my first post (several of you have touched on it already):

What, if any, advantages _do_ books have over films? Are there things that books can do that films never can, or at least cannot do as well? As films grow more and more dominant, should we as writers try to emphasize these as much as possible in an attempt to stay relevant? Or will that just alienate casual readers even more?


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Nov 29, 2011)

mirrorrorrim said:


> What, if any, advantages _do_ books have over films? Are there things that books can do that films never can, or at least cannot do as well?



1. Internal thoughts/monologues - Showing a character's inner thoughts and mental struggles is very difficult to do in film.

2. Digressions - It's acceptable (even in this day and age) to digress for paragraphs or chapters about something that is related, just for the sake of background/flavor. It sort of depends on the genre, but you really can't do this at all in movies, not without almost everyone thinking that it's out of place, distracts from the story flow, etc.

When considering this question, one thing to keep in mind is that the way books and films are consumed is very different -- I don't mean reading vs. watching, but rather that when you read a book, with very few exceptions you read it in several chunks over a period of days or weeks. (The only time I can recall not doing this was with _Deathly Hallows_, which I read non-stop for about 10 hours, taking only a 20-minute break to drive over to my parents' for dinner. The meal did not interrupt the reading.)

Films, by contrast, are usually absorbed all at once (at least, they are in a movie theater). There's no pausing or interrupting. As a result, the flow has to be _perfect_ if it's going to be good, because people get into a rhythm. With a book, at least, I can enjoy it just as much if I read it slowly over weeks, but if a film (at least one I haven't seen before) got interrupted multiple times while I'm watching it, I'll end up wanting to stab someone.


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## ascanius (Nov 29, 2011)

First let me explain that these are my opinions that I have contemplated extensively.  I do not intend to insult anyone, or start an argument about modern society.  Again these are my opinions and I don't intent to insult anyone so please don't take any of this personally.

Reading this post makes me very sad but the truth is evident.  If you want my opinion people are stupid, selfish, lazy bent on instant gratification and adoration of their peers with little actual thought or reason behind anything.  That is just my opinion but a topic better left alone here.  Honestly I think movies and in particular TV are changing writing, everything in this modern age.  I don't think movies are necessarily to blame, well some movies at least, but TV is.  Think about it.  TV shows are designed to be short to the point so that anyone from any background can turn on the TV and know exactly what is going on with little if any investment.  Even shows that are supposed to be informative have to follow this rule meaning the viewer gains empty knowledge.  TV and movies are meant to be mindless entertainment where the viewers don't have to think, common reality TV.  That is what the majority of writers are competing with, less detail, less of everything leaving only a shallow story that caters to a specific groups needs.   The vast majority of information that we see every day is empty.  

One thing that a book can do that a movie will never be capable of is detail, a sense of immersion into a world beyond our own.  Movies can try but you are still watching something that you have no actual investment in, though there are the occasional few.  Dark Night was the only movie I have ever watched that I felt any emotion besides being entertained, ok and the notebook.  I separate movies and books into two different realms, I never compare or use my standards for a book that I use for a movie.  And I never have the expectation that I have for a book that I would for a movie.

As a someone who writes in my spare time for my own sake I won't write to appease to the selfish whims of people who are dominated by TV and movies for their entertainment and knowledge I don't think anyone else should either.

On a side note I don't think fantasy fiction is the only thing to suffer in wake of modern media.  I play piano and find the vast majority of music boring and repetitive.  visual art is already lost beyond hope now.  Basically people have allowed mediocrity to become great.


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## Elder the Dwarf (Nov 29, 2011)

Ascanius, I respectfully disagree when you say that movies can't be emotional.  Go watch Radio.  If you don't cry during that movie, you probably need something checked mentally.  There are several movies I have cried during, and many more that have had a profound emotional effect on me.  I'm not saying that books don't do this as well, but movies are definitely emotional.  When you watch Lord of the Rings, do you not get excited during a battle, scared in Shelob's cave, and sad when Boromir dies?  How could you not?

To answer mirrorrorrim (damn that's hard to spell) yes, there are several advantages to books.  Benjamin answered the question well.  There are more, though I won't be able to think of them all.  

One thing I personally think is an advantage is length.  Novels are able to have so much more detail, more sideplots, more characterization, and more attachment.  If I like a movie, there is almost a one hundred percent chance that I will want it to be longer.  With a novel I am the same way.  I am always disappointed the story has ended, not angry that the story took a week to finish.

As mentioned above, novels are able to immerse you as movies can't (at least usually).

Novels have more of an ability and/or tendency to provide different experiences based on the knowledge, reasoning, and life of the reader.  One reader may read a book with completely differing views on specific parts, and both might still love it.  Also, the beauty of novels is in the details, both those included and those left out.


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## Kelise (Nov 29, 2011)

I'm the odd one in that I don't watch movies much at all, so I don't think I myself will be directly influenced by how I write. I of course will be secondly influenced as I read, and those authors may themselves have been influenced, but that's about it.

It does make a huge difference to some authors. Pick someone who started writing a series, then got a movie deal while still writing the last books. Those have scenes written almost directly for how they should be shown in a movie, rather than for a reader of the novel. The last few books of Harry Potter are one example. Twilight, uh. I read somewhere that the author 'wrote them like a movie because she got it all from a dream, which is like a movie in her head.' There's probably a heap more out there too.


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## Shadoe (Nov 29, 2011)

ascanius said:


> Reading this post makes me very sad but the truth is evident.  If you want my opinion people are stupid, selfish, lazy bent on instant gratification and adoration of their peers with little actual thought or reason behind anything.


I agree with you - to a point. I think the majority of society is going that way as a culture, but I think there are still plenty of individuals who remain thoughtful and intelligent. Granted, you have to look a little harder for them, but they are out there.



> Honestly I think movies and in particular TV are changing writing, everything in this modern age.  I don't think movies are necessarily to blame, well some movies at least, but TV is.  Think about it.  TV shows are designed to be short to the point so that anyone from any background can turn on the TV and know exactly what is going on with little if any investment.


Again, yes, and no. I don't think tv is changing society any more than society is changing tv. I read an article lately that really opened my eyes to this. The author noted that if you look at tv shows from ten or 15 (or more) years ago, you get a very different experience, both in the writing and the watching. Currently, hour-long TV shows are usually about 42 minutes long, broken into three acts. Back in the day, each act had maybe 3-4 scenes. Now, each act has no less than 6-7 scenes. Do the math. That means each scene can be no longer than about two minutes, compared to three or four minutes back in the day. Movies are generally in the same boat. It's all Short Attention Span Theatre.


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## Lord Darkstorm (Nov 29, 2011)

> Those have scenes written almost directly for how they should be shown in a movie, rather than for a reader of the novel. The last few books of Harry Potter are one example.



??? 

I didn't find the last couple of hp books written in movie style.  Most books that double as weapons aren't really instant script material.  (see my rant on the hp 5 movie) I think the difference there was the change in the type of fantasy it was.  One through four were more the fairy tail.  Simple, everything will be ok overtones.  Books five through seven are more real fantasy, where death is now a reality, and anyone might die, including Harry.  

If the books had dropped down to the first book size or less, then I might be inclined to agree, but larger books mean more get's dropped when converted to movie format.


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## ascanius (Nov 30, 2011)

Elder the Dwarf said:


> Ascanius, I respectfully disagree when you say that movies can't be emotional.  Go watch Radio.  If you don't cry during that movie, you probably need something checked mentally.  There are several movies I have cried during, and many more that have had a profound emotional effect on me.  I'm not saying that books don't do this as well, but movies are definitely emotional.  When you watch Lord of the Rings, do you not get excited during a battle, scared in Shelob's cave, and sad when Boromir dies?  How could you not?


Honestly not really.  In shelob's cave I had issues with the anatomy of a spider with a stinger, I know it's fantasy and all that but it bugged me, no pun intended a spider is not a bug but arachnid.  When Boromir died I wasn't sad.  Also I never said they cannot be emotional, I cried watching the notebook and am man enough to say it, along with some other movies.  Dark Night I had a distinct feeling of fear from the Joker.  Mostly though the only emotion I get from the vast majority of movies is enjoyment, nothing really special.  Emotionally to me about ninety percent of the movies I watch are all the same, this does not mean they were bad but I simply don't have enough invested in the movie.  For me a good movie is one that makes me think.  Their too simple for me, and not developed enough to create an attachment to the characters or plot.  Now in a book I tend to have strong emotions of anxiety, apprehension, hate and other concerning characters and plot.  I want to know what is going to happen, even if I know, I want the journey.  In movies there is just not enough, enough detail, and enough character development for me to really care along with anticipating the outcome.  I don't know why I am like this with books but not for movies, what can I say my greatest dream is to have a library like that in Disney Beauty and the Beast.  




Shadoe said:


> I agree with you - to a point. I think the majority of society is going that way as a culture, but I think there are still plenty of individuals who remain thoughtful and intelligent. Granted, you have to look a little harder for them, but they are out there.


What I mean by people is akin to how the Romans referred to the masses, the plebs.  Basically what you said about society as a culture.  I know that there will always be some who have Intelligence otherwise this discussion would not be taking place.




Shadoe said:


> Again, yes, and no. I don't think tv is changing society any more than society is changing tv. I read an article lately that really opened my eyes to this. The author noted that if you look at tv shows from ten or 15 (or more) years ago, you get a very different experience, both in the writing and the watching. Currently, hour-long TV shows are usually about 42 minutes long, broken into three acts. Back in the day, each act had maybe 3-4 scenes. Now, each act has no less than 6-7 scenes. Do the math. That means each scene can be no longer than about two minutes, compared to three or four minutes back in the day. Movies are generally in the same boat. It's all Short Attention Span Theatre.



But that is entirely my point, the simple addition of scenes in the end is pointless.  More scenes equal less time per scene, it doesn't matter if there are more or less.  The net outcome is still the same the scenes have to be shallow enough so anyone can turn on the TV and know what is happening at any point, or at least with as little difficulty in figuring out what is happening.  They lack depth touching only the surface.

My point with this is that people have become conditioned for hollow simple information with little to no actual thought behind what that information is.  There is no understanding just the knowledge of what is happening. nothing is actually gained just empty knowledge.  A book requires the reader to take time and follow each detail in forming the story and understand what is happening, not simply know what is happening.  A book takes the reader in it's intimate grasp to tell the story.  The reader is emotionally invested in the book, sharing the characters fears, pain, and joy on a level TV and movies could never achieve.  Movies and TV are to simple to create this sort of emotional attachment.  In many ways a book is like a person you know very well, as are the characters.  TV and Movies are the acquaintances you meet every day, you have only a limited emotional attachment to them simply your not given enough details about them to invest in them on the same level you would a parent, girlfriend, spouse, or dear friend.  And yes TV is conditioning people to this simplistic way, it is all around, Facebook, twitter.  Everything about the vast majority of media is a replication of TV, simple to the point hollow information.  Instead of talking with someone we chat or post messages on walls keeping that emotional distance, and hollow information.  That is not to say these media are not without their merits but simply people or the society of our culture is so conditioned to mindless entertainment lacking emotional investment that is corrupting the media we have reducing it to mediocrity or possibly worse.
Here's some food for thought.  I had a Philosophy professor once tell my class a little about Marx and how he thought capitalism would fail.  My professor went on to explain that one thing happened that Marx could never anticipate, the invention and distribution of TV and with it impulse buying.  The TV has only one purpose to sell something, the shows and everything else are meant to keep viewers watching by ANY MEANS POSSIBLE, ok that the FCC will allow.  
In conclusion Movies and TV have changed the way we write, paint, everything we create simply because we depend on the mindless masses to feed ourselves, shelter us, and supply us with frustration as to why I am still up when I have work in the morning.


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## Devor (Nov 30, 2011)

ascanius said:


> My point with this is that people have become conditioned for hollow simple information with little to no actual thought behind what that information is.



I don't think there's ever been a time when people didn't want hollow, simple information, and in my opinion there's often nothing wrong with that.  I mentioned earlier, but there's a much greater percentage of the population which reads than there was when Tolkein wrote.  There's also a much greater number of authors, which is great on one hand but significantly brings down the average quality of their work.  The broadening of the reading market over this century, I think, had a far greater impact on writing than anything TV or Film has done, for better and for worse.  It's also, I'll add, affected the quality and content of film as an art form, but that's for another forum.

I actually don't think the Fantasy genre has been especially affected by film, not when compared to its impact on other genres.  Aside from the Oliphant in the room, there's just been so few fantasy movies that were any good.  I think most of the "damage," so to speak, to our genre has been done by video games.  Video games can be an especially effective medium for telling about epic journeys and heroic battles, both of which are defining elements of the genre.  I think that's spooked and inspired and overshadowed more authors than a few movies.


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## Shadoe (Nov 30, 2011)

ascanius said:


> What I mean by people is akin to how the Romans referred to the masses, the plebs. Basically what you said about society as a culture. I know that there will always be some who have Intelligence otherwise this discussion would not be taking place.



I totally agree on that. I think our society - as an entity - has drifted from striving for excellence to striving for mediocrity. There was a time when a book was published; it was aimed at the intelligent people. Now, as a general rule, the books are aimed at whoever the publisher thinks will buy the most copies. That means more people are reading, but their idea of "entertainment" is what's driving the industry.



> But that is entirely my point; the simple addition of scenes in the end is pointless. More scenes equal less time per scene, it doesn't matter if there are more or less. The net outcome is still the same the scenes have to be shallow enough so anyone can turn on the TV and know what is happening at any point, or at least with as little difficulty in figuring out what is happening. They lack depth touching only the surface.



And that was the point. People don't want depth anymore, they want to get what they want and they want to get it NOW. They didn't drive for *more *scenes, but for *shorter *scenes. I just don't know what the cause and effect is. Is TV changing because the viewers have shorter attention spans, or is the world changing because TV films shorter scenes and people are expecting that to translate to the rest of their world?

Think about how things were 50 years ago. That was 1961-- (okay, heart palpitation there). In 1961, tv was still in its infancy. Not everyone had one and those who did had just a couple channels to choose from. If they sat down to watch a show, they would watch the entire show. And generally, even if it was a mediocre show, they would watch every time it was on - because that's all that was available. Today, if someone sits down to watch a show, if it doesn't grab their attention in the first few minutes, they pick up the remote (if they ever put it down at all) and changed the channel. So the TV producers know that they MUST grab the viewer right away, and they MUST keep his attention and desire for the entire 20 or 40 minutes.



> The reader is emotionally invested in the book, sharing the characters fears, pain, and joy on a level TV and movies could never achieve. Movies and TV are to simple to create this sort of emotional attachment. In many ways a book is like a person you know very well, as are the characters. TV and Movies are the acquaintances you meet every day, you have only a limited emotional attachment to them simply your not given enough details about them to invest in them on the same level you would a parent, girlfriend, spouse, or dear friend.



I don't know if I agree with that. I think movies and television can inspire viewers as much as a book. It's a different experience that the one a book provides, but it can be just as powerful. Look at Star Wars, which inspired a generation - and that started with the first movie. TV shows can inspire a lot of viewers. Look at Buffy the Vampire Slayer - people were very invested in the characters in that show.



> And yes TV is conditioning people to this simplistic way, it is all around, Facebook, twitter. Everything about the vast majority of media is a replication of TV, simple to the point hollow information. Instead of talking with someone we chat or post messages on walls keeping that emotional distance, and hollow information. That is not to say these media are not without their merits but simply people or the society of our culture is so conditioned to mindless entertainment lacking emotional investment that is corrupting the media we have reducing it to mediocrity or possibly worse.



My only question is whether society is driving this or the TV is shoving us in that direction. Our society as a whole is based on instant gratification. TV isn't the only symptom. We have so MUCH going on and so MUCH we can do, it's driving society in a direction we never thought of in the past.


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## Devor (Nov 30, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> Think about how things were 50 years ago. That was 1961-- (okay, heart palpitation there). In 1961, tv was still in its infancy. Not everyone had one and those who did had just a couple channels to choose from. If they sat down to watch a show, they would watch the entire show. And generally, even if it was a mediocre show, they would watch every time it was on - because that's all that was available. Today, if someone sits down to watch a show, if it doesn't grab their attention in the first few minutes, they pick up the remote (if they ever put it down at all) and changed the channel. So the TV producers know that they MUST grab the viewer right away, and they MUST keep his attention and desire for the entire 20 or 40 minutes.



Oh I don't know.  Don't most people still watch the same TV channel straight through the evening?  I know that trend is changing with the advent of cable, but it's still largely true that most people don't randomly channel flip during prime time, or may only skip to another specific channel once or twice a night.  The networks counter-program one another on a given night pretty well nowadays.

It's my understanding, from following television trends a little bit, that most people also prefer "casual" television where they don't need a lot to get into the show and can watch TV while chatting with friends or doing something else.  That's why reality TV and procedurals like CSI do so well, while deeper or complex serial shows often need to reach a much higher bar in terms of quality to hold their audience, such that most of them fail.  It's not that they're shallow or that people have a short attention span, it's just that they're "easier" to watch without investing as much into the show.

I would also argue that television naturally lends itself to shorter scenes, and that a shorter scene pushes viewers into have longer attention spans, not shorter ones.  If you watch old shows they were often banter heavy and conveyed very little in terms of story and plot.  They were full of one-liners and almost never had subplots or followed multiple plots which converged in the end.  Character development was a wash, Hawkeye was almost the exact same character at the end of M.A.S.H. as he was in a beginning.  That's not true of television nowadays.  Shorter scenes allows the story to progress into new levels of complexity, jokes or plot twists often rely on something which happened several scenes ago, and even procedurals like CSI or NCIS have characters who evolve as the season progresses.  You have to watch the whole show to understand what's going on - _that's_ typically how networks get you to stay on their channel or tune in next week with a scripted show.

I just find it strange when people want to judge everyone and everything, and I find it's often a lack of understanding, even when it comes to something kind of silly like television.


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## Devor (Nov 30, 2011)

mirrorrorrim said:


> What, if any, advantages _do_ books have over films? Are there things that books can do that films never can, or at least cannot do as well? As films grow more and more dominant, should we as writers try to emphasize these as much as possible in an attempt to stay relevant? Or will that just alienate casual readers even more?



To put it simply, when we watch movies or television we watch things that are happening to someone else.  When we read a novel we can feel like they're happening to us.  I think that's the biggest difference.

Novels can also be more complex than a movie, but a TV series - which has a more comparable time commitment - can reach those levels of complexity.  But it's seldom done in television because of the higher costs in producing television and the specific complexities of the industry, so advantage:  Novel.

I don't normally like posting twice in a row, but they're very different posts.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Nov 30, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> I totally agree on that. I think our society - as an entity - has drifted from striving for excellence to striving for mediocrity. There was a time when a book was published; it was aimed at the intelligent people. Now, as a general rule, the books are aimed at whoever the publisher thinks will buy the most copies. That means more people are reading, but their idea of "entertainment" is what's driving the industry.



Time was, books were aimed at _educated_ people -- in other words, those who could read. Education and intelligence correlate, but not that strongly. Go back a hundred, two hundred years, and you'll find loads and loads of lowbrow trash aimed at the masses -- not just literature, but theater and art and music. Most of it was forgotten, because who preserves lowbrow trash? It's the same phenomenon where people say that movies were so much better in Ye Olden Days, because the only movies anyone _talks about_ from those days are the great classics. They ignore the fact that there was plenty of drivel shoveled out Hollywood's door on a weekly basis, but you don't see a lot of discussion of that drivel, for obvious reasons.

Civilization has always strived for _survival_ above all else. (That's because civilizations that don't strive for survival, die out. Natural selection at work.) Some people strive for excellence, some people strive for harm, and the vast majority of people just try to get along without raising too much fuss. Thus has it always been, thus will it (most likely) always be.

Don't take a romanticized view of the past; people two hundred (five hundred, a thousand) years ago loved fart jokes just as much as we do now, and got in petty fights about stupid BS just as much as we do now, and were ignorant and bigoted and spiteful in their turns just as much as we are now. Actually, with universal literacy and the Internet, I think we are on the main actually moving *away* from that kind of thing, albeit very slowly. Just as large cities have always been more progressive and liberal than small towns -- because of the confusion of ideas spawned by many people in close proximity -- the Internet allows ideas to spread incredibly fast, meaning that yokels in small-town Nowheresville can now participate in the same marketplace of ideas as highfalutin ivory-tower types in big cities.


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## Lordfisheh (Dec 1, 2011)

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

-Socrates, via Plato.

Boy, if the decline started all the way back then the we've fallen a hell of a way. If it's been going on this whole time then just think how glorious the perpetually warmongering, sexist, racist, slave-owning society of ancient Greece was compared to ours!

Everyone thinks things are getting worse, because everyone likes to think that they're the special turning point before the golden age or the decline of humanity.


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## Shadoe (Dec 1, 2011)

Not to worry. That quote actually came out in the 1950s.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Dec 1, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> Time was, books were aimed at _educated_ people -- in other words, those who could read. Education and intelligence correlate, but not that strongly. Go back a hundred, two hundred years, and you'll find loads and loads of lowbrow trash aimed at the masses -- not just literature, but theater and art and music. Most of it was forgotten, because who preserves lowbrow trash? It's the same phenomenon where people say that movies were so much better in Ye Olden Days, because the only movies anyone _talks about_ from those days are the great classics. They ignore the fact that there was plenty of drivel shoveled out Hollywood's door on a weekly basis, but you don't see a lot of discussion of that drivel, for obvious reasons.
> 
> Civilization has always strived for _survival_ above all else. (That's because civilizations that don't strive for survival, die out. Natural selection at work.) Some people strive for excellence, some people strive for harm, and the vast majority of people just try to get along without raising too much fuss. Thus has it always been, thus will it (most likely) always be.
> 
> Don't take a romanticized view of the past; people two hundred (five hundred, a thousand) years ago loved fart jokes just as much as we do now, and got in petty fights about stupid BS just as much as we do now, and were ignorant and bigoted and spiteful in their turns just as much as we are now. Actually, with universal literacy and the Internet, I think we are on the main actually moving *away* from that kind of thing, albeit very slowly. Just as large cities have always been more progressive and liberal than small towns -- because of the confusion of ideas spawned by many people in close proximity -- the Internet allows ideas to spread incredibly fast, meaning that yokels in small-town Nowheresville can now participate in the same marketplace of ideas as highfalutin ivory-tower types in big cities.



This. Another example is music; people compare the most popular bands of previous decades to whatever happens to be in the charts on a particular day, and then jump to the conclusion that todays music is rubbish in comparison. 

Most people don't realise how bizarre it is, but it would be like comparing renowned inventors and philosophers from history to the next two people you happen to meet, then coming to the conclusion that people just aren't as smart anymore.


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## Shadoe (Dec 1, 2011)

I don't get that. I like music of the past as much as I like music of today. Same for movies and tv and books. I think it's important to judge things on their own terms.


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## S.T. Ockenner (Jan 14, 2021)

I love descriptions in books, especially descriptions of characters. The short attention span on "readers" is really for people who don't read much.


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## Toby Johnson (Jan 17, 2021)

well I still think that the book is better than the film as in harry potter, lupin looks at his biggest fear and it describes what he saw as a white silvery sphere. that could be anything, later found out it was the moon, but in movies there is no way to do this than to just show the moon


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## WooHooMan (Jan 17, 2021)

I notice a lot of writers say something to the effect of “I see a movie playing in my mind and I write down what happens.”  So they basically end-up writing novelizations to movies that don’t exist.
Before film, I assume, people mostly wrote as if transcribing how a great storyteller would tell the story orally.  People still tell each other stories but a lot of writers, it seems, have lost the ability to tell a book as if it’s an oral story transcription rather than a film transcription.


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## Prince of Spires (Jan 18, 2021)

WooHooMan said:


> I notice a lot of writers say something to the effect of “I see a movie playing in my mind and I write down what happens.”  So they basically end-up writing novelizations to movies that don’t exist.
> Before film, I assume, people mostly wrote as if transcribing how a great storyteller would tell the story orally.  People still tell each other stories but a lot of writers, it seems, have lost the ability to tell a book as if it’s an oral story transcription rather than a film transcription.


I wonder if that's really the case or if it's more a case of a writer trying to explain something intuitive in terms other people understand. I imagine stories playing in my head. If I had to explain it to someone I would say it's like watching a movie in my head. But reality is it's very different from that. It's just the closest I can come to explaining it. 

I think the biggest influence of visual media on writing is that we can get away with less description. Everyone will have seen a knight / viking / samurai warrior, they will have seen castles and palaces, deserts and rain forests. I can just call it a red desert or a forbidden city or sky-scraper skyline and my reader will have an image in his head. It might not be my image, but he will have an idea of what I am talking about. If a specific detail matters to the story, or if it will help set the scene then I go deeper in the description. But for the rest I can use a few brush strokes and get away with it.


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## Miles Lacey (Jan 18, 2021)

If you read a book written at the end of the 19th century you will see an attention to detail that is largely absent today for one simple reason: the vast majority of readers back in the late 19th Century had never visited nor seen any images of the places, peoples and cultures being described.  These days you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't be familiar with pseudo-medieval societies, elves or places like Rome or Tokyo.  

That expanding of our knowledge of these things has been in large part due to illustrated books, films, TV and the Internet.  

So, yes, film has changed how we write fantasy.  As for whether or not that is a good thing is entirely a matter of opinion.


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## Darkfantasy (Jan 18, 2021)

I would say it's made people more aware (cultures, places, people, lives that others live, history). Watching a movie is easy and requires very little time, where as reading a book can be a long commitment. I've watched an entire movie trilogy is one day, you couldn't do that with a book trilogy. A documentary or many on one subject may not go into the depth like a non-fiction book but it still gives you the jist. I think T.V has made people more aware of things, especially visually. IF it weren't for the internet or TV I'd have no idea what things looked like because words don't always give you the truth because so much imagination is involved and perspective of the times.


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