1. Rick n Morty

    Rick n Morty Active Member

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    Do you picture your ideas as movies or books?

    Discussion in 'Genre Discussions' started by Rick n Morty, Jul 29, 2016.

    I'm sorry if this is the wrong subforum. (If it is, someone please move it.) Anyways...

    Even though I write them down, I personally picture the majority of my ideas as movies, simply because it's easier to put ideas in your audience's head with visuals. Plus, the only thing I have to worry about is what's truly important: the story and characterization. And if I'm having trouble with that, I can have other writers to bounce ideas off of.

    Also, I picture them as 2D-animated Disney or Don Bluth-style films. Yeah, I prefer animation to live-action simply due to the freedom animation brings compared to hiring live actors. And, like the majority of animation lovers, I want traditional animation back.

    Will my ideas ever become movies? Maybe, maybe not. That's not important. What's important is that I have more fun picturing them as movies than books.

    The only idea of mine that I personally think works better as a book than a movie is this speculative pseudo-documentary that speculates what kind of bizarre lifeforms lived on Mars back when it had an ocean.

    So, what about you guys? Do you picture your ideas as movies, books, tv shows, video games, or what?
     
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  2. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    I'm not sure I picture them as either. If I wrote in 3rd person I'm sure it would be as movies, but in 1st it's like I'm imagining these things really happened, so if anything I see them as memories.
     
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  3. ddavidv

    ddavidv Senior Member

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    I absolutely 'see' mine as movies. I'm honestly not sure how someone can picture a story as a book. To me, it is all a visual picture...just mental instead of on a screen.
     
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  4. Rick n Morty

    Rick n Morty Active Member

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    What I meant was whether you think your ideas work better as movies or books.

    Someone on another thread told me that taking influence from movies was a bad idea because movies and books work differently, only for me to tell them that my ideas are intended as movies, not books. (Whether or not those movies will ever be made is a completely different matter.)
     
  5. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    I have an almost visceral reaction against seeing my fiction as a movie. Movies are all visual - there's really not much opportunity to explore philosophy, layers of meaning, etc., and especially prose style as a tool for influencing the reader's reaction to the material - in a movie. That kind of thing is important to me. Visual storytelling is good for conveying plot, but plot is only a fraction of storytelling, in my view. Prose fiction allows for more dimensions: exploring what characters are thinking even when there's no dialogue, for example, or controlling distance between the narrator and the character to emphasize of de-emphasize symbolism or pathetic fallacy or any other technique I want to use.

    Good prose fiction is work, both for the writer and for the reader, but it's worth it. Movies, with their stricter structure and time constraints, are far more limited in the effects they can achieve.

    In my own opinion, of course.
     
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  6. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    I tend to agree with you on this.

    But I will say I think it's silly when people compare movies and books. They are two entirely different art forms. I don't necessarily think that prose allows for more dimension, just different dimensions than movies. There are plenty of movies that convey philosophical ideas and have layers of meaning. They just deliver it in a different fashion.
     
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  7. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    You're absolutely right, of course, and there's as huge a difference between filmmakers like Michael Bay and Stanley Kubrick as there is between novelists like E.L. James and Vladimir Nabokov. There are hacks and real artists in both forms.

    I will say this, though: Filmmaking is a far more collaborative form, for better or worse. The director has to collaborate with producers, actors, screenwriters, composers, cinematographers, and so on, and often has to relinquish control of certain aspects in order to get the movie made. (Studio head: "We won't finance the movie unless it stars George Clooney. We need an A-lister to get audiences to show up." This, even if George Clooney is totally wrong for the part.)

    By contrast, a novelist is in virtually total control over all aspects of the work. If it's a great novel, the novelist can take a bow. If it's crap, it's all on the novelist.
     
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  8. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    There certainly are quite a few hacks in both forms. That is painfully true.

    And you're right films are much more collaborative. Sometimes I think this works in the favor of the people who make the film, sometimes it doesn't. I will say, I have a much higher tolerance for sub-par books than I do sub-par films. I don't know what that says about me, haha.
     
  9. zoupskim

    zoupskim Contributor Contributor

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    I struggle with this. I love written language, but I very clearly imagine "scenes" in my head when I write, with people and objects moving through environments and occupying time.
     
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  10. AsGryffynn

    AsGryffynn New Member

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    As movies, anime and a game... You can't picture books as books...
     
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  11. KhalieLa

    KhalieLa It's not a lie, it's fiction. Contributor

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    I see mine unfolding as if it were "real life" before me. I think the only difference between me an a schizophrenic is, when the schizophrenic has a delusional episode and hears voices in their head, they talk back, whereas I take dictation.
     
  12. Rick n Morty

    Rick n Morty Active Member

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    What I meant was basically whether your idea works better as a movie or a book, as I already posted in my second comment.
     
  13. MidniteJay

    MidniteJay New Member

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    The idea I have now would probably work best as a premium cable TV series or picked up by Netflix.
     
  14. KhalieLa

    KhalieLa It's not a lie, it's fiction. Contributor

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    Well, then I picture it as a book. If I pictured it as a movie I'd be writing a screen play, now wouldn't I?
     
  15. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I picture mine as if it is happening in front of me, kind of like a movie, but I always think in words, if that makes sense. I constantly attach words to the scene in my head, and often create dialogue there as well.

    However, I always put myself in the role of the POV character, so I see only what that character sees, but I also feel what that character is feeling. That's where my envisioning differs from a movie. A movie shows all the characters in the scene. I show all the characters except me, and I'm always in the scene, playing one of the parts.
     
  16. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Rick n Morty -- If you think your ideas work better as movies, write them as movies. Don't waste your time putting your ideas down in what you think is the wrong form.

    When writing prose, I don't so much see scenes in my head. It's more like hearing voices and listening for the right words. It's not just about the story but also how I tell the story. It doesn't so much matter what I picture. All that matters is what I say. My whole way of thinking is very language based when it comes to writing for the most part. However, I sometimes write plays and I find my approach changes greatly for those. I have only written a few stage plays so it's probably a little different for screenplays. But this is where I really try and picture it all as I am writing.

    I would suggest getting your hands on some scripts of works similar to what you want to create. Study those examples, and take it from there. Books and movies are very different. I think writing them each calls for different approaches. I know that's true for me. And I think you should practice and read works in the form you would like to work with.

    Also, it's "anyway" not "anyways." There is no "s." Ever.

     
  17. Rick n Morty

    Rick n Morty Active Member

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    Yeah, I write my ideas in Wikipedia synopsis form, not in prose form.

    I usually take influence from animated films I really like. My three favorites are The Secret of NIMH, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Prince of Egypt.
     
  18. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Movies. Always movies. But then I end up writing books. Go figure. Although the two forms are very, very different.
     
  19. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    That would still be prose. I get the feeling you might be joking around or just having some fun. I guess we all go through something similar at times.
     
  20. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    Both! A graphic novel! TV! Whatever I want!!! :superlaugh::superlaugh::superlaugh:
     
  21. Shbooblie

    Shbooblie Senior Member

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    I definitely play mine out as an imaginary movie in my head. It's the only way I can write down the little details that give a scene some life. I've went as far as to produce some comic panels of certain scenes just to aid the writing, though I have no intention of making it into a comic.
    I see my story as an offbeat indie movie, so much so I've questioned the format at a few points in time, but I thought writing a novel would be easier (not easy, just easi-er) so that is what I've gone with. I personally wouldn't know what to do with a movie script, plus it seems more likely that it would get published than made into a movie, even though I know chances of getting published are slim. Still, I can dream! :supercheeky:
     
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  22. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    A (wo)man can dream! A (wo)man can dream!
     
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  23. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    With my background in movies as both a writer and an actor (not to mention that I originally went to art college to study filmmaking) even though I write novels, I visualize everything as a film, but with a narrator... sort of like Magnum P.I. I guess. :)
     
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  24. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    I do the same thing while keeping very firmly in mind that I'm writing a novel. I also do my best to make sure the 'based on' will be as easy as possible.
     
  25. Malisky

    Malisky Malkatorean Contributor

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    The first great wave of inspiration is audiovisual although it might all have started by a scent of something, or vice versa. But it's always more that a film because it's like I'm in my minds movie. In a world that I already know the characters, what they are sensing and feeling. Like I'm in them but only as an observer. In greater inspirations I might get even more caught up in the environment and feeling, just like a past life. A really strong fake memory. But without the audiovisual, there would be no story for me to share. I surely don't think in words. Not images either, but they get translated more intimately that way, at least.
     
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