Medium Discussion: Prose versus Visual

ChaosTitan said:

If all you want to do is follow a character's steps and learn things through dialogue, stick with movies and television.

The best novels in any genre get into a character's head, show you their thoughts, and explore the world through their eyes. Description is a requirement in novels.

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It's very interesting that you mention this, and it's FUNDAMENTAL to writing.

Like Miles, I personally don't care about navel-gazing. In fact, it bores me and slows down the novel (most of the time, there are exceptions). Some of the best books I've read (e.g. The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo) are just 'camera-like' in terms of the MC being followed by the camera i.e. the reader. Stuff about character and setting gets revealed along the way. There's very little internal thought from what I remember.

I write exactly like this, and people on AW (and probably agents as well) think my writing is bland. Aside from polishing my writing style to make sure the grammar is consistent and such, maybe the 'bland' response is largely due to the camera style. Is it bland to the average, consistent reader? Meanwhile, I've had a beta reader that, like Miles, doen't like getting bogged down by 'useless' detail. My beta reader reads but he's not a consistent fiction book buyer from what I know, but he has read a lot. Anyway, he feels refreshed reading my stuff because he feels that a lot of fiction writers write in the same way. Writers feel this need to be 'descriptive' and hit the reader with internal thought. If everyone's being 'descriptive', doesn't it get played out?

HOWEVER, you do make an excellent point saying that novels have the advantage of allowing you to get close to the character in terms of internal thought. It's pretty much the only thing a movie CANNOT do and a novel can do easily. Otherwise, i'd say film has the advantage in terms of storytelling.

So my question to you is this: "if a writer is not going to spend time getting into the eyes of the MC, and exploring the world through the MC's eyes, is there a point writing a novel? Is the 'internal thought' the strongest part about novels as compared to film and other mediums of storytelling? Do the majority of readers crave character and internal thought more than anything else?"

I would love to know the answer to that question.

SirBiatch said:

So my question to you is this: "if a writer is not going to spend time getting into the eyes of the MC, and exploring the world through the MC's eyes, is there a point writing a novel? Is the 'internal thought' the strongest part about novels as compared to film and other mediums of storytelling? Do the majority of readers crave character and internal thought more than anything else?"

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For me, it has to be appropriate to the story. When it's an action adventure with dinosaur chases, I don't mind too much if I don't get to see thoughts. I'm waiting to see the dinosaurs eat people.

If it's a coming-of-age story, most of the conflict will be internal... so I'd want to see it. Reading about the character pulling funny faces doesn't have the same impact as knowing what they're thinking.

SirBiatch said:

So my question to you is this: "if a writer is not going to spend time getting into the eyes of the MC, and exploring the world through the MC's eyes, is there a point writing a novel? Is the 'internal thought' the strongest part about novels as compared to film and other mediums of storytelling? Do the majority of readers crave character and internal thought more than anything else?"

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Its depends on tastes; a lot of "literary" fiction comprises of character and internal thought and little more

Internal thoughts of the POV character are fine when they relate to the immediate action of the story. Less so the more they veer off toward Freudian psychobabble. Let the literary types handle this; they do it best, anyway.

But if Captain John goes about slaughtering v'groklamucklees without any thinking whatsoever--such as um, "this is necessary so that my niece, Abigail, can grow up to play in the symphony" or "this is disgusting but they're eating all the bratwurst and we can't have that" etc.--then John becomes two-dimensional and increasingly uninteresting. At some point, he doesn't even need a name: "The captain slaughtered another 37 v'groklamucklees, saving the orphanage." (Yawn)

ChaosTitan said:

Has long has written language been around? If it hasn't been played out by now, no, I don't think it will.

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's a bit more complex than that. Novels have not been around, as a form, as long as all that. My advisor makes an interesting argument that (simplified--) Jane Austen wrote the first modern novels, in terms of modern levels of characters tracking others' thoughts.

There's also the notion that sf/f derives from the old genre of Romances rather than Novels -- which haven't been around that long either, but did focus more on extreme actions than character thoughts.

I think the big question is this: if you take out description and internal thoughts, how can a prose form of a story possibly be an improvement over the analogous play/movie/comic book? Why would someone want to read such a thing instead of watching it?

An action-only story seems to me to be playing to the weaknesses of the prose form rather than its strengths.

These are all very good (and hard to answer definitively) questions that, I believe, deserve a closer look. I may split this out of the thread and send the topic up to Novel Writing.

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I like this idea! But it might make more sense to start a whole new thread with fully-contextualized questions rather than just splitting out the questions sans context?

Shweta said:

An action-only story seems to me to be playing to the weaknesses of the prose form rather than its strengths.

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That's the root of the matter. What exactly are the strengths of prose over film/play/tv?

and by the way, please don't be vague on this if you chose to answer the question. No 'it allows the reader to form a world' type stuff. I mean real concrete strengths of prose. Worldbuilding is apparent in great film, great tv, great prose, etc...

SirBiatch said:

That's the root of the matter. What exactly are the strengths of prose over film/play/tv?

and by the way, please don't be vague on this if you chose to answer the question. No 'it allows the reader to form a world' type stuff. I mean real concrete strengths of prose. Worldbuilding is apparent in great film, great tv, great prose, etc...

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The first thing that comes to mind for me that books have over tv shows or at the very least movies is, books can tell a longer story. Movie adaptions of books always cut stuff out that would otherwise enrich the experience, be it subplots, characters, world details, whatever. Somethings will just have to go. There is only so long people are willing to sit on their butt and stare at a screen in movie theaters, and with rare exception would people be willing to watch a 4 hour movie (The Stand is like, 4 parts, each of which pretty long on it's own). Breaking them up sometimes works, but the movie you actually sit down and watch needs to have a climax or the audience isn't satisfied. (One of a few reasons the second PoTC movie displeased a lot of people--it wasn't really complete and was basically like a 'part one' with PoTC 3 as part 2.)

Same sort of deal with TV shows; every episode must feel complete in itself as well as being a part of something larger if it's a story with an ongoing storyline. You might get away with a few episodes with no resolution, but those really are annoying after a while, and the re-watching value is sort of down. Sitcoms can be played in any order and it doesn't have a huge impact, because you can enjoy them for what they are in and of themselves. Shows that left you hanging at the end can't do that. Not a huge downfall, necessarily, but it is a limit. And the thing with shows is, no one wants a show that goes just one season, at least in the US. In the US, good shows will be milked for all they're worth, creating drag ( book to tv show things would not work in that sense, most of the time). So in that sense, books can tell stories that would be too long for movies and either too short or too long for a TV show, depending on how you looked at it.

Books tell a story that can't be the same in film of any sort. Books can put emphasis on a lot of things that in film would be really, really boring. Books are comfortable and have more multiplicities than can be displayed on screen.

Hmmmm....rambled enough for now.

Damn forum screwed up a reply of mine earlier that was pretty close to Makai's. The way you can schedule a movie vs a book is a very big difference is the mediums.

Another big difference is that reading can be a much more absorbing experience that watching a movie. I used to zone out all the time in my HS cafeteria reading a good book, and sometimes you had to slap me out of it. I was late to class on several occasions. The reason for this is that--and especially with small screens--the movie screen does not always fill your vision. It can leave sections of your view open to distractions. A book that is absorbing enough engages the whole of your concentration in a way that--in my own small experience--a movie cannot, because it doesn't require any work on the part of the reader.

Because you said to be very clear and specific, I can't really bring up any of my other points. It's actually rather ridiculous to compare the two mediums based on their "strong" advantages. There are a lot of advantages in both methods that are not general for all works in that medium. Specific stories might make uses of differences that aren't visible every time.


Interesting thought: Why don't you do the same thing for the other side of the argument, biatch? What are the strengths of film over prose?

SirBiatch said:

That's the root of the matter. What exactly are the strengths of prose over film/play/tv?

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I'd say
1) Complexity/length allowed (already discussed)
2) Reader vs viewer involvement -- text is a really minimal cognitive cue, so readers are required to do a lot more mental work to read than to watch something analogous (though of course watchers are able to do as much mental work as they want). This leads to involvement because in a real sense they are creating the story from the words. (Visuals can also trigger involvement; it's a different sort because it's a different cognitive process)

Because of (1) and (2), it's easier to get readers involved with complex interrelations and motivations, and easier to get viewers involved with ongoing action.

Which isn't to say it's not possible to do wonderful things the other way -- but it's harder, because to some extent one is fighting the medium. All-action prose can read as bland, and deeply complex networks of motivations can get both boring and confusing on screen.

(About your worldbuilding example -- there are certainly aspects of worldbuilding that would make it better onto a screen, and aspects that work better in prose. It's far too overarching a category to make definite statements about it as a whole.)

SirBiatch said:

That's the root of the matter. What exactly are the strengths of prose over film/play/tv?

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In film the actor has to say what their motivation is - however ridiculous it would be to do so. ( or at least be bloody good with body language!) or it is shown through action. WE can't know that they are eaten up with jealousy unless something is either said ( might be unlikely) or an event is shown on screen. It can't just 'be'.

In a book we get the POV character's inference of events - in movies we get our own. It is not filtered through the POV's thoughts and emotions. Our prejudices / blind spots / inability to read body language comes into play. It is happening to someone else. We just watch, and make our own interpretations. We are voyeurs only.

In prose we can feel part of the story. We can see inside one ( or more) person's heads. We make interpretations yes, based on the interpretations of the POV character and what they see and feel. We know exactly why they do something, even if we're sitting there saying 'don't do that! It's stupid'. With a skilful writer, we can almost feel that we are partly that character. It's much much more intimate and immediate.

IdiotsRUs said:

In film the actor has to say what their motivation is - however ridiculous it would be to do so. ( or at least be bloody good with body language!) or it is shown through action. WE can't know that they are eaten up with jealousy unless something is either said ( might be unlikely) or an event is shown on screen. It can't just 'be'.

In a book we get the POV character's inference of events - in movies we get our own. It is not filtered through the POV's thoughts and emotions. Our prejudices / blind spots / inability to read body language comes into play. It is happening to someone else. We just watch, and make our own interpretations. We are voyeurs only.

In prose we can feel part of the story. We can see inside one ( or more) person's heads. We make interpretations yes, based on the interpretations of the POV character and what they see and feel. We know exactly why they do something, even if we're sitting there saying 'don't do that! It's stupid'. With a skilful writer, we can almost feel that we are partly that character. It's much much more intimate and immediate.

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It's what Swain calls "Motivation Reaction Units".

[Sentence without your character in it, but from their physical and moral POV.] [Sentence with your character in it.]

The motivation unit reads as if it's objective, but can be as biased as you like. A liberated woman, e.g. can also be a [not nice word here], or a fallen soul. It all depends on the POV character.

So, prose can take you deeper into alien POVs than film can.