I’m reading “Matchstick Men” by Eric Garcia. It’s supposed to be a movie soon.
It reads like a movie, and so does alot of stuff I’ve read recently.
I also read something by Steinbeck recently, and it was this experience that made me realize the difference between recent novels and those of generations past.
I want help exploring this: Writers today tell stories like they’re movies because they’ve grown up with movies, video, etc. as their primary story tellers rather than books.
I think of the following authors at least:
Chuck palahniuk, Nick Hornby, Elmore Leonard, the aforementioned Garcia,
I think it’s a lot more sinister than that: most “bestseller” authors today write their novels JUST to sell the film rights, so they’re thinking MOVIE when they’re writing BOOK. A lot of the disposable fiction I’ve read the last few years has very clearly been this kind of “novelization” of the movie the writer imagines will make him/her rich.
I was reading a newspaper article about THE DA VINCI CODE the other day. It mentioned that the author of that book made a point of noting that the hero looked like a “younger Harrison Ford.”
Ditto. I first noticed it in The Bear & the Dragon by Tom Clancy. Dave Barry’s novel (can’t remember the name – trouble something) was shamelessly written like a script besides being just plain awful.
Why does Hollywood have to ruin absolutely everything???
When I read a book, I usually visualize the scenes in terms of camera angles and shots, so I’m sure that translates into the descriptions in my books. I don’t have a problem with it. If you tell me an interesting and intriguing story, that’s all I care for.
Charles de Lint has pointed out that a lot of aspiring writers have no idea how to handle point of view, since they’re used to movies where there is rarely a POV character.
It’s extremely difficult to handle omniscient point of view (which is why – English teachers to the contrary – you rarely see it in books). The result is very jarring.
Yeah, I quite enjoyed ‘The Sphere’ but then the story just went pure “movie” towards the end with the race against time and the explosions etc. and I just thought " This is so movie ." and quite frankly it ruined the book for me.
Taking it a step further in the last Star //ars movie there was the scene where Anorak and the girl from that hitman movie were running about in some robot factory on an assembly line that had obstacles smashing up and down and across while little robots were attacking them and I just thought " Man, he just put this bit in for the console/PC game version."
D’ya think it’s because that’s just how our story telling structure is? Or is it more conscious than that?
I mean, I grew up with TV and movies as my primary story tellers. I’m beginning to believe that this is how I understand stories, and If I wrote one I would use this structure because it’s the one with which I’m most comfortable.
So is it just because our current authors have been heavily influenced by the visual media or is it because they want a movie deal when they write the book?
(I personally can’t believe the latter)
In Michael Crichtons case I believe it is the latter, I mean , he knows the right people to talk to in getting his book turned into a movie as he is in that business anyway. It’s a gravy train for him and his buddies.
I have been searching the Web for confirmation of a Kurt Vonnegut quote I read somewhere to the effect of “Writers today don’t write novels, they write descriptions of movies they see in their heads,” but I have been unsuccessful. I do believe there is some truth to it, but like all generalizations, it’s way too broad.
