Lets say you think of an amazing three act story
that you want to create.
"I think I just"
"yeah"
"I just had an idea"
The first question you have to ask yourself is
What do you make?
Should your story be written as a movie or a novel?
It's a simple question, but the answer gets complicated
because of how often stories get retold in different artforms
The majority of highest grossing and most critically acclaimed movies
were adapted from novels and many unforgettable stories became famous
both as a novel and as a film
but each of these stories is presented differently depending on the medium used
so what's the difference between telling a story through a film and through a novel
What can a novel convey well that a film may have trouble with?
When I was in high school, I read "How to Write a Movie in 21 Days."
The first chapter of the book provides an interesting thought experiment
to consider the differences between a novel and a screenplay.
The experiment asks you to think of a scene and write that scene both as a novel and as a movie.
Consider a scene where a robber breaks into a home to steal something.
In a novel, we may get the inner thoughts of the robber before the robbery.
The robber and his predicament get described to us through various literary devices.
no other option and with the shaking hand he lifted the hammer and smashed
the window shattering the glass in his expectations for a quiet life free of
Where the novel stands out is its ability to put us in the thoughts and perspective of a character so smoothly.
Of course, movies do the same thing.
Movies narrate, have voice-overs and even talk directly to the viewer
but the novel can transition from thought to action so seemlessly
to the point where the vast majority of some novels can take place completely within the mind of a character
and the story can remain gripping and moving.
In movies, action is more common than just thinking.
"Alright, you just need to calm down. We need to think for a second."
"We just need to think this out."
"Fuck thinking, we need to act."
It's rare for a movie to spend the whole time narrating because it would get boring
but novels are different.
Instead of showing a character, a novel completely inhabits the mind of a character in the world of the narrative.
Novels can tells us how a person is feeling, tell us what something looks like, or what something tastes like
in a way a movie has trouble with.
"Catcher in the Rye" wouldn't work very well as a movie because movies are best at showing action and movement.
The vast majority of "Catcher in the Rye" takes place inside the mind of Holden, and little action occurs as Holden ponders.
So when a scene consists of nothing but Holden sitting on a train thinking,
the novel is the best method for bringing Holden's thoughts and character to life
While there are definitely good movies that showcase a character's thoughts,
novels do it better.
In the adaptation of "The Hunger Games" from the novel to the big screen, the writers had to do away with a lot of what was going on inside Katniss's head
because it didn't transition well to screen.
In "The Hunger Games," Katniss has to fake a romance with Peeta to win affection from the viewers
and in the first two books, she constantly thinks about Gale back home and has an inner struggle about whether or not she likes Gale or Peeta
The movies almost entirely do away with this plotline in the earlier films because it's really awkward adding love triangle to a film that has no action associated with it.
Movies aren't good at thoughts. They're good at actions.
The "Great Gatsby" film adaptation has several differences with the novel and it capitalizes on what movies do better than books.
They show. To show Gatsby's anxiety towards seeing Daisy,
he orders a ridiculous amount of flowers for the house and hires dozens of servants to redecorate Nick's lawn.
The visuals show Gatsby's overpreparation and anxiety from seeing Daisy.
The scene of him waiting for Daisy has the ever-increasing volume of the time ticking in the background as we get closer and closer to the clock.
"I can't wait all day. I'm leaving"
Along with DiCaprio's performance all the elements of the scene--the editing, sound, visuals and acting--convey the sense of anxiety Gatsby has. The novel does it a little bit differently. The
novel has no flowers delivered and only one of Gatsby servants comes to mow the
lawn. Instead of representing nerves through big visuals we get told about
Gatsby's nerves through literary devices.
Both scenes are written very similarly with almost the same dialogue and action but
the subtle differences between the movie's visuals and the novel's
descriptions are how two different art forms convey the same mood. The novel
tells us about his nerves through description and the movie shows us his
nerves through editing, lighting, sound and acting. So what would a robbery look like
as a movie? To play to the strengths of film when it comes to conveying the
robber's hesitation and regret we would show rather than tell. Maybe we get a
close-up of his trembling hand or sweat on his brow. Maybe he'd be dressed in
everyday attire instead of the typical robber gear. The shots could be close ups
and point-of-view shots to place us into his perspective and empathize with him
and the shots could be edited very quickly to up the pace and anxiety of the scene.
These visuals are what would make the story powerful. For the novel, metaphors
tone, hyperbole and all the other countless literary techniques are the
key to telling a story and lighting, camera angle, actor placement and other
cinematic techniques are how movies show a story. Different techniques with
different strengths and weaknesses. Movies show. Novels tell. Many people on
the internet loathe movies that don't stay true to the novel's they are based on.
There are a lot of reasons for the changes from novel to screen like
fitting feature-length screen time and a desire to appeal to a larger audience
but I think one key difference some people miss is that movies can't always
replicate the mood of a novel because movies have to present the story with
different techniques. Perhaps "The Great Gatsby" wasn't a good adaptation because
it focused too heavily on the visuals of the story and not the emotion behind it.
Take this excerpt from the novel
That moment is recreated in the movie like this
"He seemed to be reaching towards something out there in the dark."
The movie doesn't come close to capturing the moment correctly. In the novel, Gatsby can
be seen trembling even from a distance with both arms stretched out. It's
obviously a very personal moment for Gatsby, where he looks extremely desperate
almost pathetic with such dramatic body posture. In the movie he just does this.
No trembling. Just one arm. Not embarrassing, not intimate. It's
completely casual and this is the whole point of the scene. It's supposed to be a
very uncomfortable moment to see Gatsby's desperate and weak side but the
movie recreates this moment totally wrong. The movie's visuals made Gatsby look so
cool and his life so dazzling that we miss how he's not just a cool rich guy
with a weakness for a girl. He's actually an extremely empty, hollow failure that's
anything from great. The movie's visuals along with the modern score made Gatsby's
character much less moving and pathetic like the novel did. So sometimes the movie
gets it wrong. There are many more examples where the movie does it write
and maybe even better. What better way to show the clamor of a foreign world than
to go from a world in black and white to a world in color? What better way to show
a narrator dominating the scene than by having him look straight at us and
introduce us to the world himself? What I'm saying is that for every poor
adaptation there are dozens of examples proving otherwise. Many stories work very
well on screen and off so I don't think movie adaptations of a book are cursed
to be worse than the book. I just think that sometimes the filmmaker doesn't
bring the emotion of the book onto the screen properly. So the next time you
read a book or watch a movie
ask yourself does it show or tell?
"I know kung-fu."