I’ve had fun today writing about the differences between comics and film. See, my heroine is a comic book artist, and my hero is a screenwriter, and they approach narrative in a completely different way. Anna gave me the idea that their learning about each other’s way of working should be the first step towards them learning about each other. So I’ve been writing about them doing that.
Comics are so cool though. One thing I love about them is that they are visual, like film, but they tell stories through space, rather than through time. A comic will show the still beginning of an action in one panel, and then in the next panel show the outcome of that action. The action itself takes place in the blank space between panels, and the act of the reader filling in that action is called closure. Therefore the reader participates in the deciphering of what’s going on, and there’s potential for big differences of interpretation.
Gaps are interesting. I’ve started to leave more and more gaps at the end of my books; I used to do epilogues quite a bit, but I’ve moved away from them because I like the reader to fill things in herself. I read a review of His for the Taking which speculated on what happened to the characters and the pigeon they rescue after the end of the book. The reviewer wanted something totally different to happen than what I would have written. I’m sort of glad I didn’t write it, because the reviewer got a happier ending for her that way.
When I was studying Screenwriting, I recall an article about Silent Movies in the 1920s.
They were created for an audience who were often made up of:
a. Immigrants and migrant workers who had just come to the US
b. Folks who could not read English subtitles. even when they were a foot high on a screen
c. People who were familiar with comic books or picture books or novels, and were therefore familar with the idea of filling in the gaps themselves between scenes.
If you ever watch a silent movie, it is often just like pages from a comic.
I wonder if that is why comics are still popular even in this era of CGI blockbuster movies?
Comics ARE so cool! Brilliant idea.
I tend to dislike epilogues for that reason. I like to finsh the story myself. It was interesting to hear my mother and a friend discussing their views of what happened at the end of August Rock – quite humourous as they were very different!
The last HP had an epilogue which all the teans I spok to thought was so important. i enjoyed it but I found I didn’t need it.
Thanks for the insight into comics. i had never really thought about the process
That’s interesting about silent movies and comics, Ray-Anne. I wonder if because moving pictures were so new, a lot of the tradition of static storytelling was still being used.
Liz, I didn’t like the HP epilogue. While it was nice and cosy and confirmed what I wanted to know, there was a real sense that nobody had changed at all from the age of 18, and that in fact their lives had been completely uneventful for years and years and years. It sort of flattened what was a more rounded series, if that makes sense. I wanted a sense of HP as an adult, and instead I got a cardboard cut-out.
But it was a hard job to do. I wouldn’t have wanted to write that epilogue.
That’s funny about your mother and your friend disagreeing about the ending of your book.
As an aside – I noticed that Jenny Crusie is working on a story idea about a mystery writer, and is using the covers of pulp mags/comics to help her develop the characters -
http://www.arghink.com/2008/02/29/the-liz-danger-mysteries/
and http://www.arghink.com/2008/03/02/getting-rosie/
Fascinating stuff. I had no idea you could develop these kind of covers yourself using templates in Mac!
And yes, I would buy these books and she had not written a word.
Maybe one day I could be as clever as that…