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.
