Dialogue and Critical Thinking

Chances are, dear readers, you have a vague idea who the two cartoon princesses are in the photo collage above. If not, a hint: Anna and Elsa, stars of Disney’s massive hit FROZEN.

FROZEN is a movie loved by many and its songs are ones you can probably hum along with even if you haven’t seen the movie or bumped into a five-year-old singing “Let it Go” at the top of her lungs in the cereal aisle at the grocery store.

But what you may not have noticed—at least I didn’t until I saw this post on Tumblr—was that Anna and Elsa haven’t done themselves many favors in critical thought department.

The above collage has the caption: “These two run a country.”

Yes, they run a tiny kingdom, but they are constantly, painfully saying, “What?” “Wait?” and combinations of those and other “I’m really confused and don’t understand what you’re saying” expressions.

Obviously, many people saw that movie and never noticed these princesses’ penchant for speaking before thinking. I sure didn’t.

BUT, fill a whole book with conversations where your character is constantly exclaiming, “Wait, what?” and you likely won’t have your reader thinking the character is nearly as smart or interesting or worthy of any sort of praise whatsoever.

Case in point: I once read a manuscript blind for someone where the main character was supposed to be this special person with knowledge that could save an empire (yes, it was dystopian). But this main character was constantly and I mean CONSTANTLY having things explained to her. She never was able to put two and two together. Even worse, it was always men in this world explaining things. Not exactly what many young girls would want to read, even though this would-be author was aiming it straight at the high school set.

After reading probably a thousand variations of “Wait, what?” I knew there was no way I was ever truly going to trust that this character could save her people or was worth any of the praise dripped on her. And I wanted to like her. I really did. But there was no way we were going to be friends. And I felt disappointed with the whole manuscript.

So, this is a challenge to you. When you’re revising, see how many times you rely on a crutch such as “Wait, what?” to get to the heart of whatever information needs to be discovered in a scene. You might surprise yourself at how easily you let your character get away with something completely against his or her character.

Does Reading a Book Before Seeing the Movie Matter?

Last Saturday night, my husband and I had a date night. We’d had the babysitter lined up for weeks. And we had a plan, or so we thought.

Dinner. Grand Budapest Hotel. Home.

But, as it turns out, show times for the delightful film we’d planned on seeing didn’t jibe with our babysitter’s timeframe and I wasn’t about to shell out even more moolah to make her stay later.

So, we adjusted. And ended up seeing a huge blockbuster on opening weekend. Which is extremely rare for us, given we tend only to see a handful of movies per year and we usually stumble into the theater when they’re a hair’s breadth away from extinction-til-DVD.

The movie? Divergent.

As in the movie based on book one of a very popular series.

A series I haven’t read.

A series I’ve never been particularly interested in reading, to be honest.

I have plenty on my to-be-read list that I’d put ahead of something bleak and dystopian. Basically, I loved The Hunger Games, but after that I was kind of done thinking about different ways we’d live after the world was pretty much destroyed. Call me an optimist.

However, it ended up being our date night movie of choice because:

1. We were going to a theater with assigned seating and a minimum age of 18, and thus, didn’t have to deal with crowds. (Thank God for Alamo Drafthouse.)

2. The movie was already getting rave reviews by critics and just plain moviegoers alike.

3. Even if it sucked, I’d get to look at Theo James (aka the man who died in Lady Mary’s bed in the first season of Downton Abbey) for two hours, thus the scenery would be pretty. Yes, that’s him above.

So, we went.

And you know what? I really liked it. Great stakes, tension, etc. Though, pretty, pretty Theo James really was the highlight for moi.

That said, I was wondering if it would’ve been different if I’d read the books.

I often try to read the book before I see the movie version (e.g. Hunger Games, as mentioned above), because I want to support the authors and gain some perspective on what was really intended.

Though, I’ve noticed that sometimes this leaves me let down by the movie version. With The Hunger Games, I actually thought the first movie was really tough to follow if you hadn’t read the book. The second movie did much better with this, but I’m not sure if people who hadn’t read the book and saw the first movie would’ve come back to the second movie unless they were just there to ogle Jennifer Lawrence the same way I’d planned on ogling Theo James on Saturday night.

Other times, I’ve only found out the movie was a book after seeing the movie. Actually, this happens a lot. The Oscar darling of 2013, Silver Linings Playbook, is the prime example in my mind. Saw the movie and loved it, then found out it was a book and ordered it.

Would I have liked Silver Linings Playbook so much if I’d read the book first?

I’d like to think so, but it’s impossible to tell.

Do you find reading a book before seeing the film version affects your experience?

Movie or Book? Which Kind of Imagination Do You Have?

Hi! My name is Linda, and I am a bookworm. I'm the kid who constantly heard "Get your nose out of that book!" and "You're deaf, dumb, and blind when you've got your nose in a book!" I was the kid who carried extra books to school beyond all the heavy required texts. I'm the kid who read ahead in the reading books to get to the end of the story.

Now, as an adult, I open a good novel at my family's and my to-do list's risk. I will disappear into the world of the book. My kids call it "Scorpio-ing." (I'm a Scorpio, and that sign is noted for its powers of concentration.) My youngest son has been known to jump up and down in front of his book-immersed mother, flapping his arms, to demonstrate to visiting friends how weird I am--though he and his sister inherited that ability to be swept up in an enthralling novel's world.

When I'm reading a good novel--classic, literary, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, makes no difference--the author's world and the people in it come alive for me, and I am living the book's story with them. I am experiencing that world and that story in a visceral way that is sometimes more real than the way I experience the quite-wonderful world of my daily life. I suspect I developed this ability as a survival mechanism in my dire childhood (which made "Mommie, Dearest" look like a fairy tale). Pouring myself into the book I was reading and the world it created in my imagination allowed me escape from some very scary times for a little kid. Novels kept me sane and allowed me to know there were many other ways of living in the world beyond the one in which I was currently caught.

That ability to live within the story I'm reading has served me well, though. It brought me whole, if scarred, from the kind of childhood that routinely tosses people into drug addiction, crime, mental illness, and suicide. It turned me into a writer at a young age. It allows me to experience my own stories while I'm spinning them in that same real way.

I enjoy movies, as well, but I have to say, no movie has ever given me that same total immersion into a different reality that a book does.I think that's because watching movies and television is passive while reading a book is active, drawing your whole brain into a co-creation of the world and people of the book. My oldest son can't do this. He's totally a movie person. His brain is wired a different way, very analytical, a whizz at math and computers where he makes much more money than all of the rest of us combined. So I know this isn't a given for everyone. I think it's a function of the type of imagination we are born with.

When I have had injuries and illnesses involving great pain and discomfort, reading novels has sometimes been the only way for me to gain some relief. For the hours I am caught up in the book's world and away from the pain troubling my body. I am living elsewhere and involved with other things. Mysteries and fantasy novels have helped me get through miserable nights when no medicine that I could take would do it for me and the equally great pain of grief. The Lord of the Rings movies are wonderful, and I love them, but they don't take me out of myself in the same way as the original books do.

What about you?  When you want to wander in a new story's world or seek relief from emotional or physical stress, do you turn to movies or to books? When you read your books, do you become completely involved in the story's world?


P.S. I'd like to thank Warren Bull for introducing me to Writers Who Kill and all the bloggers on here for inviting me to join them.