keep movies out of my books

strong opinion loosely held: turning books into movies is destroying the imagination of children.

and probably adults.

but our imagination is usually already destroyed...so....mostly children.

there's many an argument about turning books into movies. people hate it because so much gets cut out. because they change some of the plot to make it read better on screen. because they change the emphasis or the lesson. because the directors interpretation isn't the same as the authors intention.

and my biggest complaint: it's never what i saw in my head.

getting kids to really engage in reading is challenging. getting them to SEE the story vs. just the words on the page is hard to do.

how many books did i read as a kid? hundreds. thousands. each one was a movie in my head. the characters built from the parts of the description that were most important to me: anne of green gables and her RED hair. polly pepper and her second hand clothes (the five little peppers and how they grew). claudia kishi and her funky artsy jewelry and decorated room (the babysitters club).

some of my favorite books eventually turned into movies and they were NOTHING like i saw in my head and it made me feel like i was imagining wrong. 

HOW CAN A CHILD IMAGINE WRONG?

how many children read the harry potter books and created this beautiful world of magic in their heads? new, made up words, new fantastical destinations, shops, creatures. then the movies came out and, while they're spectacular feats of cinematography, how many kids were like oh, that's not how i pictured it.

how many kids stopped reading and just waited for the movies? or, worse, could only see the movie setting as they read the later books published after the first movie?

how many lost their imagination? lost their creativity after that?

diving deeper, it made me think about why some books stand out for me and why i loathe others. i think, for me, the breaking point is in the author trusting the reader to extrapolate their own vision. i have a strong preference for books with intentionally ambiguous descriptions. give me enough of a jump off point and let me take it from there. if you spend 3 pages describing the exact texture and color of a leaf, i will spend exactly zero minutes reading your book.

i like to fill in the details myself, make the story MINE.

think of it this way: if an author describes a farm what do you see? is it a big farm? almost a ranch? is it a small farm? is it one barn and a house? is it expansive land with crops? is it animals and gardens? is it an urban farm in someone's backyard? is it a rural farm with neighbors nearby? is it a texan farm where you can drive for hours on your own land and not see anyone? 

unless it is a crucial part of the plot, a character in itself, let me fill in the blanks.

i love descriptions that give you a soft focus: the home, a small country home looked blue at first glance but not if you looked too closely. perhaps someone ran out of blue paint covering up the last color, perhaps the blue is the last color showing through the cheap new layer. maybe it only appears blue on one side reflecting the distinct color of the garage, painted in the bold colors of [the characters] favorite sports team.

what do you see? i can promise you it's different than what i see, and to me, that's the beauty of literature.

"...he heard an animal bark in the woods. bark, is that the right word for the sound? did the neighbors dog get out again? are the coyotes scavenging nearby, encroaching into new territory and scoping out the local scene? someone told him once that foxes make a sound like barking. what would a fox be doing in this area? the bark, yelp, be it what it may, oddly complimented the melody filling the room from the vinyl playing on the modern vintage record player."

how many different pictures pop into your head from that one paragraph? are any one of them wrong?

i LOVE that each person will focus on a different part, see a different setting, different detail.

movies take that away. they lock in one persons vision; the director, the set dresser, the script writer...they take what one person deems important. it could be considered a cruel form of censorship. forcing ONE perspective, disallowing any alternative interpretation.

have you ever read the book, watched the movie and then read the book again? can you see your initial vision? or has it been replaced by the hollywood version?

as much as i love movies, and i do LOVE movies, i can't help but feel sad that even at their most creative, they're limiting creativity.

keep your movies out of my books.

i mean, keep making movies. and books do make great movies. but, you know, don't make MY books into movies. just the other ones.

no, not those ones either...


**no, YOU'RE the devil's advocate: but what about all the kids who have a hard time picturing the story and the movie finally helps it make sense to them and puts a picture to a word they couldn't figure out or puts a picture to a place they've never been and may never get the chance to see in person. what about kids reading about Christopher robin in the woods that live in the city in an apartment? they can't imagine a 100 acre wood when there's not a tree on any of the nearby city blocks? what about kids who have never been to a foreign country and can't imagine what they dress like, how different their houses may look? movies give a vision to things that may otherwise be summarily dismissed for lack of understanding or ability to put a picture to the words....**