Saturday, April 2, 2011

A to Z: Books

I'm deviating from my theme for today's post. I had a few psychological related ideas, but they weren't seaming to work for me. Behavior would have been fun, if it wasn't so broad of a topic. Bacon would also have been fun if it wasn't completely random. What can I say, it's Saturday and I want  my bacon.

Anyways: Books. I was thinking last night about different types of entertainment/story telling and was pondering how reading can be more engaging than watching TV. At least for me. With a book, there is something about not having predefined images to really allow me to interact with the story at another level.

With having only words readers have a certain amount of flexibility and a certain expectation that they will fill out their own mental image of the characters, places, and objects in the story. Of course everyone has had different experiences, so people will make different associations from the same group of words.

Which then got me thinking about my characters. Which ones of them are readers? What would one character take away from a book that another character would totally miss. Would a late night reading session of a more suspenseful book keep a character up the rest of the night? What types of books do they like best? Or maybe a character just doesn't like to read at all and prefers TV or video games to keep them entertained.

10 comments:

Lisa said...

Very thought provoking. Totally agree with you on having the ability to formulate your own thoughts rather than having a TV tell you.

Enjoyed your post.

Lisa
InspiredbyLisa

Corinne O said...

I agree completely with you on books. I don't watch TV (more of a time thing than anything else) but given the choice to read or watch, I will choose to read. Reading is a much more full experience for me, and as a reader I take different things from different books depending on where I am in my life. That's why I am a big fan of re-reading books as well. Found you through the challenge! :)

http://www.corinneoflynn.com

Southpaw said...

You get so much more from books too, deeper character and deeper plots. But TV is great when I’m sick!

A-Z Fellow Challenger
Holly Ruggiero’sPOV

Barbara said...

Nice to meet you, I popped over from twitter :)
Both are good, as long books or tv shows as are well chosen, of good quality;) so that one can learn sth from it.
but of course books are the ones that exercise my imagination so much more :)

Marsha A. Moore said...

Good ideas for thought! Thankfully, people are unique or this would be a very dull and boring world. Our characters must reflect that or our writing will feel flat.

Anonymous said...

Hi Claire! I'm Suz from Bang Out the Prose. Thanks for commenting on my blog post, isn't this #atozchallenge fun? :)

Anastasia V. Pergakis said...

Hey Claire. Thanks for the follow on twitter and my blog! And great post! Many of characters do read and I even put it into the stories. (Like Kie, the female elf warrior - her favorite book is "Advanced Battle Strategies" hehehehe). That's a great idea to add some more personality to your characters for the readers. Got a new follower here! Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

OOOh a book post! Thanks for your comment on my blog, and a big high-five from a fellow book-lover!

Barbara said...

Thank you for visiting :) Can't wait to read more of your posts :)

g-girl said...

books have always been an escape for me ever since i was a child. nowadays, i'm hesitant to watch these movies based on books because the heart of the story doesn't ever seem to translate well into film.