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Using Movies Versus Novels for Plotting Analysis

This week I started re-watching the movie Fugitive because I remember liking the plot and fast paced action. At the time time I started reading Ready Player One.

The first thing I noticed is that Ready Player One has way way more detail and background on OASIS, the online world, as well as back story – then the movie version. The first few chapters are almost all back story. There is very little going on in the main characters life. The backstory is interesting though because it is all about 80s nerd culture.

The Fugitive is super fast paced without any other real subplots. It doesn’t use any time to explore a culture or slow down for any reason really. Even something that seemed unrelated, like the landlord’s son getting busted, has a repercussion later: the son then rat’s out the fugitive Kimble.

So while I think the Fugitive plot points would work fine for a novel. And the structure would be helpful also – meaning when things happen etc. However, what makes really good novels work – or at least the ones that I like – is some deep dive into an almost culture aspect. It doesn’t to be videogames or comics like Ready Player One. In Moby Dick, there was a deep dive into whales and whaling culture. Michael Crichton would do a deep dive into science in ways that the movie versions did not.

I guess if you compared this though to Stephen King and the book The Shining, there isn’t so much an exploration of a culture but there is a ton of back story and exploration of that backstory. It goes into detail to help with understanding motivation.

Ready Player One gets away with long discussions on back story and exposition because it set up early on a protagonist we like. Someone we can root for. An underdog. Then the book set up the hunt – the contest. So the reader is more willing to sit through backstory because we are trying to find the clues also. We are invested.

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What To Write Next

I seem to always have ideas but when I write them down they don’t come out as well as I hoped. So I started thinking of ways I can improve.

One way is to use a writing group. Because of my time restraints, a physical writing group is difficult. The flip side is that without that weekly physical pressure it can be hard to be consistent. (I think when my time restraints lighten up, I’ll try a physical group. Possibly next year.) I’ve been trying Scribophile and I like it.

The other thing I’m experimenting with is borrowing more heavily from existing works that work. Of course, I would change the story but I would use the structure and some of the elements and change it, mix it with another genre, or conflict point etc. This is actually a very common practice but sometimes I think people think of it as stealing. If you didn’t change anything than the characters names, I would say that was stealing.

I have been outlining a book and even got to the point where I paid for some feedback. It was all very good. The problem I think is that the book is a mashup of different plot ideas. It feels mixed up.

My plot, boiled down, is the whole fugitive on the run, exposes injustice on the way to freeing himself. I started thinking of fugitive type stories. There is of course, The Fugitive, the movie which was great.

But I wanted to write a novel which is obviously different than a movie. I could use some of the plot points and try to develop it further. I did a little research and found this post about good books to read when you are a fugitive.

I’m definitely intrigued by The Fugitive novel also. I’ll start with the screenplay and novel. Understand the plot points. Because right now, my outline is a total mess going in different directions. It is too complicated.