Bouchercon was a total blast! I'm back and exhausted. Got up this ayem to over 600 emails... Oy vey!

Have fun at Boucheron! Drop in when it's over and give us the scoop, will you?

Sorry! Had to add another thought. Movies are often a poor model for literature also due to the audience. Studio movies (which are usually the ones we see at the Cineplex) are not only intended for teenaged boys in the main, they are also influenced heavily by foreign sales. It's the foreign sales which allow most movies to be even made. Most studios get their funding up front by selling foreign rights and because of language and custom barriers, three things are needed to sell those rights. Namely, the things all cultures and languages can easily understand--overt sex, overt physical action (fights, knifings, shootings, bombings, et al... and, most important of all... helicopters... Those are the forces at play predominantly with film, at least with studio films. Hate to kind of cut and run, but need to go to bed--am leaving early in the ayem for North Carolina for Bouchercon! Hope you'll forgive me!

Hi Jmcgarryxx! That's the view of a narrow type of story and one of usually slight substance. The "daydream" kind of story. There are two kinds of stories--the daydream and the nightdream. (Jungian). The daydream story is a relatively shallow kind of storytelling. Basic form is "young man goes to beach to see girl, bullies show up and depant him and bury him in sand, humiliating him in front of fair maiden. Goes back home, pumps iron, learns martial art, comes back and whips bullies." It's a trite kind of story and usually appears in soon-forgotten tales. (Not always, but usually) It works at times in film for a lot of reasons, mostly having to do with the production values--characters thirty-feet tall, FX effects, music, etc. The daydream (not nightmare, although it can be) story, is one that goes much, much deeper. Not enough room to fully describe it here, but a much more complex kind of tale that delves much, much deeper into the psychology of humans and doesn't depend upon cheap emotions to "carry the day." It depends on reaching real emotion in the reader and not surface ones. A good analogy is music. Any musician knows that they can play some syrupy tune like "Wind Beneath Her Feet" (or whatever it's called) at a wedding, and tears will flow. Emotion, cheaply-wrought and easily won. However, such a piece won't affect a person capable of deeper feelings and more mature and educated. However, a Mozart tune, played by skillful players, reaches down much, much deeper to effect truer emotions. It's harder to carry off, just as good literature is harder to carry off. I wish I had space here to fully explain this, but just don't. You're right that movies/TV often influence this kind of story, but that doesn't make it a good model. Not going to make a value judgement here as to which is best--although it's pretty clear which I favor! There's a reason movies are lesser vehicles than books--mostly because of the demographic movies cater to, which is young, teenaged boys, simply because they're they only measurable group which will attend a movie more than once. Looking back at your question, I may have misunderstood--were you speaking of the same work in both book and film form? If so, use the same movie, T&L--it's very clear who the protagonist and the antagonist are in this, just as it would be in the book version had there been one. (Sorry, but I can't bring myself to use terms like hero and villain!) I'd keep in mind who the intended audience is for 85% of commercial movies and determine if that's where I'd want to use up my time creating for. Fair? I wish I had more space to go into this with the detail it deserves!

You just made my day, Helen! I'm just plain stoked that this bit of info helps your novel!