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Book and Movie Genres: How Well Do They Line Up?

June 23, 2018 by J.B. Manas Leave a Comment

I’ve eagerlybooks_to_film watched and enjoyed many of the blockbuster films this year, including Infinity War, Solo, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and others. Still haven’t seen Deadpool 2 yet, but it’s on my list! I’ve also been watching Westworld and enjoying its complexity while I suffer the long wait till Game of Thrones returns in 2019 (and even longer wait for Winds of Winter).

It occurred to me as I examine book genre trends in the sci-fi and fantasy areas, that the popular trends in books vs. movies/tv tend to differ in subtle ways.

In film and TV, genre-blending stories are as popular as ever: e.g., superhero thrillers that span earth, space, and sea; blockbuster monster films (Skull Island, Jurassic World, etc.); technothrillers like Westworld, horror/sci-fi blends like Stranger Things, and so on.

In literature, at least in the sci-fi and fantasy world, sticking closely to a sub-genre and observing its tropes (while still aiming for a unique story) is the norm, with more defined borders around each sub-genre. Currently, space opera, urban fantasy, cyberpunk, and military sci-fi are all doing well.  It’s harder to gain visibility in a crowded genre like action-adventure, for example, unless it’s a killer concept or an already popular author. And if a story spans multiple genres, it’s even harder, because the bookstores don’t know where to place it (and readers aren’t quite sure what to expect). This is why publishers always have the same battle cry, “Give me the same, but different.”

Psychological thrillers/mysteries are big in both film and literature, and in fact, many such novels are made into movies  (e.g., Gone Girl; Girl on a Train; Woman in the Window; The Marsh King’s Daughter; Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; just to name a few). Oddly enough, most books in this genre are traditionally published, while the sci-fi arena includes a good portion of indie books.

One thing is certain. A story with great characters, a compelling premise, and a killer logline will have a much better chance of finding an audience in any arena. In the book world, if it’s an easily identifiable sub-genre, all the better.

As a writer, these are the things I tend to ponder as I plan a new book series. Either way, for me, the story comes first. If it doesn’t appeal to me or offer a set of characters I want to spend a lot of time with, it doesn’t matter what genre it is. But more on that later!

Filed Under: amwriting, Movies, sci-fi, thriller Tagged With: AmWriting, Movies and TV Shows, Storytelling, WritersLife

Let’s Do the Twist: The Sixth Sense and Other Great Twist Endings

January 28, 2017 by J.B. Manas Leave a Comment

greatest-plot-twistsWho doesn’t love movies with huge twists? When The Sixth Sense came out, it’s all anyone talked about. Same with The Usual Suspects.

Here’s a great list of 18 films with twist endings, including the above-mentioned landmark films.

Warning: It should go without saying, but if you haven’t seen any of the films mentioned, I’d just check the titles and not read the descriptions because – SPOILER ALERT – they give away the twists!

To their list, I would also add many of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, especially Vertigo and North by Northwest (two of my favorite movies of all time), and even Hitchcockian thrillers made by others, such as the magnificently twisty Charade (with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn) and the 1991 film, Shattered (with Tom Berenger). The less I say about them, the better, but I highly recommend all of them.

The riveting 2004 film, The Forgotten, drew mixed reviews, but I thought it had a killer premise (a mother’s son disappears, nobody remembers her ever having a son, and there is no trace of his ever having existed) and it certainly had a twist toward the end that I didn’t expect.

More recently, I thought the sci-fi film Arrival (Amy Adams) had a brilliant twist that clearly differentiated it from most alien invasion films.

toservemanAnd of course, almost every Twilight Zone episode ever made had a killer twist (my favorite being the “To Serve Man” episode, where an alien race had a book called “To Serve Man,” that turned out to be:

SPOILER ALERT

.

.

.

A cookbook!

What other twist-ending films have you seen and recommend?


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#movies #PlotTwist #twilightzone

Filed Under: Movies, PlotTwist, TwilightZone Tagged With: Movies and TV Shows, Storytelling

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