Why I Don’t Just Talk Books
The other day while working on something for Stories Across Borders and my post about sci-fi stories I’d recommend to people, it occurred to me that I’ve never really discussed why I talk so much about mediums other than prose or poetry when those are the mediums I’m primarily active in.
With that in mind, I decided to write up this short post going into that a little. Although, really, there’s not a lot to it. Of course, for the sake of full disclosure, sometimes the reason is just practical. If I’m short on time before a recording session for SAB, it’s a lot easier to watch a movie and take notes than it is to power through a whole novel.
That being said, I do try to have things planned in advance and necessity definitely doesn’t cover the amount of content I’ve covered outside my own speciality mediums. So, after all this preamble, why do I do this? The answer is actually pretty simple: these are all stories.
I feel like a lot of creators can get pretty elitist about their medium compared to others. It’s definitely true that there’s some things certain mediums do better than others. At the core of it though, whether you’re writing a script for a comic or a movie, plotting out a video game or writing a novel, you’re still writing a story. The basics of storytelling are pretty consistent across every medium.
Characters will always have motivations, desires, quirks, strengths and weaknesses. Worlds will always have their own internal rules and logics. Plots always have their core conflicts and resolutions. These things don’t change depending on if you’re writing for a book or a movie.
To me, it feels disingenuous and a little unfair to act like these things aren’t all just different ways of expressing stories. It can definitely be interesting to compare and contrast the different strengths of different mediums and how stories can be explored through those strengths. I don’t want to imply that we shouldn’t acknowledge the differences between different types of storytelling either. Those are all things worth discussing and considering. I just think that the things that stay the same vastly outnumber the things that are different across different mediums.
Essentially, I just love stories in general. All kinds of stories. I want to explore, deconstruct and discuss many different kinds of story without limiting myself to one medium just because it’s the area I have the most experience working in. That’s all there is to it.
