topic Re: Imagining characters in Book Club

Imagining characters

Allthingsgirly67 — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 13:13:44 GMT

I posted under a thread regarding a particular thread. Usually when reading a book you form an idea of what the characters look like by the description. Sometimes when they turn a book into a movie or tv show they are pretty much a good match to the description of the character. One great example is Gone With The Wind. The movie character is spot on. Right now Im reading a the Aimee LeDuc series set in Paris. In my mind when I think of chic Parisian women I immediately think of Catherine Deneuve. In this series the character has spiky short hair and I can’t get past it. I know it’s me but anyone experience this?

Re: Imagining characters

Zhills — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:43:51 GMT

I do that with people on this board!

Re: Imagining characters

icezeus — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 18:01:22 GMT

Whenever I read a book and then see a movie or TV show that has been adapted, rarely do they make good casting decisions in my opinion.

Re: Imagining characters

smoky22 — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 18:57:09 GMT

@Allthingsgirly67 wrote:
I posted under a thread regarding a particular thread. Usually when reading a book you form an idea of what the characters look like by the description. Sometimes when they turn a book into a movie or tv show they are pretty much a good match to the description of the character. One great example is Gone With The Wind. The movie character is spot on. Right now Im reading a the Aimee LeDuc series set in Paris. In my mind when I think of chic Parisian women I immediately think of Catherine Deneuve. In this series the character has spiky short hair and I can’t get past it. I know it’s me but anyone experience this?

@Allthingsgirly67

I know the books are set in Paris, but isn't the main character supposed to be sort of a hacker, and the short spiky hair? Sounds more like the main character in Girl With The Dragon Tatoo.

But I get your point. I rarely watch any adaptation of something I've read, because they hardly ever look like I think they should.

Re: Imagining characters

Allthingsgirly67 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 00:30:55 GMT

Yes she a hacker with spiky hair but I just can’t form a vision in my head. Maybe it’s in another book but there is no description of her eye color or hair color. Just having an odd issue with it.

Re: Imagining characters

blueroses47 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 10:22:17 GMT

Two examples come to mind. Both happened years and years ago, when I was a preteen or young teenager.

One of my favorite books was The Good Earth. I had a definite vision of the wife Olan, and I was really disappointed when I saw the movie. The actress Louise Rainer who played Olan was far too delicate and pretty, I thought. The whole premise of the book was that Olan was unattractive, coarse featured and large and clumsy. Lousie was definitely none of those things.

Another one was Lawrence Olivier cast as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. I had read the book in 8th grade, and really envisioned Heathcliff as a brutish character, almost a Neatherthal type. Lawrence Olivier was far too refined and handsome to qualify as Heathcliff in my mind.

Oh well, that's Hollywood. I think things are more realistically portrayed these days, but back then, everything was glamorized.

Re: Imagining characters

Tinkrbl44 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 19:12:26 GMT

@icezeus wrote:
Whenever I read a book and then see a movie or TV show that has been adapted, rarely do they make good casting decisions in my opinion.

@icezeus

ITA .... and I can tell you why that happens. We have a character developed in our mind, based on whatever the author gives us to work with.

Making a film is an entirely different medium (duh!) and there are many other considerations, such as how does any actor sell at the box office globally.

Another important consideration is where did the financing come from? If the investors are Israeli or Australian, for instance, actors from those countries often get first consideration.

Hope that makes sense, although it often doesn't to the readers of that book or series. I've also said to myself "what were they thinking???". LOL

Re: Imagining characters

Allthingsgirly67 — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 15:13:31 GMT

No I agree with what you said. I think because there is so little information on how the character looks it’s throwing me. It’s hard to get past it.

Re: Imagining characters

gardenman — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 12:43:58 GMT

@Allthingsgirly67 wrote:
No I agree with what you said. I think because there is so little information on how the character looks it’s throwing me. It’s hard to get past it.

It's always tricky for a writer to know how much detail to give. We know our characters to the nth degree, but do you spend time in the book describing the character to that extent if it has nothing to do with the story?

Some writers get so lost in the descriptions that by the time you get back to the story, you forget what the story was about. Victor Hugo in Les Miserables is a good example. He goes into great length (and I mean great length) about the colors of the bricks in a building and how they achieved that color due to a battle that had been fought on the ground long ago where the clay had later been harvested and the blood of the many war dead gave the bricks that color. By the time you finally get back to the story you're like, "Who's this Jean Val Jean fellow and what's he doing in this story about war and brick making?"

YA authors, in general, get lost in descriptions. They want you to know every single detail about a character. I've seen character descriptions in unpublished books that go on for ten or more pages. That's often why the books are unpublished. In the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards, you got to read the first 3,000-5,000 words of submitted novels and it wasn't unusual in YA works for those first 3,000-5,000 words to be nothing but a description of the main character. No story at all, just a long, very, very detailed description of the character.

As a reader, I want stuff left up to my imagination. Give me a general outline and I'll fill in the blanks. I'm reading for the story more than to create a police artist's sketch of the characters. Other readers want every possible detail. Writers can't please everyone.

When a black actress was cast to play Hermione in the London stage production of Harry Potter people were outraged. JK Rowling pointed out that her only real description of Hermione was that Hermione had bushy, black, curly hair. The stage actress fit that description. Harry was described as small with unruly hair, and a lightning scar. The Weasleys were largely described as having red hair. Nothing much else. JK focused more on the story than on character descriptions. Readers filled in the rest.

Re: Imagining characters

Lilysmom1 — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 08:02:56 GMT

@Allthingsgirly67 @icezeus , I have the same problem. When I saw the character chosen for Bosch, I couldn't watch the series. He was nothing at all like I imagined. Funny isn't?

Re: Imagining characters

Allthingsgirly67 — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 16:32:31 GMT

I guess I’m just used to having a description especially for a main character if not thee main character.

Re: Imagining characters

AuntG — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 13:25:44 GMT

It's surprising when the movies get a character right.

Re: Imagining characters

shoesnbags — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 20:48:39 GMT

@Allthingsgirly67

I'll give you a current example - I enjoyed the Will Trent TV series based on the books by Karin Slaughter. I had read one of the early Will Trent books years ago but didn't remember much except that Will was dyslexic.

When the TV show started I thought that I remembered Will Trent as a tall blond guy but on TV he is played by a cute Puerto Rican actor - big difference. As the series continued, I really got into it and gradually forgot about the tall blond Will.

So the show ended till next yr. or whenever the strike is over, and I decided to go back and read all of the Will Trent books. Ye gads! Found out that they physically changed almost all of the main characters for TV, including their race.

At first I kept picturing the TV actors as I read the books, but Slaughter keeps mentioning the physical descriptions of the characters which was all wrong. For example, Will's boss and his partner, and her mother are African American on TV, but they are blond WASPy looking women in the books. Will's girlfriend/wife/exwife Angie is more Hispanic looking in the books but for some reason she is the one they made a blonde in the TV version. It drove me crazy, but I kept reading because the stories are so good.

The newest book will be out next week and I have it already ordered. Then when the TV show returns, I'll have to rearrange my thinking all over again.

Re: Imagining characters

Allthingsgirly67 — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 16:04:10 GMT

That would irk me to no end. Why on earth do they change the description from the book’s description because I’m sure a lot of viewers were familiar with the books.

Re: Imagining characters

Judaline — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 12:36:01 GMT

@icezeus wrote:
Whenever I read a book and then see a movie or TV show that has been adapted, rarely do they make good casting decisions in my opinion.

I think the guy playing Bosch (michael connelly books) is close. I liked Matthew McConaughey as the The Lincoln Lawyer better than the guy who stars in the series.

Whoever mentioned GWTW, was right on it. That casting was superb. Every single character brought to life before our eyes. Even Miss Pitty Pat.

Re: Imagining characters

Judaline — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 12:40:48 GMT

@Lilysmom1 wrote:
@Allthingsgirly67 @icezeus , I have the same problem. When I saw the character chosen for Bosch, I couldn't watch the series. He was nothing at all like I imagined. Funny isn't?

That's about how I thought Bosch would look-except the guy NEVER smiles. He looks so serious or troubled or sad, dunno which. Otherwise I think he's righ for it.

Re: Imagining characters

Judaline — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 12:45:47 GMT

What about Joe Pickett? Anyone watch this? I'm afraid to watch it because it could ruin my vision of Joe. Somebody tell me!

Re: Imagining characters

Alter Ego — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:38:13 GMT

When it first came out and I was listening to THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME, Julia Roberts was attached to play the lead in the series. She was, in my opinion, the perfect choice. The part was written for her. And then she dropped out for whatever reason and Jennifer Garner stepped in. Fine in the role, but just wasn’t quite right for me. The daughter was good, but then again, I didn’t have a clear vision of her.

Otherwise, I don’t often have a clear description of a particular character - unless I really don’t think it’s a good fit! Perhaps it’s also partly the production, but I simply couldn’t get into the Three Pines series on Prime (cancelled after one season), but thought they did a great job with Daisy Jones.

Re: Imagining characters

Allthingsgirly67 — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 15:04:26 GMT

I’m the one who mentioned GWTW as so far that had perfect casting to me.