(no subject)

[flamingsword]

How much do you write fanfiction in your head? When you're reading a story or watching a movie, does your imagination fill in missing details and add depth to characters? Where does that skill come from?

We don't experience other people the way they are, and we know that. We experience them as characters in the story we're watching unfold. And even though we know that they're more complex than what we can see, we can only construct them in our heads from external signals that we interpret through our understanding of the world. And while our translation might be faithful to the events and reactions we watched, we know there's more to the story than what we're seeing. So we write possible scenarios for our acquaintances until one makes sense. And then we have a richer understanding of that person. Because we write fanfiction about real life.

I have a relationship with books that movies and tv shows can't live up to. My brain is just wired for books, i guess. And in the fanfiction community that's possibly the norm instead of the deviation. Bookworms write because we love the written word. But there are other kinds of fan, and all fanship is valid. So. Which do you prefer: the book or the movie?

Posted via LjBeetle

Comments

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

That's...changed, I think, since I joined fandom. I don't read books as much as I used to; the time I used to spend on books I now spend on fic, which comes cheaper and faster and with a community I can immediately connect with. I do prefer the experience of reading to the experience of watching--I just plain MISS A LOT when emotions and stuff are supposed to be getting through to me via body language, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been doing this all my life. I think the earliest instance of it that I can remember was with Disney animated Robin Hood when I was four. I had my own headcanon for it before the boys who lived down the street told me he actually dies in canon. If fact, I can't not do it. My brain will be coming up with storylines before I leave the theatre of pretty much any film I get mentally involved with.

[numb3r-5ev3n.livejournal.com]

oops, that anon comment was me.