Quote from: planingkoala on June 06, 2025, 03:02:32 PM

@franky1: That’s exactly the kind of clarity I wish someone had told me earlier – the part about thinking beyond the book itself. I used to see full rights as just some technical detail, but yeah, if there’s even the slightest chance the story could live on in another form, why hand that away too easily?

before getting too excited about possibilities of turning book into movie, the book needs to get enough interest from readers. so take advice from book lovers.. but then add enough extra emotion/imagery to the words that people could or want to visualise it, which can create the demand to want to see it as a movie

you might even, when you think you have finished, decide to take the story but convert it into a movie script, which may reveal where the story is weak or strong to help emphasise where you can add or remove detail in the book to garner more interest from book readers, to draw demand to make it into a movie
(you subtly wrote book in a way that provokes the need to make a movie out of it.. which publishers also notice and see $$ signs of possibility)

Quote from: planingkoala on June 06, 2025, 03:02:32 PM

And your take on book clubs really made me think. I’ve always hesitated to bring unfinished stuff to strangers, but the way you framed it – not just as readers, but as a thinktank with lived genre experience – that actually sounds kind of brilliant. Asking them what hasn’t been done too often… that’s a way better question than “do you like it.” Have you ever seen someone really change the direction of their book based on that kind of group input?

personally me in regards to book clubs, no. but others i spoke with have
but the advice applies to all industries. if you are a chef and you get a group of experienced food tasters, instead of asking them if they like it, asking them whats different to the norm about it. whats been made too often a certain way.. same with clothing

when comfortable with a book group you could even just show them a pivotal scene/paragraph/chapter but wrote in several different styles, to ask their preference.. much like cooking pasta 4 different ways to get food tasters preference for best recipe

when it comes to writing a book it can be as simple as being told that certain adjectives are used too often and told to just use a thesaurus or synonym index to find better words that provoke different emotion/mental imagery for the same scene. they may not be asking to change the story, just how the words hit them in their hearts and minds better.

never fear asking for advice from others, big industry do it as standard. even in the movie industry, they do test screenings before releasing a final edit to theatres
even if a movie is based on a book they still test screen the movie to see if the directors cut is entertaining or needs further work
(everyone knows the story of snow white, but it went through many changes and edits before the recent 2025 movie release, they tried to be too different(woke) initially)
(everyone knows batmans origin story, but look at how many movies of batman have different levels of emotion.. from comical to dark-knight)

simply changing the adjectives changes the emotion imagery, which can be the difference to a unsold book, to best seller, to adapted for screenplay
EG when saying "the boy walks passed a man with a limp"
it can be changed in many ways
"the boy crept by a stranger with a limp"
all the way to
"as the youngster strides like a king down his street, a frail shadowy figure hobbled by in the opposite direction"
..

its all part of story development.. dont fear it
the movie industry is a great example of story development: test screenings, edits, re-writes, re-shoots.. so if a billionaire movie industry doesnt fear getting advice from interest groups. nor should you fear getting advice
dont take it as critique take it as a thinktank exercise to maximise the entertainment value of your story