Speaker 1: Hey there, lovely people. Welcome back to another Writing Tip Tuesday. I'm Sammie, and I like to look at what we can learn from other stories that can make our stories better. In this video, we are going to talk about revisions. And it's a little bit of a complicated topic because every single story is different. But learning how to know what to look for in a revision can really help the process. So I'm not talking about the kind of refining revision where you're looking for filler words and, like, adverbs and that kind of stuff. I'm talking about really refining your story and getting your story and your characters to a place where they are ready for that grammatical assistance. I think a really interesting way to look at revisions is to look at adaptions. Now, I know that they are totally different, and a lot of us readers are very upset with many movie adaptions. You know, we're rightfully that way. But I think it does make a difference if you watch the movie and then read the book because then you're getting sort of what they changed from a creative perspective more so than from a nostalgic perspective, which is usually what makes us upset. They took stuff and they changed it to be something that we didn't already imagine. So by doing it in reverse, watching the movie and then reading the book, we can learn a lot more. So if you have an adaption that is a show already or a movie already, watch that first and then read the book. It's not going to make the book less interesting. And let's be real, most of the time the book is better. It's a great learning opportunity if you put in the little bit of effort that it takes to watch the movie first. For this, I want to talk about The Queen's Gambit, which is a book originally written by Walter Tevis that was released in 1983, which is now a Netflix limited series. A fantastic show. I'm so happy that I watched it before reading the book because I probably wouldn't have watched it if I read the book first. Interesting, right? So these two stories, the original book and the Netflix series, are telling the same story. Their stories, however, are influenced by different times. I don't really want to draw too much attention to that because there are things that are in the book that are appropriate, I guess. For 1983, for a man writing a book about a woman in 1983, they are okay, I guess. But from a 2020 perspective or a 2021 perspective, they are not very good. And that's sort of the kind of thing that's changed that I don't really want to address as part of the revision process of this adaptation. Because there are—it's just things that you would take out just because of societal expectations now. Besides the fact that they are telling the same story from a different time frame, the Netflix series does a much more interesting and focused job of developing the characters, developing the locations, developing relationships. The book kind of doesn't. The book version really feels like it's not following the same people as the series does. The book only really follows Beth, the main character. Which, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, it introduces a lot of characters that don't get any follow-up. They just sort of are and then they aren't. And that's a little frustrating. So in the show, they take away that frustration. They see the characters that have potential and they bring them back multiple times. In a way that really draws more attention to the main character and really emphasizes the main character's emotions based on that side character that has come back. For example, in the book, Beth falls in love with Townes, who is another chess player who she meets at a tournament. And they have one really good game and he feels like he's flirting with her. Like, it seems that way. And she is obsessed with him from that point forward. But we never see him again in the book. There's no solving for that sense of feelings. There's no reason for it to continue manifesting. It's just sort of something that is running in the background is that Beth is in love with Townes. Why though? They had one conversation. Is that just, is that how you think women work, Mr. Tevis? Because we gotta give a little, gotta give a little more juice to that fire to keep it going. Like, it's not a one and done. This is the love of my life thing. Most people will give up. And I don't know why she didn't. But the show fixes that by giving us multiple, multiple interactions with Townes. And they give us reasons why Townes and her cannot end up together. Besides, he never shows up again. Which is so much better than when is Townes gonna show up again? If she's so in love with this guy, when is he gonna show up again? Why as an author are you making this a big factor in her character arc if you are not going to bring him back? And that's something that you can really draw from an adaption. Is who are the important characters in this story? What value does this character bring to the story? Can they bring more value? Do they bring too little value? Are they necessary? This is the kind of thing that an adaption is forced to do. Because they have to make sure that it's cohesive to all of the viewers who have not read a book. By removing characters that don't really have very much to do with the plot. To bringing characters back multiple times to make sure that their value is remembered. And their presence isn't just something that's brought up in an internal monologue that we can no longer hear in a film adaption. It's an interesting way to look at the value of your characters through the lens of a camera. And adaptions can really show the importance of valuable criticism in your work. Having somebody who knows storytelling and who knows how to give helpful criticism. And how to help you make your story better than what it was during its first draft or second draft. And who is there to support you can really make a difference in your revision process. Receiving good feedback from somebody else who knows how to tell a story can really impact your story's development. If you're just going off of what you think, what you read, what your mom has read. If your mom's not a big reader, she's gonna say it's great. And it's not gonna be the most helpful criticism. So it's really important to have somebody who knows what they're doing. And who knows what you're doing. Who wants to support you. That's part of the big benefit of adaptions. Is that they bring on screenwriters to adapt the story. They help revise it from the format of the book to the format of the screenplay. And by having other writers, they can find plot holes. They can find characters that are missing. So getting somebody to give you that feedback can be super helpful for your revision process. Even if they're not gonna have anything to do with it. Just getting those notes can make a huge difference. I'm a strong believer that the way to learn from a movie adaptation of a book is to watch the movie and consume the movie's version first. And then read the book. Because you really get to see the changes without having the nostalgia aspect of it really tainting your viewing of it. I have a couple of recommendations. If you don't want to spend the, what, like 8-12 hours watching the entire Queen's Gambit series and then reading the book. There are some books-to-movie adaptions that I think have the same potential to be learned from the same way that the Queen's Gambit has a lot to learn from. And not to say that these are all really just fantastic adaptions. It's really just something to look at. How does revision work? What's a good revision? What's a bad revision? And these adaptations can really show that. So some of those examples that I have are The Time Traveler's Wife. I read the book first on this one and then watched the movie. But looking back on it, it did okay. I just, I read the book first and it automatically made the movie bad. But it was fine. And you can see what kind of things that they found value in in the movie. What kind of things that they thought were important from the plotline to put into the movie and what kind of things they were emphasizing. And you can learn how to emphasize from that one. Then The Fifth Wave. Also, read the book first. Didn't know there was a movie. I loved the story and giving the visuals and like seeing what kind of translation the descriptors from the book had into the movie were interesting to me as well. So you can see like what kind of imagery are you trying to portray? How would you think the movie would look if they read your book and then made it? What would that inspire? That's another thing that you can look for your aesthetics. The Fault in Our Stars. I feel like this one goes without comment because it's The Fault in Our Stars. So this one is a very good story for seeing how your emotions are going across the story. You can see what kind of things are being valued from their interactions. What is the strongest moments for their relationship? And To All the Boys I've Loved Before, the Netflix movie. And that's now the whole book series is adapted, I think, which is like great. I think this is a good example because it's something that you can look at and see the value in the character's identity. The author was very, very adamant that she had to be half Asian-American because that was part of her identity in the story. I think this one's more interesting in terms of what it could have been if the character's identities weren't valued for what they are. Also, it's a cute story and I just, it's fun to watch. So that's also one. Let me know in the comments what your favorite book-to-movie adaption is. What your least favorite book-to-movie adaption is and why because I would love to get to work on starting to read some books that are not very good or like if the movie's the reason, obviously, that's a little different. But let's have a little talk in the comments. Let me know what kind of adaptions are the most interesting to you and what are the least interesting. Do you like a movie when you've read the book first or do you have to watch the movie first like I do? Let me know in the comments. Let's have a little book talk and I will see you on Saturday for another story study and back again on Tuesday for another Writing Tip Tuesday.