My thumb rule

My professor started his lecture in the art of storytelling by saying- “Always remember that no one knows anything”. But he knew the basic differences in writing and ingrained in us the difference in Literature writing in fiction/non-fiction and literary writing in fiction/non-fiction. Next is the category of choosing media. 

Now if you are writing for films, U’re canvass is bigger and larger and one has the liberty of telling the story with sketch of characters, the protagonist's challenges and how he makes it or breaks it or you can tell your story from medias res i.e from the middle and then go in flashbacks to tell the back story.

 In television your biggest nemesis is the remote. If you, in 30 secs of your Act 1, fail to hook your audience, he flicks the channel and there you lose him.

Now if you are writing a book, there you have once again the liberty of gradually narrating your plot, but then if you do that same thing in movies, you’ve got to do so with visuals and thanks to the technology now that there are immense choices to tell your narrative with visual effects and transitions.

I watched the hindi movie by Abhishek Kapoor- Kai, Po, Che, but before that I had committed the crime of reading the book: 3 mistakes of my life by Chetan Bhagat.

Now there is a difference between a book and a movie. Kai Po Che’s beginning is what adds the directorial creativity but the rest of the screenplay is just page to page copy of the book, which is dull.

The screenplay of 3 Idiots was good because it had the capacity to hold the viewers curiosity and took you to a different ending other than the book. So I still have to adhere to my thumb rule- if you read the book don’t watch the movie or don’t read any of Chetan Bhagat’s books to give standing ovation to the movie!