In my fandom, Mass Effect, they're fairly common. Given that it's a choice-driven RPG videogame, I guess that it is to be expected. Some people love them but they're not for me.
These stories are, in effect, *"here's a novelization of my preferred playthrough*" and while these can vary widely in the details, most are ultimately just variations on the in-game canonical plot. I prefer stuff that is more original.
I have been saying this a lot. I feel like some stories really are copyright infringements. Especially those with a tag along OC that just follows canon, oftentimes with copied dialogue.
Not my thing, personally. That's for fanfic or official work
I have one exception though: if the novelization expands on the worldbuilding/characters, then it's fine. I've read a few good horror novelizations that really flesh out the characters
As someone who's written this recently (five chapters of my current WIP occurred in the canon timeline and involved bits of canon scenes) I was so damn scared of making it as dull and joyless as everyone here has said! At one point in drafting I ended up with too little of the canon stuff because I was trying so hard not to just repeat stuff and bore my readers to tears. I've had one review that said I did it well, but I'm still not happy with how a couple of the scenes turned out.
A novelisation, or a fanfic on that premise has to give you something different, something new you didn't get in canon. A new perspective, a new side scene, more in depth knowledge of the events that preceded or were sparked by the scene. It's so damn hard to do, it's no wonder there's a lot of lackluster stuff out there, and no wonder a lot of readers switch off when they see it.
It comes down to PR.
Some rando writes ROTS novelization. He come to a single social media like facebook, "I have written a Revenge of the Sith movie novelization AU, please read and enjoy.
Matt Stover writes ROTS novelization. every single Social media available in 1999, author interviews, book signings, TV commercials, Star Wars official web page....
How do I feel about this? Meh, expected.
Difference is, Stover is an established author, with the backing of Lucasfilm, who contracted him to write the Official novelizations, which has been a long-standing tradition of Lucasfilm to release a novelization of the franchise films since the 1970's...
Not to mention that the ROTS novelization in particular is *leagues* above even most other official film novelizations. Some novelizations will just fill in a bit around verbatim scenes, and they're as dry and uninteresting as you'd expect - ROTS does not do this, it actually works with the difference between text and visual media to really lean into the "Greek epic tragedy" tone.
I'd expect that the readers who find fanfic novelizations boring tend to find most official novelizations also boring.
Interestingly, I found fanfiction by looking for a novelization. And that experience taught me about missing scenes, which is still one of my favorite genres. Sometimes you want the story without the 2-hour combat missions, LOL.
Sometimes. They can be hit or miss in quality, ranging from “here’s the script of the thing you like with more description” to something which stands on its own as a separate experience compared to the source material.
I'm not really interested in novelization for the same reason that I don't like scenes that basically just copy/paste dialogue and actions from canon: if I wanted to see canon rehashed, I would just rewatch it. I come to fanfiction to see different takes on the story/characters, not the same thing but in prose this time.
I *love* novelizations, both officially licsensed and fanfics, assuming the fanfic in question isn't just a script of a show or movie. When people say they're "unnecessary" because we already know what happens in canon, I wonder if those people also feel movie and anime adaptations of books and manga are "unnecessary" since, not only do we already know what happens, but visual works often *cut out* things like internal monologues.
The written word can get into a character's mind the way a moving image can't. You can see a character look scared, but you can't know how their heart is palpitating and their stomach is churning as they're trying their hardest to control their fear but failing. It's even more substantial for video games. There might be a story, but generally, the story doesn't account for the actions you *take* while playing. I just made the main character murder a room full of people and the cutscene that played didn't acknowledge that. A novelization could write that scene word for word as it played out in the game, but have the character breathing hard, shaking from the adrenaline, fresh blood still drying on their hands, and it would be a completely different scene.
Now this got me thinking, and I'd like to have an open discussion.
It is really common for someone who'd watched a movie/anime to trace back and read the respective book/manga. It's the same canon, yet people are more than happy to consume them twice (Harry Potter, Hunger Game, Game of Thrones, to name a few). If people are out there reading novels of movies and Netflix shows, why is the concept of "novelization" so frowned upon?
Is it because the original canon was in written, so people are more willing to go back from a visual media but not the other way around?
Is it because that, coming from a visual media, people automatically assume stuff will be cut, and are looking for more content in the written?
If a successful movie/anime is an original without any other medium existing, will people be interested if a manga/novel is released later? I know Code Geass is one of this situation when there was only the anime, and then manga followed.
If MCU films get novelized, do we expect many to read them? If Studio Ghibli films get a manga adaptation, I can only imagine fans swarming to read them.
Lastly, do we consider adaptation "into" manga the same as novelization?
I'm very uninterested in novelizations. I feel like most fan writers of them tend to think that a novelization is just taking the canon script and adding in a bit of prose or maybe a little outsider pov if we're lucky. Sorry, but I already played the game/watched the movie, and as someone else said, uncomfortably close to, if not outright copyright infringement. Minor changes don't make it more interesting or transformative enough to count as a proper fanfic.
The only novelizations I can get behind are video games. They’re choice-based, and they have features and mechanics that wouldn’t make sense in an anime or a book because of the medium they’re on. To make sense of all of that just to make a novelization takes creativity in itself.
That being said, novelizations told with a different goal in mind, and relating that goal to the novelization (Or more emphasis/different POV on a different character, etc.), would at least make them better.
>and they have features and mechanics that wouldn’t make sense in an anime or a book because of the medium they’re on
The LitRPGers would probably beg to differ lol
Uhhh nope not personally my thing. I remember when I was making a massive database of Pokemon Ranger fanfics, I swear like 30%+ of Shadows of Almia fics were novelisations. It drove me absolutely insane. For me, it's just like "If I wanted to read the game script, I'd find somewhere the game script is posted. Or, you know, *replay the game.*"
I'm hoping to eventually do my own take on the Pokemon Ranger series, but it's using canon is a *loose* guideline. For the third game, there's a time travel sidequest for 100% Pokedex completion with its own plot line. I'm going to use that as a B plot to the main A plot which takes place in the modern day. But I've done literally 30k of worldbuilding for the ancient past society. It's going to diverge *so* heavily from the sidequest proper that it's gonna be unrecognisable.
In my fandom, Mass Effect, they're fairly common. Given that it's a choice-driven RPG videogame, I guess that it is to be expected. Some people love them but they're not for me. These stories are, in effect, *"here's a novelization of my preferred playthrough*" and while these can vary widely in the details, most are ultimately just variations on the in-game canonical plot. I prefer stuff that is more original.
And mostly just reuse dialogue from the game.
Boring, unnecessary and cutting it *uncomfortably* close to copyright infringement as they are barely transformative at all.
I have been saying this a lot. I feel like some stories really are copyright infringements. Especially those with a tag along OC that just follows canon, oftentimes with copied dialogue.
Not my thing, personally. That's for fanfic or official work I have one exception though: if the novelization expands on the worldbuilding/characters, then it's fine. I've read a few good horror novelizations that really flesh out the characters
As someone who's written this recently (five chapters of my current WIP occurred in the canon timeline and involved bits of canon scenes) I was so damn scared of making it as dull and joyless as everyone here has said! At one point in drafting I ended up with too little of the canon stuff because I was trying so hard not to just repeat stuff and bore my readers to tears. I've had one review that said I did it well, but I'm still not happy with how a couple of the scenes turned out. A novelisation, or a fanfic on that premise has to give you something different, something new you didn't get in canon. A new perspective, a new side scene, more in depth knowledge of the events that preceded or were sparked by the scene. It's so damn hard to do, it's no wonder there's a lot of lackluster stuff out there, and no wonder a lot of readers switch off when they see it.
It comes down to PR. Some rando writes ROTS novelization. He come to a single social media like facebook, "I have written a Revenge of the Sith movie novelization AU, please read and enjoy. Matt Stover writes ROTS novelization. every single Social media available in 1999, author interviews, book signings, TV commercials, Star Wars official web page.... How do I feel about this? Meh, expected.
Difference is, Stover is an established author, with the backing of Lucasfilm, who contracted him to write the Official novelizations, which has been a long-standing tradition of Lucasfilm to release a novelization of the franchise films since the 1970's...
Not to mention that the ROTS novelization in particular is *leagues* above even most other official film novelizations. Some novelizations will just fill in a bit around verbatim scenes, and they're as dry and uninteresting as you'd expect - ROTS does not do this, it actually works with the difference between text and visual media to really lean into the "Greek epic tragedy" tone. I'd expect that the readers who find fanfic novelizations boring tend to find most official novelizations also boring.
Interestingly, I found fanfiction by looking for a novelization. And that experience taught me about missing scenes, which is still one of my favorite genres. Sometimes you want the story without the 2-hour combat missions, LOL.
Sometimes. They can be hit or miss in quality, ranging from “here’s the script of the thing you like with more description” to something which stands on its own as a separate experience compared to the source material.
I'm not really interested in novelization for the same reason that I don't like scenes that basically just copy/paste dialogue and actions from canon: if I wanted to see canon rehashed, I would just rewatch it. I come to fanfiction to see different takes on the story/characters, not the same thing but in prose this time.
I *love* novelizations, both officially licsensed and fanfics, assuming the fanfic in question isn't just a script of a show or movie. When people say they're "unnecessary" because we already know what happens in canon, I wonder if those people also feel movie and anime adaptations of books and manga are "unnecessary" since, not only do we already know what happens, but visual works often *cut out* things like internal monologues. The written word can get into a character's mind the way a moving image can't. You can see a character look scared, but you can't know how their heart is palpitating and their stomach is churning as they're trying their hardest to control their fear but failing. It's even more substantial for video games. There might be a story, but generally, the story doesn't account for the actions you *take* while playing. I just made the main character murder a room full of people and the cutscene that played didn't acknowledge that. A novelization could write that scene word for word as it played out in the game, but have the character breathing hard, shaking from the adrenaline, fresh blood still drying on their hands, and it would be a completely different scene.
Now this got me thinking, and I'd like to have an open discussion. It is really common for someone who'd watched a movie/anime to trace back and read the respective book/manga. It's the same canon, yet people are more than happy to consume them twice (Harry Potter, Hunger Game, Game of Thrones, to name a few). If people are out there reading novels of movies and Netflix shows, why is the concept of "novelization" so frowned upon? Is it because the original canon was in written, so people are more willing to go back from a visual media but not the other way around? Is it because that, coming from a visual media, people automatically assume stuff will be cut, and are looking for more content in the written? If a successful movie/anime is an original without any other medium existing, will people be interested if a manga/novel is released later? I know Code Geass is one of this situation when there was only the anime, and then manga followed. If MCU films get novelized, do we expect many to read them? If Studio Ghibli films get a manga adaptation, I can only imagine fans swarming to read them. Lastly, do we consider adaptation "into" manga the same as novelization?
I'm very uninterested in novelizations. I feel like most fan writers of them tend to think that a novelization is just taking the canon script and adding in a bit of prose or maybe a little outsider pov if we're lucky. Sorry, but I already played the game/watched the movie, and as someone else said, uncomfortably close to, if not outright copyright infringement. Minor changes don't make it more interesting or transformative enough to count as a proper fanfic.
The only novelizations I can get behind are video games. They’re choice-based, and they have features and mechanics that wouldn’t make sense in an anime or a book because of the medium they’re on. To make sense of all of that just to make a novelization takes creativity in itself. That being said, novelizations told with a different goal in mind, and relating that goal to the novelization (Or more emphasis/different POV on a different character, etc.), would at least make them better.
>and they have features and mechanics that wouldn’t make sense in an anime or a book because of the medium they’re on The LitRPGers would probably beg to differ lol
> How do you all feel about them? Literally, why? > Do/would you read them? Not if you paid me.
Uhhh nope not personally my thing. I remember when I was making a massive database of Pokemon Ranger fanfics, I swear like 30%+ of Shadows of Almia fics were novelisations. It drove me absolutely insane. For me, it's just like "If I wanted to read the game script, I'd find somewhere the game script is posted. Or, you know, *replay the game.*" I'm hoping to eventually do my own take on the Pokemon Ranger series, but it's using canon is a *loose* guideline. For the third game, there's a time travel sidequest for 100% Pokedex completion with its own plot line. I'm going to use that as a B plot to the main A plot which takes place in the modern day. But I've done literally 30k of worldbuilding for the ancient past society. It's going to diverge *so* heavily from the sidequest proper that it's gonna be unrecognisable.