Writing stories from genres that usually involve visuals

Okay, so this idea has been bugging me for a long time now and I need help seeking an answer.

How does one make a written (Like pen and paper/word processor made) version of a story which is normally made in visuals?

For example, how would one make a written version of a Superhero story, something usually made in comic books, and is thus mostly visuals.

Maybe I'm just dumb or maybe I'm not being very imaginative, but I can't wrap my mind around the idea of writing these kinds of things.

I mainly ask this because I want to get back to my roots and start writing stories related to Kaiju, since Godzilla was the thing I pretty much grew up on.

So tropers, when you're seeking to write a story in a genre that usually involves a visual, what do you do?

Actually, given the walls of text often found in superhero comic books, they might translate well to being written as novels in some ways. :P

But what sort of problems are you running into here, specifically? Is there something like, say, fight scenes that you're having trouble putting into words?

Describe it a lot?

Writing is obviously not the same as big budget movie so you may have to accept its limitations.

That being said, writing also has the advantage of NOT being limited to visuals and can engage the reader's imagination, which can be better than movie visuals.

Good luck though.

Try focusing on the story part more than the visuals. There's an universe of potential with the superhero genre that doesn't involve the visual part of it, and it you can rock that, you can get passed the literary limitations.

Read "Call Of The Wild". There is virtually no dialog in it at all.

In my case, not terribly well.

But I think it's generally similar to writing any story. You simply describe what's going on, and focus on the characters in it.

Three simple words:

Third.

Person.

Omniscient.

In more words, you're in for a ride balancing the story so it doesn't read like head hopping with a side order of infodumping - it's not impossible but it's difficult.

Visual media such as comics enable you to see things no one character can know or see. In a single panel, you can see the words and thoughts of both characters in that panel - doing that in a written medium can give some readers whip-lash unless you do it properly.

You get a lot of visual data that needs to be distilled down to what's necessary for the reader to know then conveyed succinctly.

Fortunately, you don't need to write "Superman - dressed in his blue body suit, red underpants, red knee-length boots and red cape - flew across the sky over tall blockish sky-scapers and a tall building with a spire on the top" and, while visual media is constantly reminding you of what everyone looks like, in a written medium you can get away with describing it once per costume change (even fewer times if one of the outfits is regularly worn, enabling you to say "Peter quickly changed into his Spider-Man costume and..." in later scenes, having already described it in detail earlier).

But in order to cover all the things that the reader would be seeing and all the actions, words and thoughts of the various characters, you're best suited coming up with a narrative voice with which you're comfortable and telling the story from an omniscient viewpoint.

Visual media such as movies only tend to convey action and dialogue and not inner thoughts (unless they're doing the voice-over thing) and you see that level of information about everyone, regardless of whether the protag is in the scene or not.

Comics give you that plus the ability to have thought balloons for anyone, giving you not only more than movies, but more than a Third Person Limited POV that gives only the thoughts and motivations of a few select viewpoint characters.

So for comics, the best fit is Third Person Omniscient.

horror is another difficult genre to write in, at least for me. granted, i don't scare easily (i have to believe it happened in real life like with the blair witch project or the fourth kind which were marketed as found-footage documentaries) but i can't write scary stories. i've only ever read one book and seen one movie that made me afraid (and i don't mean in the shock-surprise-disgust way, i mean actual fear for my safety) and they were both about demons, one invisible and the other disguised as a man.

edited 24th Jun '13 11:36:16 AM by nekomoon14

Riffing on what Wolf says above: For the best effect, you want to play to the strengths of the media you're using.

Visuals and words exist on a sort of Symbolic <-> Abstract continuum (or "sliding scale," to use Tropese). On one end you've got the "pure visuals," where the meaning is conveyed entirely through symbolic motifs that are supposed to mean something (think paintings, photographs, and textless comic panels). On the opposite end you have "pure text," where the "meaning-bits" are broken down for you into words and you have to put them back together inside your head.

The long and short of it is, (according to my own personal theory) visual works tend to be better at inspiring visceral or instinctive reactions, while written works tend to be better at inspiring cerebral or psychological reactions — although neither is impossible for either to pull off. Take advantage of the opportunity you have to get inside the characters' heads and flesh out their relationships and motivations.

I would disagree that there's any best or worst perspective for it. As with any other genre, it depends on the nature of the story. Third-person omniscient might work best for a story about a team. For a story about a superhero working on his/her own, the third-person limited or even first-person could be just as effective. Even in a team setting, making it third-person limited, just limited to the team as a whole, would be just as good. Third-person omniscient is only necessary if the specifics of the story being told make it necessary.