The question of illustration

[000zing]

Confession: this is not a story idea but relates to presentation.

What do people here think of the general issue of illustrated stories? I'd like this to stay on the SI board and not get shifted as I believe that having the right/not-so-right illustration for a story can influence the actual idea itself and cause the writer to reconsider plot and characters.

 

[alohadave]

What do people here think of the general issue of illustrated stories?

IMO, most of the time illustrations are a distraction and not worth reading.

Others disagree as illustrated stories tend to have high view counts.

 

[Rob_Royale]

The writing should come first. The art should support the story. When people write a comic book it's written like a screenplay and it describes the action in each panel. So illustrated stories should feature scenes from the story. So very few do.

However there's is nothing wrong with a photo, inspiring an entire story, but it need not be submitted as an illustration. This photo is still percolating in my brain and someday it will be a story.

 

[CuttingEdge]

I am not sure, but granted I write novels and books beyond just erotica so my take is a little different.

For novels, you get the singular feeling like Rob stated above. Putting a front cover on a novel is exciting and fun, the hard work of getting the perfect picture to describe the 90,000 words after it is opened, is really graphic arts, but also makes a novel gratifyingly complete. A single picture that says it all!

It is the same with my children's nooks since I write, but also illustrate them. They just take a lot of time and can be challenging as the pictures needed for the text are not always something I am inspired to draw, but I must in order to complete the book. Childrens books thus take MUCH longer than a novel to complete! (About a year for a children's book and about 4 months for a novel)

But it was vogue from 1880 to 1920 to illustrate novels. A lot of writers were well versed in both, and I do love old books from that era and have mixed feelings on it. Sometimes what I envision is not what the writer drew, and it takes away from my vivid imagination. Other times they are spot on.

But I have illustrated one novel. I kind of had too, it was set in 1920 Siberia and was about equipment of old that readers today would not know or visualize. To get the theme of the main story, I illustrated some of that in a prologue so that readers could enjoy the novel. Feedback has been, it was a good idea.

 

[000zing]

Ok, you moved the thread despite my polite request to keep it in SI.

No further interest.