Pictures In Posts: Enhancing, or a Distraction

[Fatina]

The title says it all. I illustrated a bunch of story boards for my animation class last year on a Cintiq. Just because it is easier to upload right away instead of scanning shit up I'm thinking once I get one or something similar I'd like to draw, probably very general, loose, drawings, and/or very polished ones in key parts of my quests. Mainly I imagine the drawings to be more of action scenes, of interesting angles and of complicated explanations. I almost feel that if I say, "Her arm materialized into a blade" I would not be able to indeed get the image across, including all the implications of an arm reshaping into a blade, the gore of altering anatomy, without being overly verbose. That probably just comes from me being an inefficient writer, however.

I wanted to know what people would think of this. I guess it may depend on the quality of the illustrations too, but generally... Would you find pictures in posts that follow the story interesting, or would you find them distracting.

Probably the biggest argument someone could make against it is that it almost defeats the purpose of writing; we are meant to imagine the scenes described to us through writing around the details given to us. To many it is almost a pet peeve to imagine a character a certain way and being shown the picture by the author as something completely different, and often, to them, un-cool. However I think that often happens more when the writer is a better writer than an artists, when he excels at portraying a character where I assume, from my writing, that the reader is not imagining my situations properly, actually quite blandly.

Here's a recent thread on a similar topic: http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=21248

If that made any sense, I'd like to know what you guys think.

[Fatina]

I know it sounds very petty, but some days all I have to look forward to is replies. :P


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[SirArtemis]

So for me, I think I'll fall into that other category where it kinda ruins the point for me. I want to see the writing and imagine for myself what you want me to see. If I'm not seeing what you want me to, then odds are you aren't writing it properly. I've had that experience myself and spent a lot of time reworking a single post over and over just to get my point across and it was difficult. I'm not an artist, my art is my words.



My suggestion would be that if you would like to share these images, offer them as little footnotes to each section that it is related to or even at the end fo your post in an OOC to give readers the option of seeing what you had intended. It would also allow them to give you feedback when comparing what they saw and what you presented.

All in all though, pictures seem to negate the point of describing something.

[Requiem of Insanity]

I honestly think that adding pictures into the middle of the story can detract from pacing, the only safe way to add it without doing harm is like at the beginning of a scene, or the end. Anything in the middle and the reader is taken away. Also stick figure drawings, or lack luster images, can effectively do more damage than poorly written description. At least with the latter, there is an opportunity the reader will at least get a gist, but with a shit drawing, well...that's just a shit drawing. I know I use extreames here, but I feel you'll get the idea.

My two cents.

[Knave]

Words vs pictures? Why, what an idea, and I mean that in the sense that people love to spout, "a picture is worth a thousand words," and no one will ever claim that a thousand words makes one picture. This is sane, in that I doubt very many writing styles will ever bother to spend one thousand words on any key scene. Personally, I'd say go for it, but at the very least try to do both well. Plenty of books carry minor illustrations, but I've always felt they were there for decoration.

If you're worried about whether the reader gets the right idea, thats perfectly fine. Go with your gut, and your natural feelings toward human behavior and demographics. Personally, the vast majority of people here have gone fairly well without pictures popping up mid-thread, but I've never seen it done here, and I'd certainly like to see you try. Perhaps hyper links to the words of interest.

And seriously, no stick figures.

[orphans]

only I'm allowed stick figures!!! :D

-coughs- in all seriousness though, pictures for me detract a little and breaks up the flow, only because the reader might be spending more time focusing on the picture and forget what they've read, or let it influence what they read. However, at the beginning, a small picture (like how Duffy does with some of his characters) or at the end could be effective though.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about pictures as I feel the two are in different genres. Graphic novels have pictures that tell most of the story with a bit of narration and heavy dialogue. A lot of novels have a picture on the cover and then is all words, sometimes with a picture in the back cover as well.

<_< I know I should never use pictures because I'd only put distracting things with no relation, just to confuse artie :>

[Duffy]

I use the pictures as a scene setter, or alternatively, a gull, to lure people into the wrong sense of expectation about a story so that the gambit/grand finale or the twist I usually employ is even more shocking or unexpected.

I'd never submit a picture except in the thread opener, usually with a quip or quote or some-such, and always with the title embolden and linked to a song with a suitable metaphorical, or more lately, literal connection to the content.