The “What If…” game has been around a long time. For writers, it’s one of the most highly valuable tools for creating the next great novel or the next fantastic screenplay. For children, it’s a sure way to expand the imagination and explore the world as it might be rather than how it is.
For anyone who wants to deconstruct a novel, the “What If…” game is an interesting way to discover the possible seeds of how the novel was begun. How did it grow from the writer’s mind? Let’s try a few books made into movies and see.
What If…video games were really only military training? (Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card)
What If…an old fisherman finally got the catch he always wanted but the whole ocean was against him? (The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway)
What If…a corporation held the key to triggering all your memories? (from the short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick—which became Total Recall in the movies)
I picked the above because they were apparently influential enough as books to be made into movies. Here are a few more. Only this time, I’ll put the What If out there and you try to guess the book made into a movie.
1. What If…someone in the South actually wrote about and stood up for the African Americans who were in low-paying service jobs?
2. What If…a love story had pirates and sword fighting and giants and six-fingered men in it?
3. What If…there was a magical item so powerful it could rule the world and someone decided to throw it in a volcano?
Did you make some guesses? Were they too easy? Too hard? Regardless of whether the sources were obvious or not, the game is effective, right? You can break down any book or movie this way, then go about making your own. Here are the answers to the three above:
- The Help by Kathryn Stockett
- The Princess Bride by William Goldman
- Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
And what about these classics?
What If…a child survived an evil curse and grew up to battle the one who tried to curse him? (Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling)
What If…some super intelligent children were formed into a team to battle a super intelligent bad guy who was trying to prove his superiority by making everyone in the world wear berets? (The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart)
What If…there was a visual example of the events during the time of Moses? (The Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille based on the historical record of the Bible)
That last one is a funny one, because it is definitely the book with the most movies made about it.
It—the Bible—is the book with the most short films made about it, the most cartoons, and even some crazy digitally animated vegetables (Veggie Tales). A lot of these are great to watch around Easter.
Admittedly, since it’s a book of books, the Bible has a lot of subject material. There’s a lot there to break down into “What If…” games.
Recently too, there’s The Chosen, which is breaking all the rules of what cinema can be. It’s ruling the viewing public’s time, for sure. Did the makers of The Chosen start with speculation? Did they say, “What if we tried to cinematize the whole New Testament?” Or did they say, “What if people could view the Savior’s life in its entirety, or at least as much as we know about it?”
However Dallas Jenkins, the director of The Chosen, envisioned his product, he has successfully brought the history to the people. What if you could do the same with your stories?
Xenosthesia.com 