Have you ever had to read long, drawn out stories for a class and found yourself unable to keep track of the characters? Ever wanted to "follow" the plot of LOTR? Just a visual thinker? Well, these margin avatar stickers are for you!
Each pad of stickers contains thirty images of the face -- or 'avatar' -- of a character in the book. Simply peel of the avatar, stick it in the margin where the character appears, and voila! Instant graphic novel. No more getting lost in _War and Peace_ or _Metamorphosis_. Ace your finals and impress your friends with your intimate knowledge of character motivations!-- lawpoop, May 13 2009 Now look what you've gone and started _27TIS_20A_20read [normzone, May 13 2009] Similar, [phundug] said: Dialogue_20Helper_20Edition [phundug, May 14 2009] oh shit naw' you gotta be using your 'maginatin more than that. Stop watchin' the movie before you read the book yo.-- WcW, May 13 2009 I am an addict of the printed word, a speed reader who rarely see movies, and I absolutely love this idea.
For many a tale, this would be completely unnecessary.
But for those fantasy novels they lump in with the science fiction, the ones where all the characters have names like Llewlyn and Lewllyyne and Llyynelyn this might actually make them readable.
I just finished The Big Nowhere. Almost all of the bad guys get screwed over or killed, almost all of the good guys get killed. But as the tale switches viewpoints and the dirty cops doing good work and the good cops doing dirty work all get their turns to think on the page, it gets messy. This would have been a big help.-- normzone, May 13 2009 - it took me long enough to be able to read tolkien again without seeing the movie in my mind.-- zeno, May 13 2009 This ideal needs to be taken to its logical conclusion, the rebus. In addition to face stickers, other stickers connoting the general action on the page could be devised. As these stickers would make the text superfluous they could be placed directly on the text.-- bungston, May 13 2009 You are on to something here. How would you represent twins, though?-- loonquawl, May 13 2009 Well, we could just do the movie and the book in one package. Ooh, I just had an idea too good to put down here, off to post. Thanks will be given.-- normzone, May 13 2009 /How would you represent twins, though?/
Two stickers of the same face side by side. The evil one would have downslanting eyebrows, which could be a separate sticker. There could also be stickers of X you could put over the eyes of dead characters.
/read the words before placing the stickers? / Somebody would. Or you could just read some words to get the feel of it, then put on the sticker. Ultimately the stickers would come preplaced. They could be a little bit seethrough so Luddites and technophobes could make out the words underneath.-- bungston, May 13 2009 great idea.-- po, May 13 2009 Lawpoop: I call on you to make this happen. Invent a set of faces and action stickers. Actually they would just be little icons. Eyebrows, anime-type sweat OK. Depict us a book using stickers and link the image. Don't get too fancy now. If someone wants fancy she can read the book.-- bungston, May 13 2009 [Bacon] It sounds like you don't have a problem following the written word. Yes, you would have to read it. For me, I found that when I had to read Shakespeare, etc. for school, I would get names and characters mixed up. I'm just a visual guy; I have a hard time with names of people that I've met several times, and oftentimes I can't recall acquaintances by name alone. Having face images in the book would help my reading comprehension immensely.-- lawpoop, May 13 2009 [Bungston] It would basically look like discussion boards where people already have an avatar image next to their postings.-- lawpoop, May 13 2009 I just saw this. Hey I want in on the first roll out. I have ideas too.
This is huge if it's not baked. Huge.-- blissmiss, May 13 2009 What book(s) do you want to see avatar margin stickers for?-- lawpoop, May 13 2009 Far huger (huger?) than my linked idea. We won't be looking for venture capitol.-- normzone, May 13 2009 /What book(s) do you want to see avatar margin stickers for?/
Old Testament, for sure.-- bungston, May 13 2009 Should we use a sticker of Barak Obama for references to Barak in the Old Testament?
Judges 4:6 "She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, "The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you: 'Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor."-- lawpoop, May 13 2009 Why not just print the novel with the avatars already there?-- simonj, May 14 2009 [simonj] that's a good idea, but you have to get permission of the author, publisher, etc. etc. With this, one could actually make these things and use them. Or even sell them for difficult texts.-- lawpoop, May 14 2009 The only problem I see is having enough room in the margin to stick a sticker. Standard novels don't leave a lot of room...maybe transparent stickers?-- simonj, May 14 2009 I imagined them as being very small -- perhaps the size of a pinky nail, no mas.-- lawpoop, May 14 2009 Or the size of an 'acid tab' -- they have images on those, so it should work out just fine.
Hey, that gives me an idea...-- lawpoop, May 14 2009 you build up your mental picture whilst reading the book - if you pick the avatar at his first appearance then *that* image will influence your future mental picture.-- po, May 14 2009 Perhaps the avatars could be colour coded for each character and have expressions, like emoticons, to remind the reader, roughly, of the character's emotional state. Peripherals include weather stickers, day/night stickers, interior/exterior stickers, etc. until it's been plastered in so many of the things, the book eventually ends up as some kind of pictoral quasi-filmscript.-- Percy_Bollard, May 14 2009 I agree. Many a time I have read a book, constructed the scene in my mind, and then watched the movie and found that it differed so much from my visual model.-- devnull, May 14 2009 This idea isn't really to change the nature of the book ( into, say, a graphic novel ) or to impose someone else's vision of the characters onto your imagination or the author's vision .
What this is for is simply to help you follow along if you're the type of person who has trouble keeping track of who is saying or doing what when you're reading a novel.
Sort of like a Cliff's Notes, of a kind.-- lawpoop, May 14 2009 Wouldn't this be better on a Bookmark? You could sell a tailored bookmark for each book which had avatars in order of appearance and then stickers that would later alter the characters to track along with the story line. In any case (+).-- MisterQED, May 16 2009 / stickers connoting the general action on the page / Very helpful for those who sometimes just want to skip to the "good parts"... however you may define those. (Some definitions would be better suited to this than others, though. If digressions about the best way to translate German Romantic poetry are what makes you hot, good luck making a sticker for that.)-- hob, May 16 2009 A set of coloured highlighters doesn't do it for you?-- BunsenHoneydew, May 17 2009 [Bunsen] Well, maybe, but I wouldn't think so. I need to put a face to a name. A color to a name? I don't know if that would help me keep track or not.
Besides, how many colors of highlighters are there? Would that work for War and Peace?-- lawpoop, May 19 2009 [devnull], as regards the scene in the movie differing from that in the book, given what you have to do to turn one into the other we're lucky there's any resemblance at all when they're done.
[21 Quest], [po], you've given me an idea. [lawpoop], you want to market this idea as a piece of software and a set of printable labels.
When you come to a new character you use the software to develop an image that reflects the way you picture that character in you mind's eye, then save and print it.
As the story evolves, you may want to change the image to reflect events in the tale that affect the character.
"The last glass of wine was the one that did it. Suddenly, a motorcycle ride in the rain without a helmet seemed like just the thing to clear the cobwebs from his head."-- normzone, May 19 2009 random, halfbakery