The "inside out" advantage of novels over movies

Blazing Reader,

In the August issue of Locus Magazine, award-winning novelist Alexander Boldizar made this astute observation about the "inside out" advantage of novels over movies:

"In fiction, you can enter a character from the inside, and you can understand their motivations in a way that just isn't possible in a movie format. I was thinking a lot about that distinction between movies and novels as an art form: that incredible power of fiction to see people's worldviews and life philosophies and histories and identity, and everything else that makes up a human being, and really see it from the inside out. You never match that in a movie."

I 100% agree with everything Boldizar said here, except his semantic framework. Movies are a form of fiction, just like novels. I think he should have opened up by saying, "In novels, you can enter a character from the inside..."

But, considering Boldizar speaks six languages, I wouldn't dare critique his linguistic prowess. Born in Czechoslovakia, he escaped during the Cold War and now lives in Canada, where he has mastered English to the point that he won the 2025 Locus Award for best science fiction, the Mark Twain Award for satire, and the Somerset and PEN/Nob Hill prizes for literary fiction.

He's also a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and holds a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. So I'm not going to argue semantics with a polyglot who could sue me in six languages while locking me in a choke hold.

You can find out more about Boldizar and his "inside out" fiction at Boldizar.com.

John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.