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Artist paints characters as described in books, then shares side-by-side with film versions

He doesn't know who he's painting, and it's fascinating to see who is close and who is way off.

Jazza/YouTube

Jazza tries to guess who he's painting based only on written descriptions.

Anyone who's watched a film based on a book has experienced the disappointment of a movie character not matching their imagined version of what a character looks like. Book authors offer descriptions of characters with varying levels of detail, usually just enough to help us form a mental picture or give us necessary information about them, so we may not all imagine them the same way.

Some characters' physical features are crucial to their story, such as Harry Potter's lightning-shaped forehead scar, but some are just an author's attempt to share whatever they themselves imagine a character to look like. There's often a lot that's open to interpretation, though, so it's a bit of a crapshoot whether a film depiction of a book character will match a writer's description of them—or a reader's vision based on that description.

One artist is exploring this phenomenon with a video series in which he paints characters based solely on their written descriptions. Jazza, who has made a name for himself on social media with his creative art videos, is given the features of a character as described by a writer without being told who the character is or where they're from. Then we see how his depiction compares to the character as shown on screen.

Sometimes his paintings are surprisingly close to the film character and he is able to guess who the character is based on what he drew. Some are more mysterious and he doesn't know who he's painted until it's revealed. And occasionally, it's not a character that's being described but a real person, which is the case with the last painting in this video, and it's extra hilarious. But it's always fascinating to see someone paint a picture of what they're visualizing in their mind, since most of us aren't able to do that.

Watch:

If you enjoyed those attempts, check out Part 2:

The series has more parts and he also has a series where he sculpts monsters based on their descriptions. So fun to watch!

Here's to the human imaginations that create characters on the page and those who bring them to life on screen. Different creative skills, but both so valuable to the storytelling that help us tap into our humanity.


This article originally appeared last year.

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Joy

Someone accidentally started a 'silent book club' and introverts are giddy over the idea

This is heaven for some of us.

Photo credit: Canva

Being social doesn't have to entail lots of talking.

Not all bookworms are introverts and not all introverts are bookworms, but it's probably safe to say there's significant overlap between the two. And while some introverted bookworms might enjoy a traditional book club where everyone reads the same book and discusses it at length, others might not. For some, that much forced talking isn't desirable, but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't want some kind of social experience connecting them to other readers.

There's an ideal solution for those folks—the silent book club.

A user on Reddit (u/ccomplished_Arm3647) shared what a silent book club entails and how they accidentally created one at their local coffee shop:

"So, here's a funny little story about how I unintentionally created a new social group in my town. A few weeks ago, I was at my favorite coffee shop, deeply engrossed in a novel. An older gentleman approached me and asked what I was reading. We had a brief but lovely chat about books. The next week, I was there again with a different book. The same man showed up, this time with his own book. We nodded at each other, smiled, and went back to our reading. Week three: I arrive to find the man already there. He's brought a friend. They're both reading silently. I join them at their table, and we all read in comfortable silence for an hour. Fast forward to yesterday. I walk into the coffee shop, and there are TWELVE people scattered around, all silently reading books. The barista grins at me and says, 'Your club is getting pretty popular!' Apparently, word had spread about the 'Silent Book Club' that meets every Wednesday at 4 PM. People just show up, read whatever they want, and occasionally chat during coffee refill breaks. I've accidentally created the most introvert-friendly book club ever, and I'm happy about it."

Silent book clubs allow people to be sociable without having to be overly social

People are loving the idea:

"Omg this is the type of book club I can get behind!!!"

"Silent Book Club is the best idea anyone has ever had."

"This is the kind of book club I need. I want to be sociable but not that much by talking."

"Silence, books and coffee, I WANT this in my life."

Others shared that silent book clubs are an actual, organized thing in their local areas:

"We have a few Silent Book Clubs in my area. My local library started doing it twice a month. I love the coffee shop idea though."

"My town has a silent book club that's so popular you have to sign up for meetings so they don't overwhelm host locations. While this is exactly the sort of thing I'd enjoy, apparently having to preregister is too much for me."

"We had one of these in NC. We met for a social hour, then all read silently for an hour, then wrapped up with another socialization before leaving. We had 20 people at times. The waiters thought we were a hoot - sitting together but not talking for a bit. But we tipped well!"

"I didn't start it but I went to my first one of these in my town recently and it was wonderful, can't wait for the next one this week. Reckon every town should have one!"

"My local library does Adult Silent Reading hours with snacks, sounds pretty similar."

"I host one at the library! We call it BYOB!"

people in a coffee shop with booksSilent book club entails minimal chatting.Photo credit: Canva

"My local indie bookshop does this - we meet in a nearby pub, everyone brings whatever they want to read. We talk about what we’re reading for 30 mins, swapping ideas, then we read in silence for an hour. And have another 30 mins of chat after. So dedicated reading time!"

"This is so cool. In our country there was a silent reading event in a park, calling all book readers to come, find their own comfort and read together. No discussion, no chats, just people reading together in silence. People can come and go as they like."

There are established Silent Book Clubs people can join all over the world

There's actually a Silent Book Club organization that has more than 1,000 chapters in 50 countries. If you can't find one near where you live, you can start one of your own.

It might be hard for someone who enjoys talking to understand, but being sociable doesn't have to include a lot of conversation. Sometimes people want to be around others who share a common interest, even if that common interest is something being done as an individual and in silence. A little casual chatting about what books people are reading is more than enough for some folks; not everyone needs or wants a full-fledged book club discussion.

If you want to find an already established silent book club in your area, check out silentbook.club and enjoy an "introvert happy hour" with fellow readers.

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They said no one would read a novel about dads — I wrote one anyway.

Nearly 80 percent of all books are bought by women

Evan Porter

The first time I sat down to write a fictional story (about 13 years ago), I wrote a screenplay jam-packed with stuff a 20-something year old guy thought was cool.

There was a bank heist gone wrong. Guns. Bad guys. Car chases. Explosions!

Since then I've become a father to two amazing girls, and for a long time my writing career was put on the backburner.

(Turns out, you suddenly have a lot less free time as a parent.)

But in early 2021, after many long months of COVID lockdown, I wanted to try writing something straight from the heart, something that better reflected who I am now — nostalgic, sentimental, both excited for and terrified of watching my girls grow up — and I wanted to try it as a novel.

So I came up with the idea of a bunch of dads trying (and hilariously struggling) to connect with their daughters at a weeklong summer camp retreat.

There was just one problem. 'Heartfelt novels by and about dudes' wasn't exactly a thriving literary genre.

There are plenty of books written by and mostly for men, of course.

But those are usually confined to genres like military or historical fiction, or SciFi. Basically, anything with weapons and/or spaceships and possibly murder.

Men also read somewhat prominently in biography and memoir.

But books about family and relationships and (gasp) love from a male perspective? That seemed to be fairly uncharted territory.

So where did that leave me and my idea to write a book that was funny and heartwarming and all about fatherhood?

I wasn't sure. But I knew the story I wanted to tell and I knew that I wanted to take great TV dads like Bandit from Bluey, Phil Dunphy from Modern Family, Carl Winslow from Family Matters, Alan Matthews from Boy Meets World and so many others — and see them represented on the page.

So I wrote the book anyway.


Holding an early draft of the manuscript in 2022Evan Porter

As I went along, I kept searching for more books like what I hoped to write. Generally, they were few and far between, but I was eventually heartened to find that they did exist.

Authors like Jonathan Tropper, Nick Hornby, Matthew Norman, and Richard Roper were doing amazing things in male-centered fiction that didn't involve guns and aliens, but rather focused on emotion and relationships and even romance.

Still, even with those guys blazing the trail, that didn't make things any easier when I started pitching my finished novel, Dad Camp, to literary agents.

A lot of them told me they just weren't sure what the market was for a book like mine. Who's going to read this? It seemed unfathomable that actual dads would read it, so surely it had to have crossover appeal to the childrens market, or it needed a strong romance element to draw in female readers.

Many even liked the story a lot but just didn't know how to pitch it to publishers.

It's easy to see why my book, Dad Camp, was a hard sell. Men just don't read in large enough numbers.

You can hardly go anywhere on the Internet without running into the "why don't men read" discourse.

That's because the facts are inescapable:

Around 80% of book sales come from women. Every study and survey and data set you can find shows that boys read less than girls starting in childhood and the gap only gets worse and worse as they get older.

Why don't men read more? Well, there are a lot of theories.

A lot of men report finding reading fiction to be a waste of time, that they have to be productive with their 'downtime' instead — which would explain why men are actually big readers of non-fiction, which is deemed more useful.

(Weirdly, that mindset doesn't seem to stop men from watching movies or television or spending tons of time gaming.)

Other theories say that men's brains just aren't wired as well for inhabiting the mind of different characters and empathizing with them.

And then there is the self-fulfilling prophecy of it all. Since men don't read, boys don't have as many good reading role models, and the cycle continues on and on.

The proven benefits of reading for men

Us dudes with our "linear thinking brains" like hard data, right? Well it's difficult to argue with the science behind reading fiction. It's extremely clear cut.

When you read fiction, you exercise your brain's Theory of Mind, or its ability to understand that other people are thinking and feelings and experiencing different things than you are.

People who read fiction frequently display more creativity, more empathy for others, and more skill in social relationships.

I'd like to see a non-fiction or self-help book that can achieve that.

And get this, some data even shows that readers live longer than non-readers!

So instead of spending a fortune on reducing your biological age and doing things like having young people's blood injected into your veins, just try picking up a $17.99 paperback novel.

In the end, I was lucky enough to find an agent and publisher that believed in Dad Camp as much as I did.

Novels on a bookshelfSeeing Dad Camp on shelves at the bookstore for the first time was a pretty special feelingEvan Porter

And I'm really excited that it's out there in the world finding its audience of, not just dads, but moms and daughters and anyone who knows or loves a dad.

One last point from my research that really stood out was that men are apparently extremely reluctant to pick up books from female authors — a perspective, you could argue, we desperately need!

I'd like to hope that, one day, my book could be something of a bridge, and show more men that it's actually good and fun to read about relationships and family and romance.

Once you cross that bridge, there's a whole world of amazing books and storytellers waiting for you — and the positive impact those stories have on your brain and well-being will be well worth the effort.

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An 8-year-old snuck his handwritten book onto a library shelf. Now it has a 56-person waiting list.

Dillon Helbig's 81-page graphic novel— written by "Dillon His Self"—captured the hearts of his local librarians and their patrons.

KTVB/YouTube

Dillon Helbig's 81-page graphic novel captured the hearts of his local librarians.

Writing a book is no easy task, even for adult professional writers. Many would-be authors dream of a day when their work can be found on library shelves, unsure if it will ever come.

But for 8-year-old Dillon Helbig, that day has already arrived—in truly unconventional fashion—thanks to his own determination to make it happen.

Dillon wrote his 81-page graphic novel, "The Adventures of Dillon Helbig's Crismis" (written by "Dillon His Self") in a hardcover journal with colored pencils over the course of a few days.

He even put a label on the back of the book that reads "Made in Idho" [sic] and put an illustrated spine label on it as well. Then, without telling anyone, he brought it to his local library in Boise, Idaho, and slipped it in among the books in the children's section.


The library Facebook page shared that it had officially added the book to the collection at the branch, writing, "Imagine our surprise yesterday when Dillon's mom called to tell us that her son had authored an entire book, shelved it at the Lake Hazel Branch, then announced to his family later that he had written a book and it could be checked out at the library."

The library also announced that Dillon's book had won the first-ever Whoodini Award for Best Young Novelist—an award created in his honor.

Dillon told local news station KTVB that the book features him, his mom, Santa, a bomb, a portal and a giant carnivorous turkey. Because of course.

"I've been wanting to put a book in the library since I was five," Dillon told the station. Nearly half his life, in other words.

Dillon said there were a lot of librarians he had to sneak past with his book to surreptitiously put it on the shelf, but he did it.

"I'll always be sneaky, like how I get chocolate," he explained. Classic.

The adults on every front handled this kid's creativity and determination the best possible way. His mom called the library to let them know the book was there so it wouldn't get lost or taken.

And rather than just returning the book, the librarians actually put it into circulation.

"His parents were worried we would find his book and we would get rid of it," Lake Hazel Branch Library manager Alex Hartman told KTVB. "Which was an unfounded fear because if there's ever a place a book would be safe, it would be here."

The librarians loved Dillon's book.

“It deserves a spot on our library shelves,” said Hartman. “It’s a good story.”

At the time of this local news report, the book had a handful of people in line to check it out. But The New York Times reports that as of the end of January, the waiting list has grown to a whopping 56 people. If each person kept the book for the maximum four-week checkout period it would take four years to get to the people at the bottom of the list.

The experience has made Dillon decide to become an author, his mom said, and he even has some career goals laid out.

“I’m going to stop writing when I’m 40,” Dillon said. After that, he will switch to game creation. In the meantime, he has a sequel to his first novel in the works.

“My next book is going to be called ‘The Jacket-Eating Closet,’" he said, "based on actual events.”

Amazing. Kudos to Dillon for following his dream and making it happen, kudos to his mom for encouraging him and kudos to the librarians who saw an opportunity to support a child's creativity and ran with it.


This article originally appeared on 09.13.22

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