Would John Wick Work As A Novel? 🤔

[LWriter]

So, this is a weird one, but it’s a question I’ve been asking myself since I saw the last John a Wick movie. It’s an engrossing saga, with a surprisingly simple story, but that has kept audiences gripped tight through its amazing action and bigger than life (but still relatable) characters. I know action is part of novels, but it’s usually more of a tool used through them than the main focus. We have actions scenes, yes, but I often feel that’s rarely the draw for a novel (talking about my own experience others may feel differently). John Wick dosen’t even seem to have a novelization, as far as I could tell.

There’s a story I want to tell as a novel, that is very much in that vein. An action drama about marital artists and assassins, and while I would keep the focus on the characters and the drama between them, it’s obvious that fighting would have to play a decently big part of it, and I’m still trying to figure out how best to approach it. I don’t even know what I’m asking, if I’m honest, but it seemed to me that if people would be interested in reading John Wick as a novel, then what I have in mind could work, so that’s how I framed it lol. If you would, do let me know, and feel free to throw any thoughts on action as a genre for prose novels ^^

[joannekwan]

Not as a one to one adaptation. Since it relies so much on just visuals and the choreography of the fights, there isn't much to dive into for a novel. But if the novel had parts focusing on the organization and how it runs, and maybe a bit more downtime with Wick to flesh him out, that I could see working.

[vapidink]

It could, but as with anything that's being adapted into another form of media, you'd have to change some things up. The action scenes could still work, because even though the visuals make them all the more special in the movie, the creativity behind the fights still makes them interesting. The challenge is writing the action in a way that maintains the tension and suspense, which is something a lot of people struggle with when writing action scenes.

You'd have to lean into the strengths of written storytelling, which is that you can get into the characters' heads a lot more than you could with a movie. Maybe you should try reading some novelizations of movies from similar movies to get an idea of how to adapt something so action oriented. When I was a kid I read the novelization of one of the Star Wars movies and it was nice to see a bit more of what the characters were thinking and feeling during the events of the movies. It made them feel more fleshed out and when I went back to watch the movie, those thoughts and feeling and added scenes stuck with me as I watched.

[LWriter]

Honestly, yeah, I was trying to think of a novel like that, but not sure which would fit the bill. Like I said, the John Wick movies don’t even have novelizations that I could find lol. If anyone knows a good action centered novel or series, especially a martial arts centered one, I’d love to see it. But yeah, I am trying to think how to approach the fighting in prose, and you know, funny enough, I keep coming back to Kill Bill (more Vol 2 than 1 but yeah), cause Tanrantino’s scripts often feel like novels in visual form, and with the exception of the big climax of Vol 1, which is a long crazy blood bath of a battle more self indulgent than anything, his approach to martial arts and assassins is that they are quick (as are their exchanges), and more focused on the characters and what they’re going through. Like even the fight between the Bride and Elle Driver, while complex, you can practically feel what they’re thinking on how each action is described, and it flows! So that’s where I’m at, and I am going to give this a try lol.

[vapidink]

Not an adaptation from movie to novel, but the other way around, but you can try the Jason Bourne series for action scenes. Try reading just any novel from a movie you know to see what changes were made. You can get an idea of how to adapt things that way, even if it's not the same genre. Some tricks kinda translate to adaptations in general.

For action scenes, the key is to get rid of extraneous bits. The writing should be quick, tense, simple. Stay away from passive wording. The biggest things are really wording and flow. If you read books with action scenes you can sometimes see a shift in the writing style when you get to the fights. The focus switches from getting in the characters head to painting a picture while maintaining the tension.

[LWriter]

Yeah, I recently wrote my first chapter that was a full action scene and experimented with it, but I was overall happy with it, and it made me consider I could explore this. But yeah, would not hurt to read more like that, for sure. Gonna see what I can find, but I guess my biggest doubt was if people would be attracted at an action movie premise in prose form, if you will