The Hunger Games Formula

[Joe Vanderheiden]

I would take the Hunger games formula as strong teenage girl character that has adventures and overcomes hardships. I would throw Twilight and divergent into that category.

The other part is of this is the teenage girl target audience of these books.

I tried to do that in the first book of my series, and those of my daughter's friends that have read it like it much better than my adult friends.

 

[Zebra Wizard]

the way published authors speak of it, it sounds like they have the rights to the movie, not the publisher. So i don't think the publisher is looking for this "formula". It's up to the author to decide if and who they want to sell the rights too. e.g. that fifty shades author only agreed if she had alot of control on it. GRRM knew how tv producers operated so it wasn't until HBO and those two writers that he agreed to do it.

Alot of movie adaptations have gone badly even if they are great books, dark materials comes to mind.

Some authors don't care about the movie version, and will sell the rights regardless. To these people their book is their creation, a movie version would be seperate, though i personal would be afraid it would ruin the reputation of my books.

I wouldn't pick up a book of a bad movie unless it was highly recommended.

Bourne series is highly acclaimed yet its a loose (compared to others) adaptation of the books, i think any book can become good, depends how much you agree, if the people who buy it are good at their craft. Theres just too many variables.

 

[Broked]

Novels, particularly genre novels, have always featured a lot of formulas. I remember, back in the day, reading a Mack Bolan novel, putting it down in my apartment and then picking up another by mistake, flipping to the right page, and being able to keep reading without any real confusion until a few pages later. Some, maybe many, readers like that and find the formulas comfortable.

I think, though, these formulas usually come about after a writer has created something innovative and succeeded with their creation. Other authors look at what the innovator did and try to copy what was successful without doing the hard work of innovating, and after some succeed a formula is born. The problem, however, is that these copies don't do as well as the work they've been copied from, and as time passes the formula becomes a cliche. I would suggest Tolkien and Terry Brooks as an example.

Film and tv have their own formulas and their own cliches, and because the costs of production are so high, I think producers are even more risk averse than publishers, leading to a bunch of remakes and samey products and the very occasional break out.

 

[ErikB]

Formulas for writing are fairly established. The variety well outlined in everything from articles giving writing advice to novelists and authors to screenplay writers.

I am frankly shocked that the hunger games films are as popular as they have been. I found them rather mediocre and predictable. Especially the second one.

That's not to say that the books are not better written, but take formulas with a grain of salt. Readers and audiences might go for cookie cutter rote and movies, but the more discerning reader or viewer will not be as impressed.

I think that certain movies or books gather a cult type following or are "trending" more than having actual merit in their construction and story. Certainly (in my mind) Hunger Games is one of those very over rated and poorly done projects leaving much to be desired.

 

[Brian G Turner]

hunger games films are as popular as they have been

They're popular because of the books, which are huge sellers. The problem for the films is that the books are driven by internal conflict, which is hard to depict in film.

 

[ErikB]

Hard to depict for poorly written and poorly acted movies. Good writers and actors overcome these issues easily even if the complexity of a book (due to length) cannot be fully explored in a few hours of film.

Having not read the books I cannot speak to their merit. But generally speaking books are almost always far better than their movie counterparts. This is a given.