What makes literature different to movies or television? There are many distinctions to be made, of course, but one primary difference is the ability for the audience to create their own story.

In movies or television, it is easy to be swept along the experience. The main character has Brad Pitt’s face, there is no need for you to picture somebody else, and there is no ambiguity that he has this voice, or these eyes, or walks in this manner. The music comes on at a predetermined time, conveying a particular atmosphere, saving you the trouble of imagining it yourself. You are mostly being told a story, the same story as everyone else, and whilst there is room for interpretation, how you experience the story is largely at the director’s mercy. It is more of a passive experience.

Literature, on the other hand, requires far more effort from the audience. In each reader’s mind, every character will have different eyes, every voice will have a particular accent, every scene will have its own hues of grey or blue or pink. Descriptions are rarely long enough for you to perfectly picture a scene or a person or a building, nor do I think you want to, because part of the fun is letting the reader fill in the gaps themselves. It is why movie remakes of books are so controversial, for nobody has the same world envisioned in a novel, and one can feel cheated if their favourite character looks different or their favourite scene got removed, for it suggests that their world is not as valid.

This dance between the author and the reader is one of the reasons I love fiction. On one hand, the author constructs a scaffold for you, nudging you along their world, but you are free to – or rather, you must – experience it your own way. It is a much more personal experience, for your world is yours, not anybody else’s, and nobody can really understand why you like this character so much or why you enjoyed this scene more than that one or why you were touched by this particular description or quote in passing, because even though you read the same words as everyone, your respective worlds are vastly different.

When done correctly, as in when the scaffold aligns with your worldview and your interests and your attention span, and you begin to playfully interact with it, and maybe even enjoy it, the experience can be quite magical.