How much illustrations do you usually like in your books?
- I like it when they are placed after every 1-2 pages
- Just a few pictures here and there
- Only for the chapter headers and the cover
- No, I don’t want any illustrations on the pages at all
0 voters
I’m thinking of pursuing the career as an author since I like to come up with stories. I’ve read a few novels and I noticed that most of them would only have a illustration on the cover, and almost every single page in the book consists of text. No pictures, just words. From what I heard, this gives the reader the opportunity to picture the storyline, the characters, and the scenes in their minds using their imagination. But it has happen quite often that I would imagine an inaccurate mental picture of something in the book. Either I missed a description or I created a much different image of a character’s face or clothes. It could depends on the reader.
But a few months ago, I’ve read Dragon Rider and was interested in its use of illustrations at the start of every chapter and occasionally places a picture here and there. I also remember another book that I own called The Eyes of the Dragon, and it also has pictures in the chapters. There is this special feature about the illustrations that helps reinforce the descriptions of the characters and the scenes. It might ruin the imagination for some people, but they help me fix mental pictures.
It would be similar to a scenario like this: imagine walking down the hallway of a school, carrying a science project in your arms to class when you suddenly collide into someone by accident. You both fall onto the ground and your project also falls on the ground too. Pieces of it might have came off and rolled off somewhere not so far away and/or got damaged. That person picks himself up and would either walk away to his next destination, or help you search or mend the parts.
The same goes for illustrations. A book without illustrations might have you searching the book for any other details you’ve missed or have you realize how silly you were to imagine a princess with such a pitiful image. A book with illustrations can help bandage this problem by providing the details to you in one or more pictures, so you can continue reading with the right image in mind.
There has to be a set maximum amount of illustrations, though. A book with too many illustrations should might as well become a picture book. However, there is probably no such thing as too few pictures in a novel. These kinds of books are usually famous for the words from within the cover and most of them only have illustrations on cover and not within the pages.
On the side note, movie adaptations of books seems to be too excessive since it rarely allows the watcher to imagine the story, and it feels as if the director was trying to say, “No, you fools! Everything you have imagine about this book is wrong! Here’s how it should look like!” Illustrations are bandages patching up a small wound, while movie adaptations are dressings that cover up even where it is unnecessary. Right now, I’m deciding against watching The Golden Compass because of this.
So what does everyone else think of book illustrations?