Is blending a largely illustrated book like James Gurney's "Dinotopia" and a dramatic and more serious plot a bad idea?
So, I don't know if any of you have heard of Dinotopia by James Gurney, but it's written in a format with large pages, and lots of illustrations:
While it is not exclusively a children's book, and definitely not a bad book, it lacks a main antagonist, climax, or any other really weighty, serious emotions, especially not negative ones. Is such a format only suitable for light-hearted, less serious books, or can I use it in a book with a villain and intense climax?
Would I be better off to cut down on the illustrations, or should I stick with the Dinotopia-style format?
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There are heavily illustrated books with weighty serious content. Terry Pratchett's Last Hero and Neil Gaiman's Stardust are two examples I have standing on my shelf. Both are very much not children's books.
You want to go even more serious, there are the famous illustrations by Gustave Doré to Dante's Divine Comedy.
And of course you can look at the graphic novel genre. It takes the illustrations side of the book to an extreme, and some of them deal with complex, weighty issues, strong negative emotions, etc. Look at Maus, for instance.
So, as far as story content is concerned, there's no reason why you should cut down on the illustrations.
The real problem with this format, I think, is that it is more expensive to produce: it requires an illustrator in addition to the writer, it requires better quality paper, coloured print, and probably some other things I don't even know about.
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