Time for categories for book authors with enough gun-using film adaptations?
 

I know Tom Clancy has one for himself, but what about other book authors whose books have been made into films? I'm sure Stephen King has had enough book-to-movie adaptations on the wiki, as does Philip K. Dick (original author behind adaptations like Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, etc.)

Or would that be irrelevant to the wiki? We already have pages for directors, but I'm sure some of us would also like to see more pages for authors with enough film/TV/game adaptations on this wiki.

Stephen King already has one. Clancy is kind of in a class by himself. The man doesn't just write books, he's spawned at least three video game franchises on the site.

I believe Clancy has one on the basis that "Tom Clancy's" is more a franchise than an author (he hasn't written them all himself for a long time) much like, say, the James Bond franchise. In addition there's a loose continuity between some entries (Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six and HAWX are IIRC all set in the same world). I don't think that would immediately apply to other authors in the same way.

Many of King's books occurred in the same universe, but I doubt that carried over to the movies.

I didn't mean just pages for authors who have been actors as well (which is how Stephen King's page on the wiki is set up); I mean category pages like those we have now for directors on the wiki. I'm sure some of us would like to quickly find all the pages based on works by certain authors.

Like I said, Stephen King already has one.

http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Category:Stephen_King

I see, that never came up when I entered "Stephen King" without the quotes. I would still appreciate it if more Author category pages were made on this wiki for those Authors who have enough media works covered by this wiki based on their writings. Maybe even a supercategory for "Author" as well, like we have for "Actor" and "Director."

Normally, we redirect the name straight to the category, but as you pointed out, King actually qualifies for an actor page here. I'm not sure what the precedent is. I've seen it done a few ways.

I can't really see much call for this, to be honest; when you look at a page you might want to look up another film by the same director, but I can't really see anyone thinking 'hey, I wonder what guns were in other movies based on short stories by the same author.' Being a franchise, Clancy is more like a producer than a writer, and King isn't just a writer, he's also acted and even directed (though people try to forget about Maximum Overdrive as a rule).

Elmore Leonard is also a category. Stick, Joe Kidd, 3:10 to Yuma, Hombre, Stick, Get Shortly, Last Stand at Sabre River, Justified, Jackie Brown, Out of Sight and more. The man is a machine. But most authors haven't had that many of their novels or short stories turned into movies. I like the system that is in place.

Well, at least I would like to see an Author category created for the late great Philip K. Dick. Of films based on his writings we have Blade Runner, Total Recall (both versions), Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, already on the wiki. I'm sure A Scanner, Darkly will also be included eventually. And Ridley Scott once expressed interest in making a sequel to Blade Runner.

I'm sure that eventually more films that are adaptations of work from a single author will be put on this wiki, so an Author category will see more use eventually.

Well you can create the category for Philip K. Dick if you want. It is a Wiki so feel free. Then, of course, if there are issues you can rest assured that one of us will soon come along and sharp shoot you. ;)

Don't encourage him. We've had kids before wanting us to start documenting the appearances of guns (or at least their descriptions) in books. Remember?

I have one rule: Don't expand IMFDB to anything past what we already cover, until we've 100% covered our original mission. Since there are TONS of gaps in our 'histories' I suggest we expend our energies towards making IMFDB complete, rather than ADDING more stuff we have to cover.

Huh, and I thought I was building a reputation for being one of the straight shooters on this wiki.

I haven't checked the rules page in a while, but I'm certain there should have been a sentence or two talking about "this is a wiki meant to categorize the real-life firearms (or representations of such) in visual motion media" added recently. Books are visual media but are textual and are therefore not motion media. Comics (from any country) are not motion media either, nor are video games composed mostly of still images (usually adventure games).

What precisely do you mean by gaps in our "histories"? Do you mean films we haven't covered yet (have you made a list of particular films you want others to make pages for, or something?), or incomplete pages, etc?

In any case, there already exist categories for authors whose works have been adapted into several films that qualify for inclusion on this wiki. If you're going to remove those categories, then fine. But if we're going keep them, then it would be good to have some criteria for including future author categories (i.e., they must have 3 or more works that have been adapted into films/video games/TV shows that qualify for inclusion on this wiki before such an author category can be created), since there are some of us who would like to quickly find the films based on the author's works (and I'm certain there are more authors who would qualify for such categories than just the three we've brought up here). And it would require much in the way of new material, just one category page per author worthy of inclusion, and the "Author" metacategory (like the ones we have for Director and Actor).

If Elmore Leonard gets one, then I suppose you've proven your point. I have no objections.

As for future entries, I think we should lay down some requirements, like the minimum number of titles to qualify.

Just FYI:

Stephen King = 18 entries

Tom Clancy = 13 Entries

Elmore Leonard = 14 Entries

Maybe 10?

Do we want to set a limit for directors as well? We have one director category with only two films.

While we're on the subject, can we standardize a way to do pages for directors who are also actors? The only one I've done is here.

Damn, the late PKD only has 7 films to my knowledge based on his works that would qualify for this wiki.

At least 10 items for author pages is my recommendation.

As for pages with actors who also are directors, I have done a few pages like this such as for Kevin Costner http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Kevin_Costner.

Is it better to have everything on one page (it looks a little messy) or place the directed films on the discussion page? PLease give thoughts.

Pandolfini came up with a third way. This allows the creation of a category.

Is there are reason why we cant have a (for example) "Kevin Costner" page that has his acting credits, and a separate "Category:Kevin Costner" page for his directing works linked to from his actor page? This way you would have actor and director pages that fit both of the current standards.

The reason why I combined the pages for actor/directors because there's a bit of confusion when creating a category for that person.

I mean, Do you only add films that the actor has directed in this category? Why would you not add the actor's acting credits to this?

I believe the Clint Eastwood category is pretty unique due to his immense presence on the database (is there another individual on the database that's comparable?)

We just got another two item director category. If we're going to set a limit, we should do it soon. Want to say four?

Sure, four sounds like a good number.

I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a table below the gun lists for "other work" to list things like voice acting roles and direction and give full credit for everything that actor's done on the database. I guess multiple lines if they had more than one role in the production. So like

= Other Work =

Title || Role || Year

That one movie || Director || 1807

Damn, now that I've watched The Road, I'd think that Cormac McCarthy (author of the original Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel of the same name) deserves an author category of his own. Sadly, he has only three movies that qualify for inclusion on this wiki, which are All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, and The Road, which disqualifies him from inclusion according to the "4 titles required" rule, even if his movies are highly-rated.

I've just created the Philip K. Dick page. Hopefully someone can move it to "Category:Philip K. Dick" soon.

What I took away from the conversation was that we WEREN'T going to create it.

4 titles is probably too few to justify creating a new author category, given that directors only need three and usually they are more involved with the direct production of the feature.

I mean, Ian Fleming would be a more justifiable candidate for a page, but that doesn't mean it should necessarily be made.

Did we ever decide on three?

I thought that three minimum was the consensus.

I thought it was four. It doesn't really matter that much, I just want something solid.