Book 1 Project

The book I read for my first book was Room by Emma Donoghue. The idea that I have to extend the reader's experience is to have a reality game show. In this show, contestants will be selected based off of a test that they will take, its questions all being knowledge of Room. Similarly to American Ninja Warrior, the goal will be to be the fastest completer of the course. Each person will be put in a situation in which they must escape. The viewer will not be told the correct way to escape, so they can play along at home and escape along with the contestants. The show itself would be called Escape Room, an obvious connection to the book that it is based off of. It would be structured in the same style as most speed game shows, where there is a preliminary round, semi-finals, and finals. The winner will receive a large sum of money as their reward.

This idea stems from the part of Room where the narrator, Jack, and his mother are making a plot to escape Old Nick and Room. The original plan in the book is for Jack to pretend to be extremely ill, and for Old Nick to take him to a hospital. Jack would then tell the doctors of his mom, who is still in Room, and tell them to call the police. The police would come for his mother, arrest Old Nick, and they would escape him forever. However, this plan fell through when Old Nick does not trust the mother and assumes that this is a plan to escape. The mother knows that nothing will convince the captor to take Jack to the hospital, so her and Jack come up with a second plan. Their new plan is to pretend like Jack had died from the disease that was not treated. The mother rolls him up in a carpet so Old Nick will not know that he is actually alive. When the truck comes to a stop, Jack unrolls the carpet and jumps out of the bed of the truck. He runs and finds help, and succeeds. He and his mother are successfully free, and Old Nick goes to jail. Obviously, jumping out of a truck after being wrapped up in a rug during an extremely bouncy ride in the back of a pickup is a bit intense. None of the challenges will be anything dangerous, and if one is, the contestants will be fully informed of the danger elements (but not how to escape) and are able to drop out if they feel like they cannot complete the task. However, they will not be able to reenter the competition and are automatically disqualifying themselves.

I am confident that this idea will work because reality game shows are very popular. It would appeal to a wide range of people because it is fairly gender neutral. Room by Emma Donoghue will have more attention to it with the name of the TV show being Escape Room. The fans will be connected with the author and the book by feeling active in the experience. Because the viewers also do not know how to escape, they will feel more involved in the show and will feel like they are experiencing what Jack did in his escape.

What is a book?

A book is an idea. It's that simple. People try to make it complex and argue e-readers aren't real or books are just a waste of paper. This argument needs to be put to rest. We don't have to say one is better than the other, or one is ruining society. We get so uptight about this, and it's really not a big issue. Just because I prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla doesn't mean that vanilla is worthless and chocolate is the clear better choice and everyone who likes vanilla is wrong. It doesn't matter what the medium is: hardback, paperback, iPhone, Kindle, or Nook. What matters is the text itself. We judge people based on the content of their heart. In the same way, we should judge a book by what the author has created. A book is and idea that can be conveyed on a variety of mediums and touch a wide range of people. No matter how it is published, a book is a message sent to anyone who is willing to hear it. So let's get rid of this argument as to what is the better format, and just enjoy the idea that the author created and receive the message that they are trying to send.