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I’m entering an exciting time, because after reading some books recently with an author analytical mindset and mostly by editing one of my stories and listening to my mom’s edits on it, I’ve come to learn a lot about how to put things. I always knew it wasn’t enough just to have a killer plot and intriguing sub-plots. I knew that one had to write individual sentences and scenes in a certain way too. What I didn’t know was how exactly that should be done. I haven’t yet learned everything of course, and that’s kinda why I wanted to start this topic. A lot of you have been writing for longer than I have. I thought we could all work together and discuss how to write scenes that are less like a textbook and more like cinematography. I bet some of you have some great insights.
The main thing I’ve found is that I have a tendency to write more like a camera man who is talking about what he filmed and less like a camera man who is giving you live footage of what he is filming. I’m starting to see that words like “was” or “when” or “had” or “after” can be red flags for this problem. “After this happened, this happened” sounds way too much like a textbook. What is much better is, “This happened. So and so sprang to do such and such. Something was happening though which seemed like it might stop him. Other so and so needed to get to him before it was too late”. Ok, that’ not the best example, but hopefully you see what I mean. You know what though, here is an example from what I just wrote today. I was going to write something like this, “When the goods were loaded, Drake turned around and saw the captain. He looked like a man who had an apology to make.” Ok, not terrible, but realized I had broken my rule. I fixed it and now it reads, “The goods were loaded. Drake felt a tap on his shoulder and wheeled around. The captain was looking at him like a man who has an apology to make.” Ah, much better. Now I almost fell like I am watching it. I can connect more with both Drake and the captain. I feel much more excitement even though nothing major has happened. Have you ever noticed how the best writers can keep you on the edge of your seat even when you’re not at a climax? I think it has a lot to do just with these little tricks of making each scene feel like it is in the present.
Jollyooop. Ok, now it’s your turn. What are some things you’ve noticed make scenes and sentences seem less like a historical recitation and more like a movie you are watching?
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@Daeus: Thanks so much for sharing this! I’ve never really thought about it before, but the example you gave makes a lot of sense. The second example really sucks you into the story because you feel like you’re a part of the story. Like I said, I’ve never really thought about that before. I’ll have to look out for “textbook writing” in my future writings. 🙂
Ah, this is a great topic, @Daeus. I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about— only I never had to go through the transition you’re going through now. My books always started as movies in my head— a visual reference to set down on paper, and I wrote it as I saw it, not as I thought it ‘ought to be written’, if you know what I mean.
I don’t know how well I’m going to end up explaining this, but I’ll give it my best shot. You’re watching a movie, okay? If it’s a good movie, you’re not seeing the story— you’re feeling it. Say one of the characters in the movie punched someone in the face— as the viewer, you’re not like ‘Oh, horrifying, the guy just punched somebody in the face, how violent!’. You’re like ‘Oh man, that guy is angry.’ You feel it— you feel it without the annoyance of unnecessary words or actions, or little tidbits in the scene that don’t really contribute to the mood.
Irrelevant point number one.To take your example and analyze it, the second example of your scene took what happened through Drake’s eyes, not through the reader’s eyes. There’s a difference. Drake (love the name by the way) was taking the progression of things point by point, how they pertained to him, how he saw them, how they affected HIM. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s RIGHT. That’s GOOD WRITING RIGHT THERE.
He’s living in the moment— and I guess that’s the key, really. Live in the moment. Make each little moment a complete moment in itself. You don’t necessarily have to try and make everything one seamless run of smoothly flowing… stuff. I’ve found it’s often better to isolate little moments that are important, then cut and go to the next. Like watching a movie. The captain has an apology to make? Good— bring us directly to the apology, then cut and bring us to whatever most important point comes next. Them boarding the ship, for example. Them setting sail. We don’t necessarily care about them loading the ship, or hauling up the anchor, or any of that unless it’s important. You can connect these different moments in a scene with brief explanatory or descriptive notes, but they should be like links in a necklace, to hold the beads together and serve no greater purpose themselves. They are links— not beads.
A scene is a linked, coherent body composed of little moments, not a long list of flowing material with unnecessary bits in it. Make sense?Another helpful tip for pulling this whole technique off, I’ve found, is to really take the rule ‘show, don’t tell,’ at it’s most literal. Give us their emotions in their body language. Try to make your voice (as the author) as minimal as possible and let the reader concentrate fully on what’s happening between the characters. Let them figure things out for themselves. They’re smart. They can get it without your commentary. And when the commentary is absent, it is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo much easier to dive right into the story and experience it with all your might.
Your second example is much better— but let me take it and show you how it might be even more visual still. This is how you have it:
“The goods were loaded. Drake felt a tap on his shoulder and wheeled around. The captain was looking at him like a man who has an apology to make.”
This is how I would write it: The goods were loaded, Drake standing by and watching silently [assuming that’s what he’s doing, of course— hahaha]. He was just considering (insert here whatever it was this personality would be consider at this time) when he felt a tap on his shoulder and wheeled around. There stood the captain, looking at him with a slightly wry face like a man who has an apology to make’.
Another extremely simple but very important point— see it. See what it is you want your reader to see, and do your best to set that image down faithfully as you can. Watch your story in cinema format, analyze it to find where the important points lie and how those important points were made to stick out (a twitch of an eye, a little smile, a nervous picking of fingernails on the splintery railing, whatever) and set it down as you see it.
Who knows if that makes one iota of sense, but hey, it was fun! 😛
@kate-florunoy
Aye aye Captain, that’s right smart there.I do visualize my scenes, but unfortunately, I often fail to express that visual like I should. Thankfully though, like I said, I’m starting to pull out of that and it seems to be making my writing much better. It’s nice that I’m realizing this before any publication. Hopefully, when I go back to edit my stories my sharpened senses will be able to pick out my previous mistakes. Thank God for revisions.
I think you hit the nail pretty well here,
He’s living in the moment— and I guess that’s the key, really. Live in the moment.
Hey, anybody else have any examples of scenes they rewrote and made way more visual?
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Why do I keep misspelling your name? @kate-flournoy. There. Much better.
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Haha… it’s okay. You are by NO MEANS the first person to do so. It’s a Huguenot name, you might be interested to know… French. 😉
And any scenes I might have of that sort would all be from my very earliest literary endeavors and there is no way on this earth I am posting one of those, but I’ll post a little moment from my WIP you can analyze, and see how I followed my own advice.
If I even did. Which I probably didn’t. But I guess we’ll see. 😛 Here it is.
Harold gave a wretched little laugh and shook his head. “Don’t worry,” he said bitterly. “I’ll not spoil my usefulness for the field.”
“Stop it this instant,” Dunstan said sharply, his eyes flashing sparks of blue fire. Harold stared at him in astonishment. “I beg your pardon?” he stammered.
“I said stop it this instant,” Dunstan repeated. “Stop speaking about yourself as though you were a lump of… something; valueless save in that you might be used to some purpose, for the completion of some… some painful end. Stop it. I will not tolerate it any longer.”
Harold was shocked nearly speechless. “I… I…” he managed, confusion, resentment, and astonishment chasing themselves over his face in jumbled waves. “Is that not what I am to you?” he exclaimed at last.
“No! No it is not! You are my brother, Harold, and no matter what you do you cannot change that.”
The shock faded from Harold’s eyes, and resentment took the upper hand. “No matter what I do?” he repeated softly. “So you wish it were not so. You hate it as much as I do.”
Dunstan shook his head in disbelief. “You are impossible, Harold,” he said. He returned to his maps and began making lines on one of them with a charred splinter that left soft, sooty smudges on the parchment. “If you can think of nothing else to do but lecture me, I wish you would go away and rest as the surgeon ordered. I have work to do.”
@Daeus. I’m going to end up misspelling your tag one of these days if I’m not careful. 😛@kate-flournoy
Hey, the Huguenots took a lot of battering and held strong. I guess their names can too. And French? Really? I thought the Huguenots were Swahili.… Ok, not really.
Man, stop making me envious. Yeah, you kept to the rule really well. Actually though, when writing a conversation, I tend to do fairly well at keeping things moment by moment. Outside of conversation I find it much harder, but of course it is still just as important. I took a look at my Edwin Brook story, and sure enough, I have this problem there, but it actually isn’t too bad. The main place I struggle with it is Treacher Against The House Of Fairwin. Be glad you don’t get my first draft.
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Riiiiight @Daeus. Swahili. You had me fooled for a minute there…
… okay, no, you didn’t. I knew you would know exactly what a Huguenot was. 😉
And yeah, dialogue is a lot easier now that you mention it. I mean, it’s kinda hard NOT to live in the moment when you’re doing a dialogue scene. 😛 *tries to imagine a dialogue scene otherwise* Ugh. That would be wretched.
This technique can apply to the overall structure of the book, too— some books are a continuous flow, with ‘life as normal’ in between the important bits, and that can certainly be well done. But I tend to lean more towards the choppier style— important scenes, with only the character’s memories of the unimportant scenes. Like instead of showing a whole long uneventful journey, showing the character start on the journey, then picking up at the end of the journey and letting you listen in on his thoughts of that journey as he unsaddles his horse or something. Get it?
Absolutely. I call that leaving out the boring parts. I have a theory that 99% of people’s lives would sound pretty novel like if they were written down without the boring parts. Makes sense at least.
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Dialog is probably my easiest part to make sound interesting. But I’m trying to stop using it as a crutch.
I agree with what @kate-flournoy said about saying what you want your reader to see. Just ascribe the most vital and interesting parts of the movie in your head. Also interesting comparisons and descriptions, original ones especially, really grab readers’ attention. There was one in a book I was reading the other night that really made me sit up a little straighter.
The author described mist being blown away from something like a curtain being swept out of the way in a really vivid way.
So, finding new similes is always good. Everyone’s heard “black as midnight” or “blood red”. Putting it in context is a lot better. I had my cowgirl say the night was “As black as the coat of uncle’s horse”, for instance. 😛@kate-flournoy: Wow, that’s so cool your last name is a Huguenot one! I recently learned about the Huguenots in my French class. They were tough bunch of people. 😀
One single word can change a lot. I just caught myself again. Welcome back to Drake.
This is what I had at first:
Drake made himself laugh. “You have my word.” They both knew that meant nothing, but the captain nodded and ordered his men to row away. Drake noted the ship they were headed to. It was only some two or three hundred feet from the shore.
This is what I have now:
Drake made himself laugh. “You have my word.” They both knew that meant nothing, but the captain nodded and ordered his men to row away. Drake noted the ship they headed to. It was only some two or three hundred feet from the shore.
All I did was take out the word “were” and I think it had a noticeable impact on the “present feelingness” of the scene.
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You are absolutely one hundred percent correct, @Daeus. Good thinking. 🙂
I had a new thought on this last night— sometimes it can still actually be good to step OUT of the moment to establish something dramatic. Now let me explain… let’s say we spend a lot of time building up in preparation for a dramatic climax for the scene. We could take the character ‘in the moment’ through that climax, but then it becomes somewhat anticlimactic. Eh… that didn’t come out too well.
Here, lemme use an example. The Count of Monte Cristo. One of the most terrifying moments in the story, if not the most terrifying, was taken ‘out of the moment’. The scene we have is Edmond Dantes tied in a dead man’s shroud and flung out into the emptiness of space when he thought he was going to be buried. We’ve accompanied him inside the sack for a while— hearing his thoughts, experiencing what he experienced, in short, being ‘in the moment’ with him.
But the moment he’s flung out into emptiness that contact cuts, and the climax was hammered home with only nine words: The sea is the cemetery of the Chateau d’If.
And that’s where we panic.Make sense?
Yeah, that makes sense. So the author voice isn’t all evil after all.
The example you gave gave me an idea. I think the proper use of the author voice is for statements of truth as opposed to statements of what happened. Things like, “The brave die young” or “a fall of 1000 feet had a high chance of fatality” or “few men really know what the term ‘ocean’ means“. Think that’s about right?
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Hey… yeah, you’re right. That’s it— the author shouldn’t narrate. The author should simply make unconnected statements that embellish an already presented concept or event. Perfect. I love rules like that… they’re so simple. 😛
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