Writing Cinematically

I think the best way to learn is to read. Pick authors who write cinematically (John Grisham, for example), and see how they do it.

Reading screenplays would teach you how to write more cinematically, too (what's more cinematic than screenplays?).

The best example this that I have ever found is Vampire$ If you can find a copy read it and study every word.

The answer is quite simple

I'm not entirely sure that your goal is an admirable one--I think the virtue of novels is that they can go deep as well as wide.

That said, however, the easiest way to learn cinematic style is to write a screenplay (and never use voiceover!). This immediately forces you to understand what can and cannot be shown without traveling to a character's interior. It also teaches how to make quick transitions, and how much can be left unsaid.

Note that you don't have to write a good screenplay for this exercise to be of value. I'd suggest enrolling in a screenplay workshop where you can get some feedback, but if that isn't feasible, there are any number of books.

Two of the Bibles of the industry, McKee's "Story" and Howard's "How to Write a Great Screenplay" will be recommended, but both of these are about structure, not screenplay technique. (I'd also avoid Syd Field.)

Two that deal with actual craft are Tom Lazarus' "Secrets of Film Writing" (the title is a joking allusion to an F. Scott Fitzgerald story), and Alex Epstein's "Crafty Screenwriting," but there are a ton of others.

Also, read screenplays to see how it is done. About a zillion can be downloaded for free at Drew's Script-O-Rama http://www.script-o-rama.com/snazzy/dircut.html and other sites.

If nothing else, the exercise may remind you how rewarding it is to write novels. Have fun!

What is writing cinematically and why would you want to do that in a novel?

maestrowork said:

Reading screenplays would teach you how to write more cinematically, too (what's more cinematic than screenplays?).

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Hey, Maestrowork, I think you are one of the wisest posters on the board and I agree with almost everything you say... BUT I think the above comment is not correct.

I write screenplays for a living... I also recently wrote three chapters of a novel and got a sizeable advance for the completed work because it was so "cinematic". The comments I got: "I could see it! It was like I was there with them! I feel like I know the characters!" Nice stuff like that. BUT, other than the dialogue (my specialty) my novel isn't the least bit cinematically written.

In a screenplay I would describe, say, JACK like this in a descriptive paragraph: The convenience store clerk, JACK (a low-ambition white guy, mid-30's) comes around the corner.

But in a novel (and this is an overwritten example but apt). The counter clerk slouched toward the register, not making eye contact with Emory or anybody in line. He kept his attention focused on the cash register, his thin fingers tapping on the change drawer like he was fingering a keyboard, playing some imagined instrument in a long disbanded grunge band as if in the remembrance he could catapult himself out of the Circle K on Jefferson Highway and back into his dreams of stardom. He was wearing an oversized black and red Rangers Jersey, frayed at the hem, and a leather bracelet that had turned black with age and perspiration. He had a wispy beard and bovine brown eyes devoid of and real intelligence. Emory thought he had to be in his 30's though he seemed permanently fixed, or fixated, at nineteen.

The latter is "cinematic" but not because it's written cinematically, but because novelistic descriptive writing is inherently "cinematic" -- we can see it.

The internal monologue can trap us into thinking abstractly; in genre fiction, my field, the reader wants concrete examples of what the world and its habitants are like.

My advice? DON'T READ SCREENPLAYS except for the dialogue. Read authors in your genre and pay close attention to how they describe things.

My two cents.

Good point. Many novels are cinematic, but if we wrote screenplays the same way we wrote novels, nobody could get through them. And if we wrote novels the way we wrote screenplays, it would lack characterization, and other things that are established by the actors, the set, etc.

I agree, but I wasn't talking about "prose." Screenplays won't teach you how to write prose or description. However, screenplay would teach you how to show, not tell, which is the essence of writing "cinematically." How to write effective dialogue instead of depending on internal monologues. How to show through action without relying on thoughts (voice-over). Also, the idea of "cinematic" writing is to put the readers inside the scenes and let them experience the story, instead of merely reading it.

There are things missing in screenplays. Sure, especially in spec scripts, which are usually rather bare-bone: descriptions, observation, POV, etc. Screenplays and novels also have different structures. I wouldn't suggest anyone to learn how to write novels by studying screenplays.

The reason why I suggested reading screenplay is that the OP said that she relied too much on internal thoughts and not external whatever. Screenplays would force her to see things in terms of externals -- may teach her how to externalize.

That said, one of the best scripts I read was The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was adapted from a novel. That script is very cinematic, yet also very literary.

I was talking about prose...

John Steakly I believe is the author's name. It looks like they've reprinted the book. Do a search for "Vampires with a dollar sign".

Off to buy copies for her writer friends.

Hmmm..

I was told I wrote too cinematically, as in not enough development. The publisher said my manuscript was "basically a movie".

It seems as though the correct answer is elusive on how to write, eh?

Not sure Solange and Maestro are disagreeing

maestrowork said:

The reason why I suggested reading screenplay is that the OP said that she relied too much on internal thoughts and not external whatever. Screenplays would force her to see things in terms of externals -- may teach her how to externalize.

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I'm in agreement. Screenplays do indeed show you how to produce a story while staying out of character's heads. If Solange is a screenwriter, then this is probably second nature--but it is something most novelists have to learn if the want to do it.

The difference, of course, is that in a movie so much of the material is carried by the camera, and what Solange is saying is that the novelist must do the camera's work.

I'm not so sure that writing cinematically is a virtue, though it is indeed popular. When I think about novels that I consider to have lasting value, none that I would consider inherently cinematic come to mind.

One of my friends says that the best way to learn to write cinematically is to read graphic novels...