Writers Life | Using Cinematic Techniques as You Write

Most writers have a collection of books on the writing craft.

A few are treasures, filled with gems of writerly wisdom that had a profound impact on how we write or market our books. Some are valuable tools with lists and instructions that make our writing task easier. Others are somewhat helpful, containing the occasional nugget worth remembering.

Can you name one book that fundamentally changed your approach to writing?

I can. I found it on the book table at the first multi-day writer’s conference I attended in 2016. The title caught my eye because an author friend had told me how much he’d learned about effective plotting from watching the director’s commentaries on how they made a movie.

That book is C.S. Lakin’s Shoot Your Novel: Cinematic Techniques to Supercharge your Writing. It gave me a better understanding of how to write a story with a balance between showing and telling that hooks a reader in and keeps them reading way past a healthy bedtime.

In a film, there are two main ways to tell a story: visual imagery and dialogue. When we write, we want our readers to feel like they’re right there with our characters, seeing what they see, hearing what they hear, sharing their emotions. Like a film director, we have to decide which scenes to include and which to cut. For each scene, we need to choose the most effective balance between portraying the surroundings and the action and providing dialogue that lets us into the minds of the characters.

Just like a movie, our words form a series of scenes that move the reader from introduction through climax to resolution. Like a director, we want to take our audience on an exciting ride with an emotionally satisfying ending. Lakin’s book is full of explanations and examples of how to do that, but I’d like to share some of what I’ve found most helpful here.

Movies are multi-POV experiences, so cinematic techniques work well for multi-POV novels, but many can be applied to single-POV as well. I write 3rd-person-limited Roman-era historical adventures with a spiritual arc and a romance woven through. Because these are multi-POV stories, many of the techniques that help make a movie great also help me create stories that reviewers blame for their sleep deprivation. And isn’t that every writer’s goal?

The following five questions help me think like a director as I’m writing and editing a story.

I hope they’ll help you, too.

1. Does every scene have a purpose I can describe?

   If not, then cut it. There are several questions that help me winnow what I write, keeping the good grain and discarding the chaff.
   Does each scene include at least one moment that advances the plot, reveals character, and stirs emotion? What is the moment when that occurs? Will that moment have ripple effects as the story moves forward? What is the impact of the scene on one or more characters?

2. How much do I want the reader to see in this scene?

   Should it start with a wide-angle shot that lets the reader visualize where the characters are and what is going on around them? Did I linger too long on wide-angle before focusing on what the character is focused on? When should I zoom in for that close shot, and should I zoom out and back in for context and greater impact?

3. How much detail do I need for the reader to visualize the setting?

   What is enough but not too much? Readers are smart and love to use their own imagination, not be told everything. But if there’s not enough to create a vision of the surroundings, then the reader won’t feel like they’re right there, experiencing both action and emotion along with the character.
   Am I letting the reader see some details clearly while leaving others out of focus for them to fill in however they want to?

4. Which character should provide the POV for the scene?

   Through whose eyes is the camera viewing the scene? Which camera angle is taking the shot? For multi-POV stories, should that camera switch between characters within a scene for maximum emotional impact? If it’s a scene with a lot of action, this question is especially important. You want the POV that will excite the greatest emotional response. But for Christian fiction, if the scene involves violence, it might be better viewed through the eyes of the observer than through those of the person experiencing the violence.
   For 3rd person limited, there will be a mix of what the character is seeing, hearing, and saying with internal thoughts not shared with anyone in the scene. The internal thoughts are the written equivalent of an inner monologue with the character talking like a narrator over the video images. Am I using this effectively, not too much or too little?

5. Are the details and dialogue working together to create emotional impact?

   Each scene should feel realistic but with edited realism. Every thought, spoken word, and action should be meaningful. It won’t always be obvious why something is important within its own scene, but looking back at the end, it should be clear why each was included.

I try to write the first draft with these questions in mind. I ask them again as I’m editing. By the time I get to the final draft that’s ready to share with the world, I hope everything that weakens the flow of the plot or the emotional impact of the story has been left on the cutting room floor.

Every time a reader tells me, “They should make this book into a movie,”  I know the film techniques I’ve used in writing that novel did their job well.

Can you share one book that you’d recommend for every author’s craft library? What was so helpful about it?