It wasn’t until
my first novel, A Vow to Cherish, was made into a movie, that I
understood why the “show, don’t tell” rule of writing is so very important. Had
I known then what I know now, I would have written my first novel very
differently—much more visually. Since getting the opportunity to read the
screenplay of “my” movie, and learning more about scriptwriting at some of the
conferences I’ve attended, I’ve discovered ways to apply film techniques and
thus make my novels more “cinematic”—and hopefully, more likely to someday be turned into
movies! Here are just a few of the techniques filmmakers employ to keep viewers
engaged. These methods can easily be adapted for the written page to create a
novel that will have your story playing like a movie in your readers’
minds!
1. Jump cuts and
fade outs. Don't feel like
you have to wrap every scene up in a nice bow. It's perfectly fine to jump into
a scene in the middle of action already in progress (without knowing what kind
of car your characters drove to get there). It's also fine—even preferred—to end
a scene in the middle of the action and simply JUMP to the next scene. You don't
always need a closed door or a good-bye to the phone call.
2.
Cliffhanger. A good way to
keep your readers turning pages is to end your scenes in the middle of action.
Force the reader to turn the page to find out what you left him
hanging not knowing. Just be sure you SHOW that cliffhanger instead of
telling about it. Don't say: Little did he know it would be their last night
together. Instead: The doorbell startled him. He pushed back the curtain
to see a police car parked in the snowy driveway, its emergency lights eerily
dimmed.
3.
Dissolve. In a similar
way, you can end one scene and transition to the next by taking a visual element
from the first scene and using it in the next. For example, in the story of Snow
White, you might zoom in on the deadly apple as the wicked stepmother poisons
it, then open the next scene with a close-up of the apple in Snow White's hand
as she brings it to her mouth. Dissolves work especially well in comedy where a
character says, “Oh, Harvey would never do that." And of course, the next
scene opens with Harvey doing exactly that.
4.
Zooms. If the movie
camera zooms in on an object, you can bet that object will play a significant
role in the story later. By taking your writer’s "camera" and describing a
close-up of an object or action, you give it the same importance as an object
zoomed in on in a movie.
5.
Lighting. Describing the
light in your scene—bright and sunny, hazy, moonlit, etc.—not only gives the
reader a visual image to picture, but also sets the mood, or creates a metaphor
for good/evil, happiness/depression, etc.
6. Establishing
shot. In film, an
establishing shot is a long or wide-angle shot opening a scene to show the
audience the locale/setting (or era, weather, time of day, etc.). In writing,
sometimes this type of opening is written in omniscient point of view, and the
author then zooms in on a more specific point in the setting—inside a house, for
instance. This is a great way to paint the big picture. Just remember: today’s
readers don't have the patience for more than a paragraph or two of
description.
7. Background
music. You can create a
wonderful mood for your scene by helping the reader hear the music that would be
the soundtrack if your novel were a movie. Have your character flip on the radio
or play a musical instrument. Have her always singing or humming or whistling.
Have music from a grocery store waft to the character's ears. The reader will
hear those songs in her mind and your story will be so much richer for
it.
DEBORAH RANEY's first novel, A Vow to
Cherish, inspired the World Wide Pictures film of the same title and
launched her writing career after twenty happy years as a stay-at-home mom. She
recently completed a five-book series, the The Chicory Inn Novels, for Abingdon
Press and is working on a new series for Gilead Publishers. Deb and her husband, Ken Raney, recently traded
small-town life in Kansas––the setting of many of Deb's novels––for life in the
(relatively) big city of Wichita. They love traveling to visit four children and
seven grandchildren who all live much too far away. Visit Deb on the Web at www.deborahraney.com.
