I read something someone posted a week or so ago and I wanted to hear more discussion on it. It was about how a lot of times we try to imitate movie style scenes and descriptions in our stories.
For example, I was attempting to write this story in a video game and had this whole scene that was slightly like a fight from the Matrix movies. After hearing a few comments I suddenly realize it sucks.
Is it possible to have stuff like that in your story? I mean, the stuff is cool in movies but does it ever work in books? And if it does, how would you describe it?
Posted by AstroStewart (Member # 2597) on :
Personally I think that anything that can be done in a movie can be done in a book as well. The thing is, you just can't describe it the same WAY as you visualize a movie. You won't ever be able to adaquetely describe a scene so it looks like, say, a Matrix scene in a movie. What you can do instead, is describe the MC's reactions and thoughts throughout a fight like you could never get from a movie.
Using the Matrix example, what does it feel like for Neo to start moving super fast? What is he thinking about, what is he feeling when the whole world seems to slow down so much that he can dodge bullets? What does it feel like to be able to punch through a concrete block without so much as hurting your hand?
But no, trying to give a punch-by-punch description like a fight scene choreographer doesn't work, nor does it work well to simply describe a fight like you're watching a movie and telling someone who can't see the screen what's happening. Play to the strengths of reading a book instead of watching a movie and I think any scene can turn out well.
Just my 2cents.
Posted by Susannaj4 (Member # 3189) on :
I would say, to begin with, that I agree with AstroStewart. To write it though, close your eyes and see it, first from the MC's POV and then take a look at it from the angle of a spectator. Meld the two together and remember your senses(Sight,smell,touch,hearing,taste). We can't see it on a screen, you have to paint the picture.
Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
And I'll add: descriptions of a fight scene are in and of themselves boring; but if I feel the MC's emotions, and understand why he's feeling them, I am gripped.
Posted by J (Member # 2197) on :
I've been trying to pay attention to the way good authors write action scenes. I've noticed a few things: Action in books tends to be short--especially if its something that involves a lot of complex movement like a fight Most authors don't try to describe very much of the action Most of the description falls into a pattern: the MC tried to do X, and Y happened. The description tends to be general, the pattern is repeated half a dozen times, and the fight is over.
I noticed this reading the Two Towers last night, when Sam and Gollum fight. The basic format of the description of the fight is:
Gollum grabs Sam; Sam twists Sam draws his sword; Gollom twists his wrist Sam falls; Gollum falls under him Sam headbutts Gollum; Gollum lets go Sam swings his stick; the stick breaks on Gollum's back Sam retrieves his sword; Gollum runs away
Seems like the KISS formula for politics applies well to describing action.
Posted by Shendülféa (Member # 2964) on :
I'm just going to say that I agree with everything that has been said so far and add that books and movies are two different types of media and therefore need to be treated as such.
It's similar to working in two different media in art. Let's say you have an image in your head of something you want to create and you want to make it in two different media. For instance, you want to make it a painting and also sculpture. When you are making this thing as a sculpture, you have to keep in mind that gravity is a major factor in how you will go about constructing this thing. You also have to keep in mind that you will be viewing this thing from all sides so you have to work in the round, not just one side at a time to get it to look the way you want it to. Once you are finished with that, then you go on to paint it. Now you don't need to worry about gravity or working in the round anymore. Now you need to worry instead about composition--where is it on the canvas?--and creating the illusion that there is something three dimensional on your canvas.
The same applies for movies and books. Since they are different, different rules apply. People like to see things happening in a movie--action, fight scenes, etc. They often like to see neat special effects and spectacular settings. Therefore, the director and crew take the time to make sure these things look visually stunning. In a book, on the other hand, people like to get into the MC's head and find out what he/she is thinking during the fight or how he/she feels about the conflict that has suddenly sprung up. Hence, the author makes sure to give his/her readers descriptions of what is going on inside the MC's head. The story might be exactly the same, but the focus is different.
When writing, save the movie-like scenes for the movies and instead focus on the way the character reacts to different situations and settings.
My two cents for the day.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
You could always write it out a scene as a script or play or whatever, then "novel" it up so it plays in the more traditional way. I've run across a couple of novels here and there that come across as stage plays rewritten as novels (Fritz Leiber's "The Big Time" comes to mind here.)
Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :
I noticed back in the early 90's that there was a big change in fiction writing. A lot of mainstream writers seem to be writing in a style paced (broken into ?) movie bits and scenes. Shorter chapters. Long chapters have more hard scenebreaks where before there would be no scenebreak just text running on from one scene to the next. Text is less dense, which one change I do like.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I saw something by an editor a while ago (I think it was by George Scithers of "Weird Tales," but I may be wrong), where the editor complained about the stories he read that read like movie / television scripts. I'm a little sympathetic, 'cause I've found you can get so much more out of a novel than a movie or a TV show.
But only a little. Movies and television are both major art forms. (Yeah, I know a lot of 'em are garbage. So's a lot of what makes it to print.) I see no reason why, say, a novelist shouldn't be influenced by how things play out in movies or television.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I'll have to weigh in and say that text and video are fundamentally different media. If you think about the differences between an interactive (but still fairly linear) narrative like Half-Life and a movie, it's still nothing like the difference between a novel and a movie. It's more like the difference between a panoramic oil painting and a photograph rather than the difference between a painting and a song.
Now, paintings and songs both tend to be more depictive than narrative (in our own tradition, at least), so they share some important similarities, and you can learn a lot about how to write a good love song by studying portraiture. But you can't just copy one into the other, and if you try you'll end up with a terrible depiction.
Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :
The adept wordsmith can impart a brilliant scene into the mind of the reader. There is no question about that.
But going for the feel of a movie in a book is the wrong way to do it. An action scene in a movie is thrilling because of many things happening all at once.
In a book, an attempt to render everything from a 3 minute movie-action scene into words would result in forty pages of simultaneous information and be very boring to read.
For a fast paced action scene in a book, we trim the focus down to leave out the surrounding scenery. Do not use time references to impart a quicker sense of action. Just keep moving forward, focusing on the heart of the action.
But if, as a writer, you are thinking in format of a screen, perhaps your true title is screenwriter.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
OSC has often pointed out that writers who try to imitate movies when they write stories tend to sacrifice the greatest strength of written fiction that movies can't do: put the audience inside the characters' heads.
We go to movies to watch the characters experience the story.
We read books to experience the story with the characters.
Those are two very different ways to experience a story, and they have very different strengths.
Don't sacrifice the strength of written fiction unless you have a very good reason for doing so.
Posted by CoriSCapnSkip (Member # 3228) on :
There is some stupid stuff they get away with on TV, even movies, which should NEVER be used in books, such as someone taking off in a car and the keys are always in it (just a timesaving device for TV)!
That being said, perhaps my hardest translation is, when I am watching a particular actor who inspires me, maybe even for a book character, what really gets me are their looks--both their physical looks and the expressions they use--now HOW IN HELL would you convey such things in a book? The main character probably doesn't know/think what he looks like, unless he is VERY vain, and anyone else saying much about it would probably seem unforgivably rude, sooo--barring "author interference," much, if not almost all, is lost in translation from the main character's POV. Only way I can see it working is if it's written from the POV of an observer who thinks, but doesn't say, how another character looks. Make sense?
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Kathleen makes a strong point, one I lacked the wit to point out myself yesterday, but should have. Perhaps this is why the movies seek out the novels to turn into movies...people who've read them have *already* been in the character's heads...
Posted by ethersong (Member # 3216) on :
I suppose it all comes down to the differences between the arts. You can have a song, a painting, a movie, and a book all trying to display the same thing, but they all portray a different part of it. A painter can't try to show exactly what a song is portraying without losing the emotion that is involved in the song. The arts overlap, but their purposes differ.
Posted by rustafarianblackpolarbear (Member # 2638) on :
The best prose I ever wrote was in the fortnight I went without seeing a single tv show, commercial or movie. I should probably do that again.
Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :
MC appearance in a book rarely matters. The MC thinks of themselves someway and people react to how he appears. But, we almost never need the gritty details. What matters is the impact of the appearance, not the appearance itself.
TV/Movies are visual. The appearance matters.
In TV, a carefree rogue might have mussed hair.
In a book we express that by having them brush it with their fingers then wipe the oil on their jeans. But we never say that he has mussed hair.
Posted by Ted Galacci (Member # 3254) on :
I think a lot of we see in movies like "The Matrix" and other action movies nowadays is cinema catching up to what could only be described in print in the past and now can be shown with computer assistance...
There's nothing wrong with being cinematic in your writing, just don't take 5 pages to describe 3 seconds of a fight scene.
