He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday—Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere—at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself—were flowers. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled

Don’t Let Movies Sabotage Your Writing

‹ Back to blog
‹ Back to blog

If you eat a diet filled with movies and television and only nibble a few books, your storytelling will suffer.

A lot of novelists claim they don’t need to read books. They argue that you can learn storytelling from manga, plays, video games, or movies. But that’s like thinking you’ll become a better basketball player by playing football. Sure, you’ll become a better athlete, but there are techniques you can only learn from your own sport.

When I read books by people who learned all of their storytelling from movies, I see three main problems:

  1. Single-speed pacing
  2. Few internals
  3. Getting stuck on visuals

Let’s talk about each of those mistakes, and then we’ll look at what writers should learn from movies.

1. Single-Speed Pacing

Movies have a very limited range when playing with time.

There’s an occasional slow-motion shot and an occasional montage or fast-motion sequence. But by and large, 99% of movies move at real-time speed or clock time.

Authors who learn primarily from movies tend to get stuck in a single speed. They don’t speed up. They don’t slow down.

That hurts their books because they don’t slow down for the most exciting parts of the story, and they don’t speed up through the boring parts.

One superpower of fiction is that it can very easily summarize a week, a month, a year, or even ten years. It can also linger on a detail for pages.

Even during a single dinner conversation, a novel can change pace ten times. It can summarize dialogue, fast-forward through ten minutes, slow way down to describe food in detail, and then return to clock time.

What Writers Should Do

Don’t construct your entire book around scenes.

Scenes are wonderful, but they’re single-speed, and they shouldn’t be your only storytelling technique.

Try speeding up and slowing down throughout your book. If you write a page of dialogue that isn’t particularly exciting, summarize it with a single sentence instead.

For example:

They talked about the weather, the war, and their ex-wives.

2. Not Enough Internals

Normally, you can’t hear what characters are thinking in movies.

There are exceptions, but in general movies avoid invisible thoughts and focus on dramatic action and events.

As a result, authors who watch a lot of films often forget to go into their characters’ minds.

One of the greatest advantages of going into a character’s brain is that it creates intimacy with the reader.

Internals help readers understand character motives.

They make characters more relatable.

And they allow readers to experience the story in a way that movies simply cannot replicate.

If you focus on internals in your book, you’re doing storytelling in a way that books do best.

3. Getting Stuck on Visuals

Movies are fantastic at visual spectacles.

Futuristic cities.

Car chases.

Fight scenes.

Writers influenced heavily by movies often hyper-focus on the visual sense, but they can never truly match a movie’s visual strengths.

A panoramic shot of a cityscape can communicate an enormous amount of information in just a few seconds. A book might need an entire page to accomplish the same thing.

Here’s another example.

A movie can communicate emotion through an actor’s facial expression. An actor wrinkles their face in a particular way, and the audience instantly understands what they’re feeling.

In fiction, however, it’s usually more effective to describe a character’s movement, feelings, or thoughts.

The Senses Books Do Best

Instead of focusing exclusively on visuals, remember that books can excel at:

  1. Smell
  2. Taste
  3. Touch

Try this writing challenge:

Spend an entire paragraph describing a smell in great detail. It could be unpleasant or wonderful, but describe it thoroughly.

What Writers Should Learn From Movies

Movies should be one important tool—not the only tool.

Here are three things novelists can learn from them.

1. Camera Movement

Pay attention to the way a camera moves because it can teach you how to describe a scene.

At the beginning of The Dark Knight, we start with an establishing shot of the city. The camera then moves closer to a criminal breaking a window and firing a grappling hook. Then it moves even closer to focus on a specific detail: a mask.

You can use a similar strategy in fiction.

Or you can reverse it.

Start inside your character’s mind. Then describe what’s in their hand. Then the room. Then the larger environment around them.

Fiction can go closer than movies by entering a character’s thoughts, and it can go farther by exploring abstract ideas and philosophies.

2. Scene Cuts

A scene cut is any break from one scene into another.

The magic happens where the two scenes meet.

Every time a movie or television show ends a scene and begins a new one, pay attention.

Writers have scene breaks too:

  • Chapter endings
  • Chapter beginnings
  • Section breaks
  • Hashtag or pound-sign breaks

Each one is an opportunity.

A scene cut can create contrast, humor, suspense, comparison, or surprise.

The transition itself becomes part of the storytelling.

3. Dialogue

If there is one writing technique that films are exceptional at, it’s dialogue.

Think about how many lines from movies and television you can quote from memory.

Now think about how many lines from books you quote in everyday conversation.

The number from movies is probably much higher.

Every time characters are speaking on screen, ask yourself:

How can I be inspired by this for my own book?

A Dialogue Exercise

Pick your favorite movie.

Find a scene that is mostly dialogue.

Then sit down with a piece of paper and write down every single line the characters say.

This exercise gives you a fantastic representation of what strong dialogue looks like on the page.

Final Thoughts

Movies can absolutely influence your writing.

The problem comes when movies become your primary teacher and books become an afterthought.

Books and films are different mediums. Each has unique strengths.

Movies can teach writers about camera movement, scene transitions, and dialogue.

Books can teach writers about pacing, interiority, and sensory experiences that extend beyond the visual.

If you want to write great books, study books first—and then use movies as a complementary tool rather than a substitute.

Follow me on Social Media:

Related posts:

4 Ways to Write Summary in your Fiction (and avoid Scenes) One Episode of Breaking Bad Will Change Your Writing Forever

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Every writer NEEDS this book.

It’s a guide to writing the pivotal moments of your novel.

Whether writing your book or revising it, this will be the most helpful book you’ll ever buy.

Learn More

Learn how to:

  • Nail chapter endings
  • Surprise your reader with plot twists
  • Describe a character for the first time
  • Write a killer ending
Learn More