Movies' influence on Story/Book writing

**krishna_lit** · 10-23-2012, 03:53 AM

We all love books and the stories they say, and it's a known fact that our favourite books influence us to write such ones. Now, we all watch movies too. And we do have our own favourites in them as well. So, do u think movies would influence young writers, especially aspirant writers of this/our generation?

It did for me, mainly in writing the Dialogue for a situation. Movies like '12 Angry Men' or 'The Social Network' where a big conflicting discussion goes on about a situation at hand. They influenced me in lot of ways.

Are there any of our friends out there who would agree on it???

**JasmineJNR** · 10-28-2012, 04:57 PM

I agree.

I think movies influence us/modern writers hugely. Don't have any data but I reckon most writers would try a screenplay before a novel these days.

**hillwalker** · 10-28-2012, 05:02 PM

It's not perhaps individual movies that inspire what we write but the art of cinematography that influences how we write. A lot of powerful writing nowadays involves picturing scenes and dialogue as if recorded through the lens of a camera and a microphone. Of course, certain novelists write with the idea of the 'movie of the book' already in their heads - not always the best of reads.

H

**Hawkman** · 11-01-2012, 11:24 AM

The relationship between literature and cinema is fairly complex and is still evolving. Most film theorists would agree that cinematic narratives evolved from the 19th Century novel, but in the last 50 years, advances in cinematic technique and technology, together with the growing sophistication of the audience through exposure to the above, have created a hybrid of Novel and Screenwriting which is mutually informing both genres.

If you are really interested in following up the relationship between the written narrative and film I can recommend some reading for you:

Film Theory An Introduction, by Robert Stam
An Introduction to Film Studies, Edited by Jill Nelmes
Oxford Guide to Film Studies, Hill and Church Gibson
The Visual culture Reader, Edited by Nicholas Mitzoeff
And How to Read a Film, by Monaco

That lot should keep you busy for a while

When you’ve read those You might want to look at Realism and Popular Cinema, by Julia Hallam with Margaret Marshment

Enjoy

Live and be well - H

**AuntShecky** · 11-01-2012, 04:17 PM

You must be a Marshall McLuhan fan, Krishna_Lit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media

The movie speeds up the mechanical (a sequence of frames) with the "sheer speeding up the mechanical, it carried us from the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configuration and structure. The message of the movie medium is that of transition from lineal connections to configurations."

Maybe you heard the old joke in which the aspiring --pick a haircolor-- gal was so dumb that she thought she could get into the movie biz by sleeping with the screenwriter. Despite the lip service paid to screenwriters at various award ceremonies, the script, alas, is not the most important aspect of filmmaking.

Of course, there must be some semblance of "story," but the primary focus is on "what's on the screen." The screenwriter can ply his role as a wordsmith by describing setting, but nobody other than the director reads it, and maybe not even he! Other than the plot, the only other aspect the screenwriter has a hand in is dialogue, which almost always is changed, by the director, the actors, etc. Off-screen narration, which may or may not have been provided by the screenwriter(s) is a no-no, as it undermines the visual focus.

Movies used to be called "motion pictures" for a reason. The emphasis then, as now, is on "action," and with the emergence of CGI, special effects have undermined the importance of a well-written screenplay, though we still h them-- The Descendents is a good recent example.

Unlike print media (such as the story and the novel), movies are less static, less linear. Of course, the obvious difference is that film is a visual medium, as opposed to prose, whose engine runs on words. Thus, the novelist is freer, perhaps, to use language in ways that the screenwriter can't. He can digress and expound at length on a character or a theme which would only slow the pace in a movie. Hence, the difficulty in turning some novels into film--for example, I can't imagine film versions of some of Saul Bellow's novels, such as Humboldt's Gift. An attempt was made with Tristam Shandy, but it didn't quite capture the book. Same with Joyce's Ulysses, with the inherent difficulty of making mythic-socio-historical multi-lingual wordplay cinematic. Not to mention stream-of-consciousness motifs; O'Neill's drama Strange Interlude is weird even on the stage for which it was written--perhaps more appropriate as a novel. Listen to
me, a lowly unknown, criticizing the Nobelist! (But it is weird!)

When Stanley Kubrick made the first version of Lolita (1961), the ads screamed "How could they ever make a movie of Lolita?" The implication was about the sexual content , not the logistics of translating Nabokov's sly, paranomastic vision outside the realm of words.

Hawkman's suggestions of books on the topic seem fruitful. I really like this reply by Hillwalker:

It's not perhaps individual movies that inspire what we write but the art of cinematography that influences how we write. A lot of powerful writing nowadays involves picturing scenes and dialogue as if recorded through the lens of a camera and a microphone. Of course, certain novelists write with the idea of the 'movie of the book' already in their heads - not always the best of reads.

Maybe the aspiring novelists have watched more movies than read novels. The hope --note I didn't say "delusion") that Hollywood would snatch up the novel ms and turn it into a blockbuster is what's behind the practice of putting all the verbs into the present tense, which might bring immediacy but also lays landmines of awkward structure for flashback scenes.

Putting flashbacks and flash-forward scenes into prose is a beneficial influence of the movies. The focus on the visual for descriptions is also a positive influence-- in line with my oft-repeated mantra "show, don't tell." That goes for showing aspects of character, cf the aforementioned The Descendents by Alexander Payne.

Other positive influences of film on prose: starting in media res (the practice is much more ancient than movie making.) Keeping an eye on pacing is desirable,too-- follow the classic three-act structure in textbook style scripts.

A good device that can be used in fiction is making sure that every separate scene you write has its own beginning, middle, and end. The best scenes ( in both film and fiction) start "late" and end "early." Watch the admittedly old but still great films written and directed by Preston Sturges, and you'll see what I mean.