Novel Writing Mistakes That Films Get Away With (But You Can't!) Don't Make These Mistakes!

Devlin Blake Author

Transform your writing: Discover film secrets, avoid pitfalls, captivate readers, expert tips, elevate your novel.

Transcript:

So, you’ll notice I talk a lot about movies on this channel and dissect them to illustrate how you should write your books. And some of you have asked me, why not use books?

Well, because there’s too many books. Each year, close to a million new books are published.

In contrast, only around 1000 movies are released each year, so the odds are greater that we’ve seen the same movie rather than read the same book.

Especially since I only read indie now.

Still, there are significant differences between stories written for movies, and ones written for books. That’s what I’m going to go over in this video.

Hi novelteers, I’m Devlin Blake, Novel Writing & self publishing Expert, Coach, published author, and former ghostwriter of over 200 books. If you’re writing a book, check out my Novel Writer’s Club, link in the description.

So what is the difference between writing for books, and writing for a movie?

Well, the first thing is that movies take an expansive view, while a book needs a more intimate view.

In other words, a movie starts with zooming out and then zooms in, like the way a camera does a big pan of a city or a room before focusing on a character in the city/room.

However, a book actually starts inside someone’s head, then expands outward to see the city/room/landscape around them.

A move that starts with a fight or a car chase or a pan of a city or expansive landscape is interesting. A book that does it is boring.

Why?

Because without the visuals, we can’t connect to landscapes or settings. We connect to people.

Showing us what your character is thinking about their environment is much more effective. In fact, in a book, everything is filtered through the character’s thoughts and world view rather than the objective lens of a camera.

This brings us to our next point. Oftentimes things that are exciting in movies are boring in books and vice versa. I mentioned fights and car chases, but even things like horror stories where the killer blows up a city aren’t impressive. It’s just a stroke of a pen. We’re not seeing it happen, even with the best imagination, so we really don’t care. However, if a character we care about or someone that character cares about is in that building, all of a sudden, we care.

Emotions and actions need to be shown and expressed much more than in movies. We don’t have the benefit of watching an actor arch their brows or fiddle with their thanks, or having their eyes drawn to something. You have to tell us the character is doing that.

We also don’t have the benefit of music to influence our emotions about a scene. Any influencing that needs to be done, needs to be done through words and situations.

Of course, books allow for a greater freedom of expression and storylines as opposed to movies. Since we are seeing it through the eyes of a character, it’s easier to impart a sense of wonder, dread or hopefulness. It’s also easier to create an unreliable narrator, a shocking twist that no one saw coming or a villains’ point of view without revealing who the villain actually is.

You can also make use of more senses. Movies appeal to two senses, only sight and sound. However, books can actually appeal to all the senses, by invoking smells, touch, feelings and taste.

This is exactly why some stories, like the Narnia series, make such awful movies, and such wonderful books. You can also go deeper and harder than you can with a movie, because books are written for niches, while movies are made for masses.

For example, everyone would agree that in the movie Gone Girl, Amy was a horrible person.

But movie Amy was a girl scout compared to book Amy and the ending was so much more of a gut punch. The movie ending left you shocked, the book ending destroyed your hope.

I am Legend is another book that is more powerful in its book form specifically because it is a book. While this book has been turned into about five different movies, and has inspired many more, not one of the movies has the courage to use the book’s real ending.

So while the rules of storytelling, books vs movies are the same for the most part, they are also vastly different. Without the movie conventions of actors, visutals, and music, your book is forced to take a more intimate look at events, and filter them through the point of view of a character.

Far from being limiting, it enables you to have greater self expression through utilizing the senses, and making the characters thoughts the actual draw instead of the action alone.

If you’d like to know more about how to write a book, check out the novel writer’s club at the link below. It features weekly crits, community, self directed courses, a library of genres, tropes, and a whole lot more. It can help you start and finish your novel.

Also remember to like and subscribe to see more videos on writing and publishing your novel.

Until Next time, this is Devlin Blake, saying Write on.

Download your FREE guide now

Step-By-Step Plan Your Best Selling Novel in One Hour (or less) 

… so you’re Amazon 'hit-publish' ready

DOWNLOAD FOR FREE

Categories: : storycrafting, Writers Block, writers marketing