By Deborah Raney
If I’d known my first
novel, A Vow To Cherish, would be made into a movie, I would have written it differently—more
visually. Since learning more about screenwriting, I’ve discovered ways to
apply film techniques that make my novels more “cinematic.” (And hopefully more
likely to be turned into movies!)
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 wouldnever 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.
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Deborah Raney’s books
have won numerous awards, including the RITA, National Readers’ Choice Award,
HOLT Medallion, and the Carol Award, and have twice been Christy Award
finalists. She and her husband, Ken, recently traded small-town life in
Kansas—the setting of many of Deborah’s novels—for life in the (relatively) big
city of Wichita, where they enjoy gardening, antiquing, movies, and traveling
to visit four children and a growing brood of grandchildren who all live much
too far away. Visit Deborah on the web at DeborahRaney.com.
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