Why Films Can Help You Write Your Novel
Are you the kind of writer who visualises their chapter as though it were a scene in a film? I know that I am. I find it helps to set and furnish a scene if I see it through the lens of a camera. I know where each character is, what they are doing and the expression that sits on their faces as a camera pans across the room they're in.
I'm currently working on a chapter: main character, Noel, sitting on a desk while the minor characters, to the rear, roll their eyes as he announces yet another preposterous idea to save the company. It's a drinks company and so I picture bottles of spirits on desks, healthy looking plants that are cared for by one of the employees who has an unhealthy nurturing streak. As a second character arrives late, in my mind's eye there's a camera that focuses on her as she stumbles into the office, exhausted and bedraggled, making excuses, but I'm also aware, at the edge of the frame, what everyone else is doing.
Seeing everything as though it were a film helps me to get my thoughts in order and to know what each character is up for the entirety of a scene. It even helps me decide what they're wearing, what their desk is like, how they walk across the office after a dreadful weekend, because all of these things would be seen in a shot.
I also think visually when I'm reading a book. I imagine each scene as though it were on a big (or small) screen. Some books are meant to be films. I'm not at all surprised that Shelby Van Pelt's brilliant novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, is going to be adapted into a film. It's rare that so many wonderful characters feature in one work. Sally Field will play Tova Sullivan, whilst Olivia Newman (director of Where the Crawdads Sing) will direct.
One of my favourite books this year was Community Board by Tara Conklin. I can't recommend this enough if you love funny books with unusual narrators. As I read it, I thought that it was crying out to be adapted into a film or TV series. No news about that yet, but I wouldn't be surprised.
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