: How to stop viewing your story as a film When thinking about scenes and story ideas, I can't help but picture something playing out as a movie. It's so much easier to picture someone moving

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I do the same thing, picturing how the scenes in my novel will progress as if it were through the lens of a camera. This means that when it comes to actually write the story, much of what goes onto the page is entirely different.

The thing that I always keep in my mind is that a movie director is very much like a writer: they are telling a story, they just have a different medium with which to tell it. Nothing ends up on their camera by accident, just as nothing ends up on the page by accident.

So when you're picturing the story developing in your mind as if it's on a screen, try to think what it is exactly that you're trying to portray on that screen. Then rather than describing the actions as you imagined them, write down how to get that same message across. It might be completely different to how you imagined it initially, but it will probably work better than simply describing what would be on a screen.

It's also important to remember that filming something is much easier to do "show, don't tell" than in writing, for the obvious reason that they are literally showing what is happening. However, writing has the advantage of not needing to give all of the exposition or motivation through dialogue.

So try to write to the strengths of the written format, whilst keeping in mind that you don't have the luxury of being able to describe everything in detail without boring your reader or overloading them with description. Just as every detail on a screen has a specific purpose, so does every word.

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Conveying your ideas through written words is like carrying on a dialogue with someone through old-fashioned letters, or through email. Notice that the classic big authors received and wrote a lot of letters. You can get quick feedback about the understandability and impact of your written words through individual correspondence with people and through online discussions, for example at StackExchange. All of this will give you practice and training. It will convince you in a visceral way that putting together your words in a thoughtful way makes a difference.

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A key feature of written fiction is that we're not limited to two senses (sight and sound) the way film is. We writers can give the reader access to three additional senses, plus the internal experience of the viewpoint characters.

So practice writing all five senses, and practice writing viewpoint characters' internal experience. Thoughts, feelings, interpretations, internal conflicts and debates, and so on.

Here are some great ways to practice:

Observe something, and write what you observe. Focus on the five senses. If a thing you're observing doesn't offer all five senses, that's okay. Later you can find something for those senses, and describe that.
Observe something that you feel some internal reaction to. It need not be a strong reaction, but try a variety of reactions. Write what you're observing, and your reactions.
After you've read something that you really enjoy, go back and make notes about how the writer gave you insight into the characters' experiences through their senses and internal reactions.
Bring all of that to your fiction. When you write, in addition to whatever you would normally write, also write what the viewpoint characters see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. Write their reactions and opinions of those things.

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