: Re: 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

@Kevin153

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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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