: 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

@Gail2416123

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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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