Lights, camera...fiction!

As the movie buffs among you know the Academy Awards are this weekend. As ever, the categories featuring celebrities and jokes and musical numbers will be featured in the television broadcast, while the “technical” categories—in other words, the actual movie-making part—will be rushed through or skipped altogether. 

Film is a storytelling art form just as fiction is, but it sure takes a village to accomplish! It's so different from the solitary work of the novelist. From cinematography to production design to musical scores, movies rely on a collaboration of elements that we novelists can only dream of—or can we?

Words can accomplish a lot, you know! I'd argue that we fiction writers have our own way of making use of these same elements, if we know how and take the time to do it. It's all part of giving our readers that vivid, "lived experience" feeling. And there's stuff we can do that movies can't, too.

Today, let's grab some popcorn and talk about what movies have learned from novelists, and what novelists can learn from movies. 

My weekly livestream about story structure, writing craft, and the mindset of the working writer happens on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific on YouTube. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays on YouTube, or here on the blog.

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