A Writer Can Learn a lot from the Movies

Writing is a life long journey of learning.  Maybe it’s finding a different way of developing plot, characterization or writing realistic dialogue.  For me, discovering a new technique that improves my storytelling is an uplifting part of the creative process.

There are countless resources available for learning new writing techniques.  Bookstore shelves are jammed with how-to books, and conferences, while expensive, are good sources depending on the lecturer.  However, over the years, I have picked up the best tips from the fellow writers I have met.  Not only is it beneficial to have someone battling in the trenches give your manuscript an honest review, but chances are they have learned a technique or two along the way that can help elevate your work.  Practicing creators make the best teachers.

A few years ago, a fellow writer, Nancy Webb, showed me how to deconstruct the plots of movies as a way to improve my knowledge of story structure.  A reluctant convert, I soon found myself looking for plot points when watching a movie.  Because of Nancy’s advice, I have a better understanding of story structure that has helped my productivity developing and drafting a manuscript.

I discovered there are other things writers can learn from watching movies too, like story pacing and writing realistic dialogue.  Recently I watched a movie that helped me realize another facet in creating powerful stories—using the reader’s imagination.

A few years ago, an editor reviewing the first pages of a story of mine said I was my own worst enemy.  What he meant was that I was telling too much.  I wasn’t giving the reader room to use his imagination.   This concept has been a hard one for me to grasp.  But the more I look for it in the books I read and the movies I watch, I realize its importance.  This power of giving the reader space was driven home by a movie I recently watched, THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS.

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS is based on a young adult novel by John Boyne.  The story’s protagonist, nine year old Bruno, lives with his wealthy family in 1943 Berlin.  The father, a high ranking officer in the SS, moves his family to the countryside where he becomes the commandant of concentration camp.  Able to view his father’s camp in the distance from the upper window of their home, Bruno, though forbidden, sets off to see what the people are doing inside the barbed wire compound.     Unaware of the true nature of his father’s camp, Bruno befriends one of the child prisoners and in so doing sets off a chain of events that climaxes in an unexpected ending that left me speechless.

Unlike other films about the holocaust, there was virtually no violence portrayed in THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS.   Even so, by telling the story through the viewpoint of a child coupled with the director’s use of suggestive scenes made for a terrifying film.   By simply giving the viewer space to use his imagination, the power of the film was amplified.  You never saw the killing, but you felt the evil.

The same technique can be applied to fiction writing.  It follows along the common writer’s advice “show don’t tell.”  Maybe one could add, “give the reader’s imagination a little space too.”