Wattpad brings you a guest post from Jake Vander Ark, author of The Accidental Siren and Lighthouse Nights:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I’ve been a film-geek since the day I was born. I watch movies, I read about movies, I revel in movie trivia and pride myself on my ability to deconstruct every aspect of a film. I liked movies so much that I even moved to Los Angeles to become a director.
I arrived in LA with the assumption that every working filmmaker shared my love, respect, and passion for cinema. Every famous producer goes to the cineplex to devour as many movies as possible, right? Every famous director spent his childhood learning his craft through endless Star Wars marathons, right?
The truth is, the majority of successful directors come from other fields without a previous obsession with film. This is upsetting to young cinephiles like myself who consider themselves connoisseurs of the art form. I didn’t think it should be possible for a filmmaker to make movies without watching every film ever made!
I’m going to use that anecdote to justify an embarrassing truth about myself; a truth that many Wattpadders might find deplorable: I rarely read books.
I can count on one hand the amount of fiction books I’ve read in the last three years. I have never read Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or the classics like “The Great Gatsby,” “Pride and Prejudice,” or “In Cold Blood.” When I tell somebody I’m a writer, their first question is always, “What books do you like?” I usually just stare at them, mutter something about Stephen King, and change the subject.
The fact is, we all come at writing in our own way. I used my rich background in film to teach myself structure, dialogue, and other essential storytelling techniques that translate to writing novels.
Whether you’re a film buff or a casual movie-goer (or even if you hate films altogether), everyone can gain writing insight from the cinema, do I decided to make a short list of movies and TV shows that influenced the way I write. Chances are, the following list will contain films you’ve seen, and films you’ve never heard before. I encourage you to search them out and watch them in new light!
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Doubt, and Glengarry Glen Ross
Want to spice up your dialogue? These three movies will give you a crash course in writing amazing banter for your books. I’ve seen these movies ten times each. I fall asleep with them on the TV and let the dialogue infiltrate my subconscious. I memorize large portions of the dialogue and then try to figure out what makes it work. As you watch these movies, try to figure out who holds the power in each scene. Who is strong? Who is weak? What do characters want? What do they say to get it? How does the screenwriter use dialogue to show us who they are, where they’re from, and what they want?
The Wire (TV)
Everything I know about structure, I learned from The Wire. Every season of this show is the TV equivalent of a novel with rich characters and brilliant story arcs. Watch how the writers plant seeds in the first season that blossom in the fifth. Watch how they lay a foundation of realism, so when the crazy stuff happens, we believe it. Watch how the order of scenes is used to enhance the drama. And then watch it again.
Breaking Bad (TV)
Native Americans were known to use every piece of the buffalo they killed. Nothing went to waste. They ate the meat, carved knives from the bones, and made blankets from the fur. Likewise, the writers of Breaking Bad know how to suck the drama out of every element of this simple show. They don’t waste a single character, location, or concept. Every facet of every problem is explored and exploited for dramatic effect. Do your characters have through-lines? Have you introduced an amazing location that you can bring back to your story? If you have an exciting concept, have you explored every detail, implication, and ramification?
Rosemary’s Baby
This horror classic taught me how to build and sustain tension, how to raise the stakes, and how to devise the worst possible scenario. When you watch Rosemary’s Baby, watch how the director uses horror conventions to terrify the audience. Since nothing scary really happens, why do we find ourselves screaming at the screen? Is there a way to implement these devices into your own writing?
The Incredibles, Wall-E, and Up
Watch Pixar movies to learn how to simplify your stories. Like Breaking Bad, nothing is introduced unless it will have a profound effect on the central problem. How does Up make us cry in the first ten minutes of the movie? How does Wall-E move us without any dialogue? Watch the action in The Incredibles. The epic super-hero scenes are meticulously planned out, yet they feel spontaneous! Is there something you can learn from these scenes to apply to your action stories?
Here are a few more quick lessons I learned from film and TV:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Inception
Exposition can be invisible, even in science fiction.
Jurassic Park
Use “dread” to keep your reader turning the pages.
Sunshine
Every single scene should raise the stakes of the story.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Six Feet Under (TV)
Harness sentiment and use it sparingly.
Game of Thrones
Make readers identify with the plight of your characters as quickly as possible.
The Dark Knight
Even superhero stories can have a believable plot and realistic characters.
There are also some examples of what not to do:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Royal Tennenbaums
Quirks alone do NOT make characters interesting.
Pirates of the Caribbean 3
Lack of story structure and ambiguous mythological rules makes a story impossible to follow.
Lost (TV, season 7) and Lady in the Water
Be careful when you bring a character back from the dead, it can ruin your stakes!
Before I end this, I need to make it clear that I do read! I read at least one piece of fiction every year, and I absorb a vast amount of information from that single experience. I have read at least five books on fiction writing, and five more on screenwriting. I also have a firm understanding of grammar and sentence structure; if you find that you need help in these areas, movies will not help you!
So remember, a good reader does not necessarily make a good writer, and a good writer does not necessarily read a lot of books! Find your own path into writing fiction. Draw from your own experiences to make your writing unique, and pinpoint your own special talent to help improve your work!
Check out Jake Vander Ark’s Kickstarter Project:
Immortality, Miracles, and The Prettiest Girl in the World. 4 Novels in 4 Months!