Using TV as a way to write better? Your thoughts?

[moderntimes]

In my writing, I try to imagine the characters as actual people in a real situation, and this helps my narrative. When I first started to write fiction, I tried to make my characters as marionettes and force them to do and say things. And the writing was predictably flat and lifeless.

Then I learned to do this: I set my characters into a scene, let them "go with it" and just "took dictation" of what they said and did. And boy, did it improve my fiction!

Thinking about this technique earlier today, I realized that in fact what I'm doing is casting my characters as actors on a stage or in a movie or TV show. In an attempt to obtain verisimilitude, I imagine real people doing and saying real things in accordance with the scene they're in, which is of course, in a way, as if they were actors, that little idea just coming into my mind today.

So after this reflection I realized that I was in fact "casting" a TV episode or movie as I wrote my mystery novels. Now putting aside bad TV shows and movies, let's instead use an ideal great cast, fine production values, top notch director, all the requisite goodies which make a first rate TV episode or movie.

Then, as we're writing out chapter, we think of it as if we were writing or directing a screenplay -- the narrative and the dialogue -- and maybe that's a good way to get our writing to have more vibrancy and energy, seem more realistic, with reasonable behavior of characters and therefore a solid outcome.

Good idea? What say you?

[WilsoRoy]

Yes i agree with you. It is a good idea.

[zeldas_lullaby]

Yeah! When I taught reading comprehension, we taught the students to picture the story in their mind, like a movie (although TV or theater would also work). Because people who have poor comprehension don't "get the picture." They need practice to turn on that part of their mind, which comes naturally to most people but isn't taught in school.

One thing I add to my writing is, "What would I be thinking right now if this were me?" That's never really portrayed in television, but it's a good writing guide.

I hearken back to days of yore, when sitcoms like Everybody Loves Raymond had two or three really long sequences in each episode. That same actress, Patricia Heaton, is currently on another sitcom, The Middle, in which each scene lasts exactly one minute long. Pathetic. No substance.

I like to create scenes like that, from ELR, that are really well fleshed out, and I'm glad I used to watch that show all the time.

Totally true story: back when I was in college, my campus counselor asked why I watched TV all the time. I told her I was practicing in my mind to become a great writer one day. She gave me a "look," and I knew she didn't believe me. Snort.

[moderntimes]

Those who might eschew TV might be more comfy with imagining this as theater, a stage play. When I was singing opera we had 2 tasks simultaneously -- to sing well and to act well. When you rehearse an opera, you actually run thru 2 parallel series of sessions, one on stage with the drama coach, the other in a studio area w. the voice coach and pianist.

On stage, you are given your stage directions: Antonio enters stage right (stage right is audience left) and moves centerstage to complain with the Count (Ah, Senior!) then the Count and Antonio both move stage left and upstage to argue (Ascotate!) until Figaro and Susanna move center (Deh Ventura) and so on... [I'm just pulling the little teaser lyrics from my memory and am probably wrong]

And our stage coach recommended that we either try to "become" the character and not "pretend" to be that character. Or, alternatively, imagine you're watching yourself on the stage from the audience and you've got to please yourself.

The whole objective to that form of acting is to detach yourself from the person you are and immerse yourself into that character's personality. Which is the root of the Stanislavsky "Method" acting.

And by that same token, as a writer, we must immerse our sensibility into the scene we're writing and have our characters do real things and say real things. Otherwise it's gonna be wooden and lifeless.

[Kenpy]

I had a creative writing teacher who may have had a similar approach. He wrote some short stories where the characters really did have a sense of living in the world; they fidgeted and bumped into things and such. There's definitely a point where that gets to be too much, but I thought it was a great way to add some "spice". Much better than wooden characters just standing around and spouting lines at each other. Anyway, I'm thinking he must have used a similar way of thinking, placing his characters in the setting and letting them do what they do.

That might also be interesting for finding ways to characterize, just letting scenes play out.

[moderntimes]

Writing a story of a chapter of a novel by imagining it as a TV show or movie or stage play is probably a good idea which I wanted to share.

In writing my novels, as I said, I placed my characters in a scene and "let them go" and recorded the outcome. This tool works so well for me that I thought others might try such.

Now understand, I personally am a little skeptical about writing gimmicks and lots of these seem to be used by writing classes as an exercise but the actual results are more related to getting a good grade in class than the actual selling or publication of the writing. A lot of these exercises I've seen listed in this forum and elsewhere are a bit self-indulgent and it often seems to me that the exercise is only meant to complete the exercise, a circular logic which gives the fledgling writer no real successful "product" at all.

In other words, I think that exercises which are meant to help the writer create a better story or whatever are fine. But if the exercise has no real "output" other than the exercise itself, it's a waste of time. Myself, I'd rather be writing than performing an exercise about writing.

I use the technique I describe in this thread as a helpful tool to let me create a much more realistic chapter. But I really don't stop writing and sit and contemplate the stage production or TV episode playing out. I just write and write and write. But in the back of my mind I visualize the event which I'm writing about. But the object of the mental imaging is to create a novel which I want to sell. Period. And thus far, it's worked.

[HalcyonFlower]

Interesting timing of when I saw this post. I just finished reviewing "Escape from Witchwood Hollow" for the site and liked it quite a bit, considering I'm not a fan of most young adult novels. The author's afterword mentioned that the manuscript began as a movie script, which became a forgotten project. In retrospect, the writing was concise, something that I haven't seen in awhile, and the plot moved along quickly. No usual brooding of the teenage protagonist.

That sealed my opinion of writing as if for a movie then develop and layer plot & characters. Doesn't necessarily mean perfection but a possibly better narrative.

[moderntimes]

I've written screenplays too, and there is an entirely different mindset needed. I agonized over my first screenplay because I had originally burdened it with too much info and filler, which greatly slowed the pacing. Screenplays have to engage the audience immediately, and also must keep the audience's attention constantly, with very little time for internal reflection. When I say "audience" of course I mean anyone who's going to be reading your script and deciding whether to option it, because that person "sees" the script on screen in the mind.

Modern screenplay formatting is precise. The font, margins, and layout are consistent and newbie screenplays must adhere to that exact page formatting. Reason is that if a script is formatted correctly, it "plays" at about 1 minute per page. Now if there's a larger amount of narrative on that specific page (narrative being the "commentary" which describes what's happening) this takes less time than actual dialogue, because the narrative (commentary) is never read on screen but only helps the director and such. Regardless, the average "play time" is 1 page per minute.

Anyway... an actual screenplay is very, very different in tone and texture from a book on the same story line, and this is true even if both are well written. There's a whole different styling and structure, which of couse means that the writer has to switch mental gears. It's quite tricky.

However, if the writer of the book imagines a screen story occurring as the writer, this is a bit different. So yes, imagining a "screenplay" form of the book would work fine, so long as the author doesn't try to recreate the actual screenwriting process, because the actual process of screenwriting is quite different from text writing.

[HalcyonFlower]

Right, I'm just saying that process worked for her as she ended up with a good novel.

[zeldas_lullaby]

That makes sense. Any way you can visualize something works! I personally have a weakness trying to visualize characters on stage or screen, and I'm better at seeing them in "real life." But I can see how having a mind for stage would help an author if they saw it that way in their mind.

[Amagine]

I do something similar. I imagine that I'm watching a movie. I pull out paper and a pencil and I write down everything that I see the characters do and say.

[Sushan Ekanayake]

I usually do not watch tv because I think it is a waste of time. Yes you can get ideas from tv but what I prefer is more and more reading and looking at day to day incidents in a different aspects

[clint_csperry-org]

I got rid of my television about eight years ago. I could not stand the formulaic style of writing I saw there. The sitcoms, the 'reality tv' none of it seem to fit what I see as real life. I spend much of my time volunteering and meeting with people. So, my thoughts are TV offers nothing for my writing, except as maybe a what to avoid type of thing. Movies are a little bit better, sometimes, I go to new releases often but mostly as an escape. I read as much as I can, across different genres and I spend a few hours a day writing my own stuff.

[Inkroverts]

I think watching TV shows is a nice way to look for references. But you have to careful though, TV shows and movies are also writings by scriptwriters. That means what the actors say don't always represent what real-life people say.