HOW FILMS DIFFER FROM WRITTEN STORIES

By Laura P. Valtorta

www.gattafilms.com

www.thearthousemovie.webs.com

laurapv.wordpress.com

www.diseasedetective.com

                                               

The leap from prose writing to screenwriting can be weird and difficult because the two media begin in a similar place but end up looking very different. Both films and short stories, for example, begin with words written on paper maybe in the form of a plot summary. But a film ends up as a string of visual images, while a story remains in the form of words on paper.

A filmmaker must think about the juxtaposition of scenes. While a short story could exist entirely in the head of a librarian sitting at her desk, observing her weird patrons, a ninety minute film likely would not take place entirely indoors or entirely from the perspective of the librarian.

Films need to jump between images, from outdoors to indoors, from present to past, loud to quiet, in a way that keeps the audience interested. The director must set the stage and the setting through images, often called “establishing shots.” Films need to tell the audience where they are in an instant and then keep moving.

Of course there are exceptions. My Dinner with Andre notoriously broke all the rules by filming two guys talking in a restaurant for the entire movie. Their conversation was so interesting and funny that it carried the story.

As a beginner, I can’t take that chance. While writing the screenplay version of Bermuda, it would be tempting to keep Mildred seated around a swimming pool, talking to her daughters the entire time. That would be fun. I might try it. But the dialogue would have to be firecracker-snappy. Never monotonous.

The better choice would be to use some flashbacks, Mildred bothering Little Willie, Mildred and her daughters at work, getting fired, selling guns on the street, and then Mildred landing in Bermuda, where she meets and has dinner with Hamilton, the little guy. Since it’s a comedy, we’ll end with a wedding. Hopefully the action and the change in setting will keep the audience interested.

Writing this tale down as a short story, I might do it differently beginning with Mildred living in Bermuda successfully, or traveling to India for a grand tour with friends. The story might work backwards. The suspense would be more cerebral and ask – how did Mildred get here? Rather than the more nail-biting – what’s going to happen to her? How will she survive?

This is why it helps to plan a narrative film out with moveable index cards, white for outdoors and blue for indoors. Making the scenes interchangeable somehow makes the film easier to visualize. When the time comes for editing, that’s how the film will actually fit together – as a series of scenes pasted together, deleted, and rearranged on the computer.

HISTORICAL FICTION’S CROSS-CURRENTS

By Bonnie Stanard

BruceHolsinger wrote, “If you choose to write historical fiction, you will constantly be treading that fine line between the true and the plausible.”  We discover what’s true (or at least verifiable) with research, and from that we imagine what is plausible. We create scenes and give words and thoughts to characters based on our research. Unlike other genres, ours deals with the “burden of truth.” As long as we respect the truth, historical fiction has the advantage of combining education with escapism. When done well, our novels help us “see ourselves as historical creatures... shaped by large forces and currents.” 

A contemporary market, driven more by a demand for fast-moving entertainment than by a desire to learn, is having an impact on us. As Colson Whitehead said at USC in Columbia when questioned about fabrications in The Underground Railroad, “It’s fiction!” Obviously fiction comes first, but what is our relationship to the truth or at least the historic record?

No reader is going to mistake us for historians (though historians are suspected of fictions, but that’s another blog). We claim poetic license for inaccuracies that range from trivial to profound. You don’t come away from reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel or Shogun by James Clavel thinking either writer’s historical exceptions jaded our view of a given person or time period.

Thomas Mallon claims to act within “the situational ethics of my chosen genre” when he changed history to make Maj. Henry Rathbone complicit in the assassination of President Lincoln (Henry and Clara). And when he made Pat Nixon a fictional adulteress (Watergate).  What do we think of this reader’s reaction to Mallon’s novel Finale: “I had a tough time separating fact from fiction on numerous occasions”? (Amazon comments).

According to writer Helen Dunmore, novelists are “straying into ‘dangerous territory’ when they fictionalise the lives of real historical figures. However, numerous 2018 novels feature well-known historical persons, e.g., Sarah Grimke (Handful by Sue M. Kidd); Anne Morrow (The Aviator’s Wife by Melanis Benjamin); Jefferson Davis’ wife Varina (Varina by Charles Frazier) and Alva Vanderbilt Belmont (A Well-Behaved Woman by Therese Fowler).

Should we worry about reader reactions such as this: “[Einstein] is portrayed as quite an ass!” and “[the novel] will change your opinion of Albert Einstein forever”—Amazon comments on The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict. Is it asking too much to expect readers to know which parts are pure invention, which speculation, and which based on history?

Perhaps our equivocal perspectives are bringing about more genre subcategories, such as alternate history; historical fantasy; Regency romance; and speculative fiction. And there are more. 

This leads us to a question posed by Georg Lukacs: “How does a historical consciousness become embodied in a work of art?” With respect to novels, is it by imitating recorded history? By challenging it? By exploring it? Or as some of our writers are doing, by repudiating it?

WHAT'S in YOUR VISION?

By Raegan Teller

This week when I went to spin class at the gym, it was packed. The “regulars” were far outnumbered by the “resolutioners”—people who resolve each January to exercise and get fit. While I applaud these new folks for making the effort, I know many of them will fade away after a month or two and abandon their resolutions. It happens every year.

Sadly, the same thing happens to writers. Starting off the new year, we commit to writing every day or to other goals “they” tell us we must do to be a successful writer. And then, we drift away from those goals because we’re too busy, or other priorities present themselves. Success stories of writers who make lofty goals and achieve great results inspire and excite us. At least, in the short run. We ask, “Why do they succeed, but we can’t?”

I am not at all suggesting that you give up on writing, or losing weight, or exercising, or whatever your intentions may be. But, if you haven’t achieved what you wanted to by now, instead of setting the same goals, year after year, step back and ask yourself some key questions. For example:

·         Why do I write?

·         What does success look like for me?

·         How can I incorporate writing into my life in a way that will bring me joy?

·         How much of my life do I realistically want to devote to writing and related activities?

·         Am I focused on the right things for me?

·         If I haven’t achieved what I wanted to by now, what’s holding me back?

For years, I struggled to make myself sit down and write regularly. I told myself I was too busy, didn’t have the “right” idea for a book, and so forth. While some of those excuses were partially true, I knew they weren’t really holding me back. Then one day, I decided to visualize what success would look like for me as a writer.

At first, letting go of my preconceived notions of writing success was hard. Bong! Then it hit me. I realized I was holding onto someone else’s definition of a successful writer, and it was hindering me. That lofty goal of becoming a NYT best-selling author that I had held onto for years was turning me off. That wasn’t the life I wanted. Every time I thought of traveling around the country, living in a suitcase, I cringed. While the odds of my becoming a national best-selling author were remote, just the thought (or threat) of it held me back. When I replaced that vision with me being a successful Southern writer, talking to local book clubs, do signings at regional events and festivals—doing all the things l love—I was then able to write the first book, then the second, and now a third. Never underestimate the power of visualization. It can work for or against you.

What’s in your vision?

SAME TIME NEXT YEAR

kasie

By Kasie Whitener

Writing during the holidays is hard. It may be that we have less time at home because there are more parties and special events to attend, or road trips to take. It may be because we have less time to ourselves when children and spouses are on vacation and relatives are in town.

Maybe it’s difficult to write during the holidays because we feel that end-of-year drawing near and start looking back at what we’ve been able to accomplish. There may be a sense of urgency toward finishing something that’s been lingering. Maybe the weight of unmet goals. Sometimes the end of the year brings with it a kind of momentum, a rush and hurry that can rob us of the quiet reflection we need for creation.

The holidays also carry the weight of memory. Like a scent we’ve forgotten until it wafts into our nostrils, the holidays can force us to recall traditions, images, sounds, and lights. The carols and the performances are heady experiences, thick with prior years’ joy. It can be difficult to feel original when everything seems soaked in ritual.

For me, writing over the holidays is challenging for all of these reasons. The days are filled with task lists I don’t usually have, errands I don’t normally run, people I don’t often see. The plans we make dominate the season, and I’m on an adjusted schedule consisting of kid-home-from-school, visiting relatives, and special-occasion meals.

I often reflect at the end of the year on what I’ve been able to accomplish and start making plans for the next year’s efforts. This process puts creation of new stories in a kind of limbo where they don’t count toward last year’s tally but they aren’t quite next year’s work.

My writing is most often a victim of nostalgia. Since achieving certain milestones in life, I have become more nostalgic in general. But the holidays put a magnifying glass over that habit. In the weeks surrounding Christmas, I have perfect specimens for comparison. What kind of tree did we have last year? When did we put it up? What did we watch on TV while we did it?

I keep a Christmas Journal, have since Charlie and I were married in 2001, and in its pages are the specifications of every Christmas for the last 17 years. Where we went, who we visited, what we gave, what we received. It’s both a wonderful scrapbook of family memories and a terrible albatross. In it I can read the varying shades of joy, excitement, and gratitude. But threaded in there, too, are the traces of hurry and obligation and disappointment. This year the entry is particularly soaked in loss and grief.

I’m glad for the start of the new year. A chance to refocus my writing life on goals and achievements in 2019. A chance to go back to the beginning instead of being trapped in the end, that familiar dance of ritual and memory, that weighs December down.