What is Cinematic Writing?
I first heard the term “cinematic
writing” about twenty-five years ago. The wife of a casual acquaintance had
published several books, and her publisher was known for signing authors who employed
what they called “cinematic technique.”
Since I hadn’t heard the term, I
looked it up and found the definition—writing that unfolds like a movie in the
mind’s eye of the reader. Book coach C. S. Lakin describes it this way: Rather
than explaining and summarizing the action in a scene, “writers play out the action moment by
moment by ‘shooting’ the scene the way a filmmaker would. The reader watches
the story unfold before their mind’s eye rather than being told what is
happening in exposition.”
Two Examples of Cinematic Writing
Here’s an excerpt:
He lowered the binoculars and
looked over the country at large. Then he raised them again. There looked to be
men lying on the ground. He jacked his boots into the rocks and adjusted the
focus. The vehicles were four-wheel drive trucks or Broncos with big
all-terrain tires and winches and racks of roof lights. The men appeared to be
dead. He lowered the glasses. Then he raised them again. Then he lowered them
and just sat there. Nothing moved. He sat there for a long time.
One critic
called it “essentially a script, minus the scene headers and transitions.
Another example
is the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019) by Ocean Vuong.
Written by a poet, it jumps between past and present to reveal a life told in
stanzas. On critic called it “a series of Polaroid flashes in the dark, a
collection of memories offered with the unease of someone else’s scrapbook.” In
one scene, the narrator, a boy, watches his grandmother wake up.
The eye opened. Glazed by a milky film of
sleep, it widened to hold my image. I stood against myself, pinned by the shaft
of light through the window. Then the second eye opened, this one slightly pink
but clearer. “You hungry, Little Dog?” she asked, her face expressionless, as
if still asleep.
I
nodded.
“What
should we eat in a time like this?” She gestured around the room.
A
rhetorical question, I decided, and bit my lip.
But
I was wrong. “I said What can we eat?” She sat up, her shoulder-length hair
splayed out behind her like a cartoon character just blasted with TNT.
Writer and editor Constance Hale says that cinematic writing “starts with a narrator who acts like an observing camera—we see landscapes, we watch people, we are carried along with the action.” The experience is like a journalistic “ride-along.”Should mystery writers employ the cinematic technique?
Should Mystery Writers Use Cinematic Writing Techniques?
Turns out it’s a trend that some look
down on. If your goal is to write a novel that could be adapted into a TV show
or movie, mastering the art of cinematic writing might be exactly what you
need. It’s the classic “show, don’t tell.” But not everyone agrees.
I’m told that male authors use cinematic writing more than female authors and that male readers like the style because it’s heavy on action. The technique is also used more in literary fiction than other genres. Make of that what you will.
Upside vs Downside?
Cinematic
writing employs third-person narration with little (or no) internal thought and
a general lack of subjectivity. The reader sees what happens but must infer how
the narrator actually feels about it.
That’s the
downside. Books today compete with the visual arts—TV and movies. The benefit we
novel writers have over visual media is showing the inner life of the
protagonist. Readers aren’t just invited to view someone’s experience from the
outside. We are invited into their minds and hearts.
I like to use
cinematic techniques along with internal thought. The best of both worlds?
What do you
think?
