Cinematic writing: what is it?

[buyjupiter]

After listening to Ken Liu speak about cinematic writing last weekend, I was wondering what y'all thought of the subject.

How do you define it? How does it figure into your reading habits, i.e. do you avoid things that are "cinematic" in nature or do you seek them out?

Is the cinematic feel solely one of these characteristics or do you have to combine most of them to be cinematic:

-POV choice and narrative distance?
-strong presence of a narrative "camera"?
-visual description?
-short snappy dialogue?
-low to no internal thought?
-fast pacing?

Because I'm reading The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly right now and it feels cinematic. But I don't know if that is a virtue of the genre (thriller) with its pacing and narrative techniques and because action movies heavily borrow from those techniques, or if it's because I can easily visualize what the author is putting before me in text (in which case the author has succeeded at his task).

I also have been told that my writing can be cinematic (which I feel is a compliment because I spend a lot of time thinking of good clear visual description as well as where to put my POV character to view the important stuff), but if that is in fact a "bad" thing for "real" novelists to do, then I want to know what consistently makes up that cinematic feel. So I can use it if I want to, for effect, or not.

And for reference, one of the books Liu threw out as an example of cinematic writing was the Hunger Games. Which boggled my mind, as I consider first person narratives to be among the least cinematic of books.

 

[Terry Greer]

I tend to imagine my stories cast as films or tv series - and imagine scenes as playing out in my head. I couldn't write any other way.
Having said that the one non-cinematic part in my writing is the thoughts of the main characters - they would be hard to put across in a film but I think works well with cinematic writing.

 

[Terry Greer]

It's well worth looking at screenwriting books such as Synder's 'Save the Cat' or Vogler's 'Writer's journey' or Russel T Davis's 'The writer's tale' (about the writing of a series of Doctor Who).

While they won't actually improve you're writing style they are all worth reading from a plot and character development angle. (RTD's book is probably the best example of book that shows how another author works that I've seen - it's made of a succession of emails and script revisions - that clearly show why he made plot descions and why he change them - very readable).

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

I try to make some things cinematic. The best way I've found to do this, or at least my favourite technique, is to go into real slow motion, having my MC, its First Person, btw, noticed everything - individual bird songs, dew on the grass, a small cut on his fingernails, ect, before bursting back into real fast, rapid action.

Obviously, I think good descriptive powers are needed - giving quite a bit of information, but writing pretty simply and, most importantly, putting enough information in to build up soem sweeping picture without stifling your people. I think the best way to do this is to pick your battles. Of course, you know everything that your people are wearing, their surroundings, every line on their faces. But you cant, if you aren't Robert Jordan, put it all in. You pick whats important, and you put that in, leaving the rest to imagination.

The best scene that I can remember reading in the last few months, real, proper, movie fare, is this scene in Tower Lord, were that city is being relieved. Its in slow motion, Vaelin charging alone at this army, fireballs arcing over head. It's awesome. Also, Bernard Cornwell writes some top quality cinematic stuff - especially in his Saxon and Arthur series, as again, they're first person and some parts are seriously vivid.

Hope this rambling helps. Good luck

 

[buyjupiter]

I tend to imagine my stories cast as films or tv series - and imagine scenes as playing out in my head. I couldn't write any other way.
Having said that the one non-cinematic part in my writing is the thoughts of the main characters - they would be hard to put across in a film but I think works well with cinematic writing.

I tend to write a close third person most of the time. So I spend a lot of time in my character's heads.

I always know where the narrative "camera" is and my characters are all very Dr Who-ish in all the running around that they do and as active as they are. My characters very rarely sit and do nothing, because that isn't very interesting to write (or read).

 

[buyjupiter]

I try to make some things cinematic. The best way I've found to do this, or at least my favourite technique, is to go into real slow motion, having my MC, its First Person, btw, noticed everything - individual bird songs, dew on the grass, a small cut on his fingernails, ect, before bursting back into real fast, rapid action.

Obviously, I think good descriptive powers are needed - giving quite a bit of information, but writing pretty simply and, most importantly, putting enough information in to build up soem sweeping picture without stifling your people. I think the best way to do this is to pick your battles. Of course, you know everything that your people are wearing, their surroundings, every line on their faces. But you cant, if you aren't Robert Jordan, put it all in. You pick whats important, and you put that in, leaving the rest to imagination.

The best scene that I can remember reading in the last few months, real, proper, movie fare, is this scene in Tower Lord, were that city is being relieved. Its in slow motion, Vaelin charging alone at this army, fireballs arcing over head. It's awesome. Also, Bernard Cornwell writes some top quality cinematic stuff - especially in his Saxon and Arthur series, as again, they're first person and some parts are seriously vivid.

Hope this rambling helps. Good luck

The funny thing is, even though it's been fifteen years since I last read WoT, I consider that to be more "cinematic" than GRRM's SoIaF...which has been adapted for the screen.

I think in the case of WoT I'm more immersed within the story, even though there are horrible bits within it, because of the lush description. And in the case of GRRM I want to observe the world, not dive into it. Not that he has any less descriptive power, but because of where I want my distance as reader to be from the narrative.

Maybe that's the key to cinematic writing? The willingness or not to fully immerse yourself within the story? (I think this may also apply in reverse as with things like The Dark Knight Rises I want to be very distant from as a viewer (because sheesh is that a dark and horrible world); but things like Avatar or LotR I want to go play in those environments.)

 

[Devor]

The few times I've heard anyone talk about "cinematic" writing for a novel, it was a bad thing. It was code for "all action, no character." It means you're not getting into your character's head and making the story personal enough. It's like saying, instead of a 1st POV or 3rd Person limited, you're writing in "3rd Person Camera."