The main competition for authors isn’t other books or authors; it’s movies.
Scores of writers work together to create movies, and most people prefer to watch a movie in the evening rather than read a book. Even authors have subscriptions to Netflix.
Popular books tend to borrow writing techniques from Hollywood, and if you want your book to be popular in the 2020s, you need to borrow Hollywood’s techniques, too.
How do you write as if your book is a movie playing in a reader’s mind?
Deborah Raney has some tips for how to write cinematically. She’s best known for her novel A Vow to Cherish, the inspiration for the award-winning film of the same title. She’s written over 35 books for imprints of Random House, Simon and Schuster, and HarperCollins, among many others.
What does it mean to write cinematically?
Deborah: The number one writing rule is probably “Show, don’t tell.” In a sense, writing cinematically simply means putting your story on stage.
When my first novel became a movie, and Ken and I went to Hollywood to see the movie premiere, I was shocked by how much they changed. One of the main reasons that happens is that they have to shorten your story to make it into a movie. An audiobook is 8 or 9 hours long, but a movie can’t be that long.
As I watched, I realized that so much of my first novel took place in my characters’ heads. I had them driving somewhere thinking or sitting in the kitchen remembering, and that does not translate well to film. I’m so glad I realized that with my first novel because I learned so much from that experience, and I’ve applied those lessons to every novel since.
Thomas: Another advantage of writing cinematically is that it makes the story more accessible to readers, as it resembles the types of stories they see on screen.
Additionally, when your book is adapted into a movie, more of the original content can be preserved. A great example of this is The Hunger Games series, which was written in a highly cinematic style—visceral and visual—even though it was narrated in the first person. Despite being in Katniss’s perspective, the story doesn’t remain confined to her thoughts. Over the course of the series, Katniss gradually unravels due to trauma, and yet the movies retain much of the original narrative. The point of view is slightly altered, but very little needed to be changed because the story was so easily adaptable to film.
Deborah: That makes it so much easier for the screenwriter. Usually, someone other than the author writes the screenplay.
Why is cinematic writing important for Christian authors?
Thomas: Why do we even need to learn this? Can’t we just write the way we want to?
Deborah: If you want your book to be turned into a movie, and most authors do, writing cinematically will make that dream more likely to happen.
The other reason is that we want readers to stick with us. We want them to read and love our books. When you make your story come alive in your readers’ heads, when they can picture it as a movie while they’re reading, they have a memorable experience with your book. I always wish I could get in somebody else’s head and read my own book and just see how it translates. As an author, you have so much in your head that you think you’re getting on the page, but it isn’t necessarily making it onto the page.
Thomas: One of the enjoyable aspects of writing fantasy and science fiction, especially for younger audiences, is that it’s common for young readers to draw characters and scenes from the stories they’re reading. I even teach this in my blogging classes: encourage your readers to share their fan art, as it may already exist. All they need to do is take a photo with their smartphones and send it to you, and you can feature it on your blog. It makes them happy, and it delights you and your other readers as well. However, it can be surprising when you see their drawings of your characters, monsters, or aliens—they might look completely different from what you imagined. Yet, that’s how your descriptions came to life in their minds.
Deborah: That’s an interesting point. I try not to describe my characters too vividly because I want readers to envision them in their own way. Typically, if there’s a romantic element, I might mention details like eye color—something the hero would notice about the heroine and vice versa. But beyond that, I avoid giving too much character description. For me, the setting is more important; I focus on describing it as if I were setting the stage for a play. This allows readers to bring their own imagined characters into the story while I’ve already established the environment for them to explore.
How do you write cinematically without being mediocre?
Deborah: When I realized that the goal was to make the reader visualize the story as if it were a movie, especially after seeing the screenplay for A Vow to Cherish and understanding how the lines were meant to be delivered, I started exploring screenwriting. I even Googled glossaries of film terms and phrases, looking at each one and thinking about how I could apply them to my writing. Take, for example, the concept of a cliffhanger. Interestingly, cliffhangers probably originated in books before they were used in movies, but we all picture the classic cowboy movie where a character is literally hanging from a cliff—that’s where the term comes from. There are ways to translate that idea into writing, to create moments where the character is on the edge, and the reader is compelled to turn the page to find out what happens next, even if it’s late and they’ve already promised themselves “just one more chapter” several times.
Thomas: Or you can do something that’s a bit cruel but highly effective in keeping readers engaged: leave one character hanging on a cliff and then switch to a different character’s perspective. I remember a moment like this in *The Lord of the Rings*. If I recall correctly, Sam has the ring, the Mithril coat, and the sword, while Frodo has been captured, and the doors have closed in front of him. The chapter ends, and the first word of the next chapter is “Pippin.” You’re left thinking, “No! What happened to Frodo?” You then have to read a whole chapter about Pippin, and just as you start caring about Pippin’s story, it switches back to Frodo.
You might think, “That’s cruel—why would a writer do that?” But what the writer is doing is managing tension. There should always be an unanswered question that compels the reader to keep going. Each time you answer a question, you introduce new ones, so the reader never feels like they can stop halfway through the book. If they do, they might not pick up the next one.
Deborah: However, there’s a fine line to walk—you don’t want to frustrate your reader by dragging things out too long. The next character you switch to better be someone they really care about, or you risk losing their interest. Make sure to at least partially answer the question you left them hanging with before moving on.
Thomas: I couldn’t agree more. In fact, Robert Jordan is another author that I read, and in his epic Wheel of Time series, there was one character I couldn’t stand. I almost started editing his book to just skip past that character’s point of view because I didn’t care what he was going on about. But that character was a favorite of my best friend, and my favorite character was my friend’s least favorite.
Different characters will resonate with different audiences. This technique is commonly used in cinema, where filmmakers carefully analyze the demographics. They study their audience and find out whether more men or women are attending, as well as their ages and ethnicities. They then include characters in films that will appeal to specific demographics. For example, you may have noticed an increase in Asian characters in movies compared to ten years ago. This change is largely driven by the desire to attract Asian moviegoers. Before the coronavirus pandemic, China was the second-largest box office market, spending more on movies than any country except the United States. Therefore, including characters that resonate with that audience has become increasingly important.
One of the ways a cinematographer or filmmaker creates characters is by considering not only whether the character is interesting but also who that character will attract to the movie. A common mistake in some recent films is excluding male characters or portraying the male characters as evil. Then, filmmakers are surprised when men don’t want to watch the movie, even though it scores highly with female audiences.
Deborah: That’s an interesting point because my husband loves watching World War II movies, and my way of deciding if I can watch it with him is to see if there’s even one woman in the movie. If there isn’t, it usually means the film won’t explore the families left behind or any personal aspects; it’ll just focus on the battle scenes, which I’m not interested in. So, that’s an excellent point.
It’s funny, though, because I write women’s fiction, yet I have a surprising number of male readers. I receive reviews, letters, and comments from men, but it’s usually because their wives handed them my book!
Thomas: So, you’re still selling to the woman?
Deborah: Yes, exactly, but I really value my male readers, and I try to write for them and include something in my book that will interest them.
Thomas: Producers who create a “date movie” want to include enough appealing elements so that the husband will go with his wife or the boyfriend will go with his girlfriend.
It’s the same reason McDonald’s offers salad. No one goes to McDonald’s for salad, but if you’re going with a group of people and one person eats healthy, they can still join the group at McDonald’s and just get the salad. It’s the same approach with the film. You have to give them just enough so that they won’t veto the movie altogether.
If there’s not a single woman in the war movie, you’ll tell your husband to go on his own, and suddenly, that’s a ticket sale the movie lost. On the other hand, if there’s a plot line with the wife back home getting telegrams, that’s enough for you to watch it with your husband while the bombs are going off.
Deborah: That explains why when Ken goes to a chick flick with me, the high compliment is, “That was actually pretty good.” That means there was something in it for him, too.
What are some roadblocks to watch out for when writing cinematically?
Deborah: For one thing, you still need to write concisely. While it’s important to set the stage and be specific, you don’t want to include paragraph after paragraph of description because those are the parts readers tend to skip. I probably spend 30 minutes working on the first paragraph of every chapter or scene change because that’s crucial. Sometimes, there might be three chapters set on the same stage, but whenever the stage changes or I switch to another character’s point of view, I’m careful to create a vivid image in the reader’s mind right from the start. The reason for this is that once that foundation is set, everything else I write in that chapter becomes easier. I don’t have to work as hard if the reader already has a clear image in mind.
I like to share a story about a manuscript I was critiquing at a conference. It was primarily composed of dialogue, which is fantastic because, after all, dialogue is the heart of movies. As a reader, when you turn the page and see a lot of white space, signaling a conversation, you know you’re going to move through the pages quickly, and that’s something we enjoy. It’s in those moments that the story really moves forward, and we get to know the characters better.
As I read this particular dialogue, I found it extremely well-written—it depicted a tense exchange between a mother and her daughter. They were having an argument, but the writer failed to set the scene. As a reader, especially a visual one like me, I need a context for the dialogue. So, in my mind, I quickly placed them in a coffee shop, imagining them slamming down forks and setting teacups down harder than necessary. You can imagine my shock when they were suddenly broadsided by a semi-truck! The writer hadn’t mentioned they were in a car, and it would have been so easy to set that scene. Just a few words, like “She gripped the steering wheel,” would have done the trick. We don’t need to know the type of car; we just need to know they’re in one. Then, you can use elements within the car to convey emotions—white knuckles gripping the steering wheel show anger. In fact, a writer can often do more than a filmmaker with such details, as these nuances might not be as noticeable on screen unless the camera zooms in. There’s so much potential if you set the stage first.
Thomas: I think it’s crucial to focus not just on the first paragraph of your first chapter—something everyone knows to do—but also on the first paragraph of each scene change because that’s where you’re most likely to lose a reader. You want them to keep reading or to be so engaged that they can’t wait to pick it up the next day. You often lose readers at the end of scenes, so if you can end a scene strongly and start the next one just as strong, it’s like getting the top button of your shirt aligned properly. Everything else falls into place.
Another excellent point you made is that there are ways we can write cinematically even better than cinema itself.
In The Hunger Games, there are some incredibly visceral elements in the book that get lost in the movie, particularly when it comes to smell and taste. Katniss Everdeen is extremely hungry for most of the book, and if you’ve ever fasted, you know how your sense of smell sharpens when you’re hungry. The book shows this without explicitly stating that Katniss’s sense of smell becomes more acute the hungrier she gets. This is a level of sensory detail that a filmmaker can’t fully convey with a visual medium.
For example, even if a movie shows a rotting corpse, the viewer can’t truly sense the smell. I remember one movie where the hero was fleeing from the bad guys and jumped off a waterfall into a river, where he hid under a dead animal. The bad guys and their dogs couldn’t find him because of the overpowering stench. But even in that scene, as a viewer, I didn’t truly feel the smell of that dead animal the way I would have if it were described in a book. In a novel, you can get inside the character’s head as he tries not to vomit, which makes the moment far more powerful than it could ever be on screen.
Deborah: I couldn’t agree more. I think that is the reason that so many people say, “The movie was good, but the book was better.” And I think that’s because there’s something wonderful about being able to picture what’s written instead of being spoon-fed by a movie.
Thomas: It’s also why comic books are so easily adapted to the screen. Comic books are a visual medium. Right before you do the text bubble, you’re painting a picture, and you’re literally showing instead of telling. It’s a wonderful combination of visual art and written art.
Many people view comics as a low form of art, but I believe that perspective is unfair and shows a lack of understanding of how art functions. For example, what makes opera such a highly regarded art form is its combination of acting, music, set design, and fashion—all working together to create a unified experience. Similarly, comics blend visual art, storytelling, and character development in a unique way. Yet, comics are often dismissed as something for nerdy kids. However, comic books are incredibly successful, and there’s a reason why their movie adaptations perform so well, even when the films are just mediocre. Not every comic book movie is great, but even the average one can gross $100 million, which is a significant amount. The really successful ones can bring in $1 billion. In fact, a comic book movie is considered a failure if it only makes $30 million, while many other films would love to reach those numbers.
What did you have to learn the hard way about writing cinematically?
Deborah: The biggest thing I learned the hard way was how to get my characters off the stage. I felt like every time I wrote a scene, I had to start when the person woke in the morning and write clear through to when they went to bed at night. At one point, my husband said, “You know, you can just end a scene. That’s how they do it in the movies. They just cut right in the middle a line of dialogue sometimes.” That was like a revelation to me. I realized I had these tools at my disposal that would allow me to fade out a scene, cut a scene, jump forward, or flashback in time the way movies do. That realization changed everything for me as a writer.
Thomas: These techniques give you a lot of control over pacing. This is one of the significant improvements in television. In the 90s, TV shows didn’t have an easy way to edit, and editing wasn’t as accessible or affordable. Editing was expensive, so they did little of it. However, with the advent of digital editing, TV shows can now be edited just as easily as films.
I realized this when I tried watching The X-Files from the 90s. My sister and I decided to watch it together after hearing so many great things. We started with the first episode, where the two detectives go to investigate some possible alien activity. The show producers included scenes of the detectives walking out of the FBI building, getting into the car, driving to the airport, getting off the plane, and then driving through the woods to reach their destination. There was nearly a minute of nothing significant happening; there wasn’t even an interesting conversation between the characters for character development. It was just them driving, with lots of B-roll footage of an airplane.
Today, this would be done differently. They would briefly show the woods to establish the location and then quickly cut to the detectives in the woods, making the scene faster and more efficient. This is a strength of modern television, where transitions are quick and almost subconscious. For example, they might show the outside of a building for a moment and then immediately take you inside.
Don’t be like The X-Files from the 90s. Be like modern shows that cut straight to the story.
Deborah: In the past, when TV shows needed to show the passage of time or a flashback, they would often use a swirling visual effect to indicate the shift, as if the audience couldn’t figure it out on their own. One piece of feedback I often receive on my manuscripts is, “Deb, trust your reader to get it.” This advice is crucial. It seems like The X-Files didn’t trust their audience to understand that if they cut from one scene to the woods, the viewers would follow along. The same principle applies to writing a novel: trust your reader to understand the transitions without over-explaining.
What if an author objects to using techniques from Hollywood?
Thomas: What advice would you give to an author who hates Hollywood? They hate everything that Hollywood represents, and they feel like they’re betraying their core values by borrowing writing techniques from Hollywood.
Deborah: I’m going to say, “Sorry, but you seriously will do so much better if you force yourself to watch the movies and see how they’re done.” This is especially important if you want to capture younger readers.
When you read classic authors like Dickens, the descriptions are almost painful. Some people love that, and they were beautifully written, but you have to realize that those were written in an era when you couldn’t just say “Paris,” and the whole world had a picture of what Paris looked like. At that time, the author had to describe what Paris or Dakota Territory looked like. That’s why they wrote that way.
We have a distinct advantage living in this century. Almost everyone can instantly picture any major city just by hearing its name, so there’s no need for extensive descriptions. However, if you want to capture young readers, you need to write in a way that mimics a movie experience. This generation grew up with visual media, and that’s what they relate to and enjoy most. Even when writing historical fiction, they will still want to visualize it.
Thomas: Those lengthy descriptions were part of the appeal of those early classics. Victor Hugo, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, has one chapter that is only a bird’s eye view of Paris, and all he does is describe different buildings in the city. That seems boring to us because we’re used to seeing videos and photos of Paris. But when those stories were published, people may have never seen a single photo of Paris in their entire life, so the description made them want to read the books.
That’s why it is so important to know your audience. Readers in the 2020s are not the same as readers from the 1860s.
Another example of this that is done really well is Tom Clancy’s book Clear and Present Danger. He takes 30 pages to describe how a nuclear bomb works.
Certain readers love to read about the inner workings of a nuclear bomb for 30 pages. His readers were people who had always wanted to understand how a nuclear bomb works. So, Clancy included basically everything that’s not classified about how a nuclear bomb works.
But here’s the catch. Only one author gets to do that. The next guy can’t spend 30 pages describing a nuclear bomb because that target audience has already learned it from Clancy.
It also demonstrates the importance of getting feedback from the right readers. If Tom Clancy had gotten feedback from Deborah Raney and she’s said, “I didn’t like the 30 pages of nuclear bomb info and nobody wants to read that,” he might have changed his book, which would have made the book worsefor his target readers.
Deborah: I have made a similar mistake in wanting to impress readers who were not my target audience. At times I’ve written to impress the literary novel readers or men. But I need to remember that my little circle of readers likes the family drama and the touch of romance. Readers who don’t are not my target reader, so they’re not my concern.
Thomas: Targeting literary readers is always a trap because their favorite thing to do is not to be impressed by a book. They get their psychological identities by looking down their noses at books. It’s a small but vicious audience to try to target.
Where should Christian authors go if they want to learn more about cinematic writing?
Deborah: One of the most helpful things I did was visit a website that listed definitions of movie terms. I approached it not with the eyes of a filmmaker but as a writer, thinking, “If they can do this in a movie, how can I translate it into a book?” For example, there’s something called “The Magic Hour,” which is that perfect time at dawn or twilight when the light is just right. My husband is a photographer, so I’ve spent many mornings rushing to a location before sunrise to capture those moments. As writers, we have the advantage of being able to create a magic hour in our novels whenever we want, but we have to do it with description and words.
There are so many terms like “establishing shots,” “jump cuts,” “zooms,” and “dissolves.” I recommend reading about what these movie terms mean and then getting creative to find ways to achieve the same effects in your writing. This approach helped me a lot.
Thomas: You wouldn’t want to use the word jump cut, but once you know what it is, you can see how filmmakers use the technique to create or prolong tension.
Movie-making terminology is almost like a new set of ingredients authors can use when cooking up a book. Learning filmmaking or screenwriting will enhance your writing.
If you’re exploring books on screenwriting, you’ll find an entire section on Amazon dedicated to them. One of the most popular starting points for screenwriters is Save the Cat. It’s also one of the most controversial; people tend to either love it or hate it.
I encourage you to read Save the Cat and decide for yourself whether you like it. Then, you can move on to the second most popular screenwriting book and see if you prefer that one instead.
Any final tips or encouragement?
Deborah: When you’re writing, be thoughtful of your reader. Don’t focus solely on what you want to say, as that can make your work feel preachy, turning it into a message rather than a story. Instead, think about your reader’s experience. Make them feel engaged and connected to your story but not so comfortable that they close the book and go to bed. Help them get comfortable enough that they feel immersed in the world you’re creating. They should feel like they truly know the characters as if they were their own friends. When we’re mindful of our readers in this way, our stories come alive for them, and that’s how you build a loyal fan base.
Thomas: Jesus said that if you want to be a leader, if you want to be first, you must be a servant. This means you need to focus on serving your reader, just as we’ve been discussing. Many authors aspire to be on top; they want to be the master, but they often overlook that the true path to success lies in following Christ, serving the reader, and giving them what they want. By blessing the reader rather than seeking to bless yourself, you find genuine success.
- Twitter: @authordebraney
- DeborahRaney.com
Sponsor: Christian Writers Institute
The Course of the Week: Beyond Mediocrity by Cec Murphey
Using Jesus as an example, author Cec Murphey encourages the writer who is a Christian to honor God by reaching beyond mediocrity in their writing. By working hard, studying the craft, and persevering, Murphey exhorts those writing for the Christian marketplace to produce their best possible work.
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