Movies as the Default Form of Storytelling

I woke up yesterday with my guts feeling downright awful, though I expect by the time you read this I’ll be much better. If not, then, uh… hm. Problem.

Presently reading a collection of science-fiction stories that I found in a book sale about a month ago. After that is re-reading either The Demon Redcoat or The Battle of the Labyrinth. And I’m still playing Stray.

Movies as the Default Form of Culture

Alright, we need to stop acting like film is the default form of storytelling, especially when we’re giving advice on how to write prose. 

There was an article recently that talked about how Hollywood has become the “religion” of this country (it’s here, if you’re curious), and I think that’s a bit of an overblown statement, and it goes into a lot of politics that I don’t want to get into here. But it touches on how for a lot of people, movies are the ‘real’ thing, or the optimal way to tell stories. A piece of fiction hasn’t really Made It in the public’s eye until it’s a movie. That’s shifting a bit to hit TV shows, too, but I think the point mostly stands.

And I’ve become increasingly (and hypocritically) annoyed at how many times I see or hear writing advice, for aspiring novelists, that involves referencing famous movies. As in, “If you want to know how to effectively [certain idea in fiction], consider [famous movie that also has that]!” Because, um… books aren’t movies. And in theory, the audience you’re talking to should have a familiarity with the written word as a medium. That doesn’t mean they’re recognize every book reference under the sun–that’s impossible–but it does mean that you should be able to explain using prose rather than describing a movie scene.

Obviously, there is carryover–there are things that work in more than one medium. Dialogue comes to mind (and I’m still very proud of how I described the ‘High vs. Low Speech’ as “Contrast how Tony Stark talks to how T’Challa talks,”). But not everything, and in many instances, you can find a book example that will work just as well. The issue, of course, is that if you’re trying to get a point across effectively, more people are aware of big movies than they are of your average book.

Although I don’t know how well this is going to hold up in the future. Pop culture has become so fragmented right now. You’ll come across it every now and then when you mention something that to you seems to be the biggest movie or TV show ever, and the person you’re talking to has never heard of it. There’s just so much out there, and we’re directed to follow what interests us by algorithms, that plenty of things slip off of our radar. Every now and then something comes up about the hot new celebrity and I just have to ask, “Huh? Who?”

I asked about this in my Note on Wicked, but I wonder if kids in writing classes half a decade from now will even know about things like Pulp Fiction or The Matrix, which were used as references for pop culture things everyone knew about in the early 2000s. I don’t know if Star Wars is really as in decline as the naysayers claim it is, but will it be a good reference point, either?

So if not everyone is even watching the same movies, maybe the argument of using movies to give writing advice is a bit bunk? There are big movies that a lot of people have seen still, sure, but I also don’t know if I want to unwittingly lead aspiring writers to compose their novels in the same style as a big Marvel movie.

Building off of that, there’s supposedly a trend of college kids who want to be novelists but just… don’t read books? I don’t know if it’s a widespread thing, or just something one professor complained about, but if it IS true, and that you have a bunch of people who want to be writers of prose fiction when their only point of reference is film and television… uh, that sucks? Writing a story is more than just describing things as they happen. And if we continue to act as if film and television are the basic way of experiencing storytelling, this is going to get worse–after all, we’re telling them that those are the mediums by which one learns the rules! 

Just… read more books. And if you’re ever giving writing advice for prose fiction, try to stick more to prose works to explain your points.

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