Translating the Movie In My Head

As someone who sees her fiction work in terms of scenes, translating those scenes from visuals in my head to words on a page is probably the most difficult part of writing.

This morning, I awoke sluggishly as a scene played out in my brain. It was a familiar ‘surprise’ used in many thrillers: a dorknob turns, the door opens. A man seen only from mid section to the tips of his fingers enters. He has on a nondescript tan raincoat and black gloves. He walks forward a few feet and we become aware he is standing in a living room. He pauses. In the stillness we can hear the muffled laughter of children playing. The man turns to the right and begins to walk quietly up a staircase, his shoes making no noise on the carpeted steps. On the next floor, he moves quickly down the hallway, pauses in front of a door, turns the knob, and opens it. Inside the room, decorated for a young girl, are two children, playing on the floor. They look up wide-eyed at the intruder, who walks towards them. Suddenly, the expressions on the childrens’ faces turn from startlement to joy. “Daddy!” they exclaim, flinging themselves at the man.

I have described this scene the way it might be viewed in a film (although obviously, it’s not formatted as a screenplay). It took me less than a minute or two to ‘see’ this scene in my head, complete with suspenseful background music. It took me so much longer, lying there crafting the sentences, to come to where I felt I was just beginning to get a handle on how this scene would play out in a novel. In fact, I didn’t finish it. I worked it along until the point that I realized I was probably never going to use that scene because it was too cliched, and there was no point in polishing an apple that wouldn’t be eaten.

But it did make me think about how we translate images, picking just the right words in just the right order to get them to help our readers play out the scene in their own heads more or less the way we saw it first.

But why bother?

I have a friend whose writing is pretty much conversation. He’s minimalist when it comes to scene-setting, and I don’t think his story suffers for it. Anyone making a film from one of his works would have to supply most of the visual context. He ‘hears’ the conversation and he writes it down. I hear the conversation as part of a movie in my head. The characters are moving, gesturing, and I feel the need to capture that when I write the scene.

Like my friend, I believe that only what moves the story forward should be included, but for me that can include socio-political asides. I think the main difference between my friend’s work and mine is that he is telling a story as simply as he can. Hemingway would agree with this. I, on the other hand, am always world-building, and always on the lookout for ways to anchor the reader to my world. I don’t think one way is better than another, though my friend’s minimalist writing allows the story to move more quickly, which would probably make it more salable these days, where time has become even more of a commodity.

I’m unlikely to give up my style of writing, so I’ll continue to struggle with getting the scene on paper to match the one in my head, but I don’t mind. I know those worlds – they like me there.

Are you visual? Do you struggle with getting the scene down properly? Or do you favour the minimalist approach? Let me know.

The Economics of Unease

Happy Independence Day.

These days, I greet this holiday with more trepidation than enthusiasm. I have a little dachshund who is terrified of loud, booming noises like thunderstorms and fireworks. Though we live in the country, there is always some yahoo who thinks it’s fun to shoot off a rifle or handgun on the Fourth or New Year’s Eve, or when he’s drunk. And possessing a cache of fireworks always seems to wear on the minds of some people such that they can’t resist getting a few screamers out early, so the days leading up to the Fourth can be nearly as noisy as the day itself.

This year has been uncommonly quiet. No loud noises to date. I don’t know if the fires in Colorado have scared people or if the Fourth falling on a Wednesday, where a hangover is likely to have to be ported to work the next day, has put people off. All I know is that it has been almost eerily still – not even the usual hordes of day trippers straddling cacaphonies of Harley-Davidsons have broken the peace.

Yet, Little Dog has been restless and whiny since yesterday.

I wonder if he has picked up on my own worry that the stillness will be broken by a waterfall of shrieks and bangs once dusk has descended. Or perhaps he has some internal clock that not only can tell when walk-time and dinner-time is due, but is able to somehow measure months and recognize the summer as the Time of The Loud Noises.

As a writer, I ponder that what we often write about has as much to do with those interstices between anxious anticipation and reactive action. We tend to play upon our characters’ fears as much as the realization of those fears. We squeeze our thumbs and forefingers as hard as we can to force the last drops of mental and emotional unease and suspend our readers in the timeless moment before the unease is fulfilled or revealed as unwarranted or maybe shown as the harbinger of some other, greater disaster.

How intimately do we come to know those moments. As Observers, we can delight in our ability to inflict this torture. But if we identify greatly with our creations, we may be like to suffer with them.

If we, as story manipulators, can wind this tension tight, tight, tight, it doesn’t matter what the release – joy or sorrow – as long as that release seems true to the story and the characters. It doesn’t matter if the reader comments “What a great display!” or “Thank God that’s over!” Our job is to provide them with the moments of unease that stretch their nerves, to torture them, really, and then to earn their praise for ending the torture.

If you think about it that way, it’s a strange way to make a living.