I’ve written before about reading widely. I’m not the first to suggest this, I won’t be the last, and I’m certainly not the most famous, but if you want to be a good writer, you have to read. There’s no way around it. Importantly, you have to read across genres. You might write romance, but you can extract so much from other genres like sci-fi and fantasy. I write crime, but I read everything from the classics to new literary. It helps me refine my own words.
All this said, there’s another reason to read widely. It provides inspiration and gives you hooks into the ways to tell a story. But books aren’t the only medium that can do this. Film can do the same, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a small indie horror film or a summer blockbuster. They all provide inspiration if you’re willing to look.
Admittedly, I am a movie nerd. The idea that movie theaters are dying makes me sad. It’s such a wonderful experience to sit in a theater with a bunch of other people, collectively experiencing something together. But that experience is different for each person regardless of everyone sharing the same room. It’s the experience that can shape your writing, if you let it.
When my kids were young, my wife and I were pretty locked in to kids movies at the theater. We lived off a steady diet of Illumination, Disney, and Pixar movies for years. And that was fine. I was just watching a trailer for Wildwood and thinking about how, if our kids were younger, we’d absolutely be seeing that movie. And you might think these children’s films are just there to satisfy a child’s imagination, but if you think about what a writer is, you’ll see we’re nothing more than grown children. We use our imagination like children, in ways that have died off in many other adults. Children’s films, like all other films provide inspiration and storytelling beats you can take with you in your writing. All films do, if you’re looking for it.
Movies are often compared to books, especially when the movie is an adaptation of a book. That’s natural. However, we shouldn’t think of them as mutually exclusive experiences. You might like the book more than the film, but what did the film do that created a story or a moment or an emotion that the book was unable to provide? What can you find in movies that helps you shape the pacing of your own writing? Are there character development moments within a movie that you can steal and use in your books?
And you should steal. As long as you do it right.
For me, I am constantly thinking about my own writing while watching movies. It doesn’t mean that I need to make my scenes more cinematic. Your writing should serve the medium and the story. In a novel, if it make sense to have the storyline unfold similar to a movie, do it. If not, use other elements. Use the emotional build-up. Use the way a movie might have used Chekhov’s gun just right.
Find inspiration in the story, not necessarily the medium. Don’t discount film as a source that can fuel your writing. Read widely, sure. But watch widely as well.