As writers, we explore ways to draw readers into the story, so this blog examines writing through a cinematic lens. Writing cinematically is something modern authors are exploring as a technique that takes readers on a journey towards film.

This realization comes after viewing a recent Reedsy YouTube video hosted by Martin Cavannagh, who’s guest, Noah Charney, related how to facilitate from written to film version. It’s the type of writing that gives readers an image when reading a story.

As readers, we can imagine how the story is unfolding according to the author’s eyes. But as one commentator, who happened to be an English professor, pointed out - this isn’t something that’s really new since classic authors achieved this centuries ago – it’s called imagery.

But in modern times, we have cinematic technology available, likening it to writing from different angles, much like a camera takes shot types. A close-up, for example, provides details and emotional cues.

Chaney noted that authors have one chance to make a first impression with the cinematic hook. He said to do this “clean, with a touch of style and without trying too hard.” It’s about controlling the reader in a “pleasant way.”

In a way, we manipulate what the reader is thinking and feeling. In order to do this, we think proactively with film scenes and storyboarding.

He used the example of describing a sweat-covered man making his way through a thick jungle. Describing the ruins he comes upon as being “black with age” gives a visual. We see a person in a wide-brimmed hat happening upon a “monster mouth gate dating back to 700 A.D.”

We have a person engaged in action, centuries later as he “machetes” his way through lush jungle foliage. Even though “machetes” isn’t really a word, he uses it as a verb to give the reader an idea of what the character is doing.

“As thick tangles of vine fall beneath his blade, he pushes into a clearing, then staggers back. The fanged mouth of a primordial stone beast gazes toward him.”

This sentence brings an Indiana Jones scene to mind and is so much better than saying where the character is “to go” or “to be.” By inventing the verb “machetes,” the writer provides meaning in one single word.

Charney said you can also play with the anticipation of the reader by saying the character came upon the “mysteriously abandoned spot four centuries later,” thus inserting tension.

He explained that storyboarding looks like a comic book of a single image. As an author, you first map out your scenes, draw the reader’s view of your scenes, and consider scenes from different perspectives, or as different shots in a film.

For instance, you could write a story of a break-in from either the victim’s eyes or from the intruder’s eyes, or maybe from someone watching from a window nearby.

Likewise, varying camera shots can give different points of view, Charney explained, and these all lend to how you see the scene, providing immediacy and type of orientation.

Storyboarding a book into scenes is much like how I wrote “Mission Possible.” My father’s adventures in Brazil were similar to the Indiana Jones scenes Charney spoke of in his writing. And since my father was an artist, many of his illustrations were used in the book to give the reader a sense of where it was happening.

One scene in chapter 25 of “Mission Possible,” is perhaps one where I could have taken some time to draw the reader more inside the scene. In this scene, my father comes upon a colony where English settlers had built a mine over a century before.

The settlers had owned slaves who worked in the tunnels of the mines deep in the mountain, digging for gold-bearing ore. A cemetery lost in the jungle marked the graves of those who had died so far from their native lands.

On this adventure, my father’s troupe returns to explore the gold mines. In grass as high as their heads, they discover the hidden mine shafts and explore two of them. The tunnels were only four feet high and ran far back into the mountain.

Here, I note, “the air was close; but I, Oldelon and young Charles pressed on to the heart of the mountain. Far back at the end of the tunnel, we found the shackles of the slaves, along with the human bones, serving as grim reminders of the unfortunates that had been chained there to work their lives out in the darkness.”

I then write that the troupe agreed that, seeing all this, along with the gravestones in the English cemetery, formed an experience that they would carry with them all their days. But, how did young Charles feel when he saw human bones, possibly for the first time? Did George feel fear at his young troupe visualizing this? What were their expressions and speech like upon seeing this scene?

As the writer, I could envision all this, but for the most part, I left it up to the reader to see what they envisioned. In retrospect, I can see where imagination plays an important part. But if the reader hasn’t experienced such a scene, maybe his or her view would be different.

So, as much as I’d like my book to be made into a film someday, perhaps I can take some pleasure in giving my readers some visions of their own to experience. That, after all, is how the written version wins over in my view.

The final paragraph of the book brings this into perspective: “There is, after all, great good in returning to a landscape that has had extraordinary meaning in one’s life. May we always remember the path that leads us back for a sequel waiting to happen, even if that return is only in our mind’s eye.”