What’s one difference between film narrative and written narrative?
Montage.
You know what I’m talking about when I say montage, right?
Montages are some of the most cliche, the most parodied scenes of all cinema—the “falling in love” montage; the “getting ready for battle” montage; the “getting ready to put a plan into action” montage.
The reason for montage is interesting when you think about it.
Film always has to show particular people doing particular things at a particular time. That’s the nature of film. Thus, whenever a filmmaker needs to convey the sense of something happening—“growing up” or “building something cool”—they have to use a few conventional tricks to make the illusion happen.
Montages are often accompanied by music. They usually lack dialogue but can be accompanied by narration from the main character. Viewers know montages are a special cinematic space. They know they’re different from the way the majority of the movie typically works.
I could write a book about this, but someone probably already has.
My point is, the very thing that can seem like a weakness of film is actually a great strength of fiction writing—the ability to present life in summary, to pass over great swaths of time or describe the sense of an emotion without actually having to rely on scene.
Many inexperienced writers sometimes forget about summary.
Their stories feature one scene after another, rarely pulling back to take advantage of the full range of tools available to fiction writers.
I’m no exception. As someone who grew up in our highly visual culture, I sometimes have to remind myself that I have the power of summary at my disposal.
In fact, as I mention in a prior post, stories are composed of switching back and forth between scene and summary. By not using summary, writers are depriving themselves of a major narrative tool!
I firmly agree. Summary is a powerful (and fun!) tool in fiction. Personally, I love to pull back and describe the history of a particular object, event or character for no reason really other than to satisfy my own curiosity as a writer.
Thanks for reading! I’m glad the post makes sense
Film and books. Totally different art forms. Like comparing a painting to a sculpture. I think many folks get confused when they read a book then view its film interpretation. It’s just not fair.
For sure… I didn’t have time to write about it in this post because I need to do some more thinking/research, but I’ve observed that (in general) the more you’re able to compress time in film to make events seem to happen one after another the more powerful the film is… meanwhile in novels/short stories this level of immediacy isn’t particularly important, and some might argue that the best written work is able to evoke the passage of time.
Oh yeah, film does this with pinache. Nice topic to explore.
You make an excellent point. Film and fiction are two very different art forms with different strengths and weaknesses, but one of my favorite things about writing is being able to spend an entire paragraph or even a page describing what someone is thinking and feeling in a moment. Though film has the advantage of using actors to capture an emotion in one expression, there’s nothing like verbalizing everything going on inside of a character when you write. I’m new to your blog, but I’m really enjoying it and finding it helpful in getting me motivated to write!
Thanks for stopping by and for your support! You’re right–fiction can also slow down time in a way that film can’t! Let me know if there’s anything I can do here at TLN to make my blog even more thought provoking and inspiring
This is a really good post, the one on montage, scene and summary. Henry James talked a lot about picture and scene, other people oppose narrative and scene. Movies have (you’re right) made us forget that scene isn’t all there is!
Oh gawd this song sums it all up perfectly!
LOL – absolutely perfect! Thanks for posting — maybe I can work this into a future post somehow
Damn! Someone beat me to it. That montage song immediately came to mind when reading this.
You are definitely correct. It’s a full mental shift a writer has to make when going from scriptwriting to story form writing. While a film needs to have something happening 100% of the time, a story or novel can hit that pause button and be introspective. Books have dozens of ways to show the passage of time while film really only has two, the montage and title cards.
Title cards are for when you want the scene to go black and then have it say “6 months later” or “5 years later” on the screen. It’s considered the “cheap” way of doing it and is far less dramatic. A show like Law & Order uses title cards very liberally, but it works for the pacing of the show.
I had a really good editor of mine tell me once that he was glad on one of my story revisions that I took a moment to look into one of the character’s thoughts. According to him there was far too much dialogue and not enough reasoning behind the character’s words and actions. I was writing far too much like a scriptwriter instead of a novelist. Never forgotten what he told me and I make a point to look for parts where I can get introspective or just summarize what’s happened.
Like you said, scene and summary, scene and summary.
Again, great reminder. Love it.
Thanks! Glad to be helpful
I agree that montages are a weakness in comparison to novels or long form writing. But, in my mind anyway, they strike me more as verse – explosive images that convey feelings and emotions in a short space. I think the presence of songs that are usually chosen because they are the right pacing for the mood and have lyrics that also hone in on what the movie is trying to say also makes me liken it more to poetry rather than a straight up novel (I say poetry as a form, I’m not implying that all Hollywood montages are great pieces of art). I must admit though, I love montages. The song from South Park/Team America definitely sums it up hahaha. This is a great post. I’m a new follower, I’ll definitely read the archives. Have a good day.
Thanks for your comments and for checking out my blog! Yeah, there are exceptions to this “weakness” concept… and for some reason the two that are coming to mind are both animated films: the beginning sequence of the film “Up” and the sequence in “Toy Story 2″ when the cowgirl is abandoned by her owner. Both of them brought me to the verge of tears. Still, any time there is an extreme fragmentation in time I think it tends to weaken the narrative… the reason those two montages work is because 1) the Up montage occurs right at the beginning, and 2) the Toy Story 2 montage is a FLASHBACk rather than a flash forward, which I think makes a big difference. Definitely need to keep thinking about this more.
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