In a new post on Nail Your Novel, Roz Morris says a little television is ok, but too much can spoil your writing. While we can learn a lot about pacing, character, dialogue, and structure from television, particularly great programs, there are also a lot pitfalls, Morris says.
Are you thinking with TV brain when you right? Morris says you might be, if your stories have these problems:
- Lack of description. “In a movie or TV show, the scene-setting isn’t dwelt on, so it doesn’t get noticed,” Morris writes. “However, prose needs to take deliberate extra beats to create the environment because the reader can’t see what’s around the characters.” Don’t just describe your setting – immerse your characters in it and use setting as part of the action.
- Lack of background about the viewpoint characters. “We see them doing things, but we don’t know who they are, where they are, why they are there, how old they are,” Morris says. “In a movie or TV show, we get all this at a glance. In prose, we need to be told.”
- Lack of interiority and reaction. In film, we almost never get inside a character’s mind, but in prose, it’s almost always necessary. “If your narrative style allows, remember you can let the reader experience the reaction in the character’s mind and heart,” Morris advises. “Don’t just show it on the outside with facial expressions and dialogue.”
- Dialogue lacks an interior dimension. As above, dialogue does a lot of heavy lifting in tv and film. The audience can infer a lot of interiority from the character’s movement, facial expressions, or tone of voice.
- Dialogue has too many mundanities. TV characters can get away with saying hello, talking about the weather, and discussing lunch, partly because something physical is happening at the same time. Prose characters can’t do this. “Although you need some of this, and scene setting is important, you don’t need nearly as much as a TV or movie script would,” Morris says. Use it if you have to, but keep it simple.
