Lights! Camera! Fiction!: The Movie Lover's Guide to Writing a Novel

by Val Daniels and Alfie Thompson

Book Overview

How many times have you watched a popular movie and thought, "I'd like to write something like that," or "Even I can write better dialogue " Here's your chance to learn how to write a novel...by... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 076242401X
• ISBN13: 9780762424016
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The Writer's Bible

This is a fantastic book for writers and avid movie goers. It breaks down the tools of the trade plus gives excellent tips to improve one's writing. I especially liked the "Quick Fixes" which cut to the chase and gives quick techniques to make your story stronger. Thompson's movie selections are great and they address each aspect of story telling. No writer should be without this book!

Excellent ! This is seven-star book

Five stars is not enough for this book. It's in a category of its own because of the quality of the information, and the fact that it is put across so painlessly, using examples from popular films. The title suggests it's a book about films. It's not, it's about how to write a good novel, but it uses films to show examples of plot characterisation, suspense etc. ( The author has published ten novels as Val Daniels. ) I've read and studied most of the available how-to-write books, and this one is the most enjoyable to read, and provides the most useful teaching. She explains a topic, why it is important, then gives examples of HOW it has been cleverly used in films. ( It would make a great gift for a writer friend but if you don't have it yourself, buy it now. I've gleaned more useful gems from this book than from dozens of writing magazines. ) It covers: Characterisation, External Goals and Motivation, Internal Goals and Character Growth, Premise, Creating Tension, Conflict, Suspending Disbelief. Then it has three chapters based on using the points already covered : Five Star Plotting, Putting it all Together, Parting Thoughts and Other Useful Stuff. It includes some forms at the back to help you apply the points, and the book itself is a comfortable read, being printed on white paper with white space on the pages. The main films used are: the Sandra Bullock film 'While You Were Sleeping', Spider-man, Speed, Clueless, Lethal Weapon, The Sixth Sense, Die Hard, Bridget Jones Diary, Jaws. If you're thinking well those are not very good films for the sort of book I want to write, be patient. You'll be amazed at how much you will learn about character development from the examples she uses, and you'll also want to watch those films again. As an example of the quality teaching, 'Premise' has always been a woolly concept for me. I've read about it in other books -James N Frey covers it well, but it somehow has never fully sunk in, and I keep having to go back over it. She covers premise by coming at it from different angles, explains how other writers have decribed it, and offers examples, so I ended up with a far better understanding of what it is, why it's important, and how to apply it to my writing. But the main benefit I got from this book is the way it lets you relate one concept to another so I now have a far better understanding of why characterisation / goal / motivation / premise / backstory are there and how they relate to one another. I would highly recommend James Scott Bell's 'Plot and Structure' as an overall primer book for writing a novel. I would also highly recommend Les Edgerton's 'Hooked' as a second level book, but as a sheer enjoyable read, and a book to painlessly improve overall understanding of the key topics above, especially characterisation, this one is the best.

My new favorite book on how to write a novel

Alfie Thompson's guide to writing novels is a "must have" for any writer's library. The book goes beyond the dense discourse found in so many writing instruction books and provides a practical "how to" approach that that teaches the reader to watch movies with a writer's eye. Her approach provides an exceptionally fast and effective way for a fiction writer to absorb proven techniques for developing characters, creating interesting plots, building scenes, establishing motivation, strengthening conflict and fixing problems in a story. Well organized and easy to read, this book is now my favorite book on writing a novel!

A guide to writing great novels especially for movie lovers

A Novel Approach To Writing: Lights! Camera! Fiction! by movie buff and professional writing instructor Alfie Thompson is a guide to writing great novels especially for movie lovers. Chapters instruct how to watch movies with a writer's eye for what works and what doesn't, blending believable character traits into scenes and plots, using goals to reveal character motivation, judiciously applying foreshadowing and flashback, the power of the suspense of disbelief and how to encourage it, smooth plotting, and much more. A Novel Approach To Writing is a valuable supplement to aspiring and practicing fiction writers, outlining how to absorb the most advanced techniques and inspiration from multimedia experiences and transform it into improved quality within one's own work.

Absolutely Fantastic!

This is a novel approach to writing...using movies to explain character development, external goals and motivation, internal goals and character development, premise (one of the biggies, that's hard to explain at times), tension, conflict, etc., etc., etc.... If you're a visual learner, this book will explain what hours of workshops fail to do...seeing what Ms. Thompson has done on the page to explain all of the above, seems so simple. But then all great ideas do seem simple once explained. (Duh!) I sure wish she would have written this book ten years ago, it would have saved me a lot of time in trying to write a compelling novel. My red hat off to you...you deserve it!