Creative Writing: Write Your Novel By Watching Movies First

While on a simple mission with a ship full of Star Fleet trainees, Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew are attacked by Khan, a man Kirk banished to a desolate planet fifteen years prior. A tactical cat-and-mouse game ensues as the captain struggles to pit his skill against Khan’s thirst for vengeance, and costing Kirk more than he ever imagined.

TAKEAWAY:

Use all five (or more) senses.

Create thematic mileage.

Craft patterns in the story.

Make deliberate choices.

In a bid to escape his past, notorious lawman Wyatt Earp moves his family to Tombstone, Arizona, but a murderous band of outlaws forces him back into wearing a badge.

TAKEAWAY:

Sometimes it’s better to reveal things about your protagonist or antagonist by how others treat them and talk about them.

Detroit cop Axel Foley goes in search of the people who killed his friend, a small-time hood who had stolen bonds from a smuggler living in Beverly Hills.  

TAKEAWAY:

Put exposition into scenes where possible, where something is happening.

Obstacles come in many forms.

Decorated Vietnam veteran John Rambo breaks out of a small town jail after severe PTSD flashbacks, setting him and the town sheriff on a violent path, bent on one another’s destruction.

TAKEAWAY:

Everyone thinks they are right.

Everyone is human.

A group of men are completely immortal unless someone cuts off their heads. At some point in the future, all who are left will fight to the death, leaving only one. The One will gain superpowers to do with as he pleases.

TAKEAWAY:

If you need a prologue, you may have started the story in the wrong place.

Successful high concepts tend to be simple, but must be supported by actual characters.

A kid from New Jersey gets bullied by his SoCal black-belt classmates until a kindly fix-it man teaches him karate.

TAKEAWAY:

Don’t let your villains be cardboard cutouts.

After a New York cop takes a job in a small beach town, a monster man-eating shark begins feasting on the locals and threatening the town’s primary economic engine: The summer tourist season.

TAKEAWAY:

Work towards economy in your narrative and dialogue.

Several unsavory stories and characters interweave over the course of a day in Los Angeles as one criminal questions his purpose in life.

TAKEAWAY:

Dialogue can and should be used for double duty whenever possible.

Following graduation, kickboxing student Lloyd Dobbler woos valedictorian Diane Court despite the misgivings Diane’s father.

TAKEAWAY:

Speaking of bad guys—antagonists, specifically—motivate yours out of love whenever you can.

Five high schoolers endure a Saturday in detention, starting off as complete strangers and enemies, but discovering they have more in common than they ever thought.

TAKEAWAY:

Characters should always be doing something, even if quietly.

Daring archeologist Indiana Jones pursues the lost ark of the covenant while Nazis race to obtain it first to exploit its potential supernatural power.

and

A group of geeky friends is traumatized when one of their girlfriends pokes a big hole in the aforementioned plot.

TAKEAWAY:

We watch, read, and love movies and books for characters. That’s it. Without characters we love, a story is just a travelogue, at best.