Don't Let Movies Sabotage Your Writing

Glad to see someone finally address the biggest issue I have while writing. I’ve been binging your content for the past few days. Great stuff 👍

Great advice. A novel is not a screenplay. Why even bother writing one if you only try things that a movie could do better?

You are right on the mark with your section on internals. I feel like there are such an abundance of writing advice videos that stress the "show don't tell" philosophy so much that as a writer I feel guilty if I try to go into what my character is thinking. "You can't SAY how and why he's frustrated, you have to show him rubbing the bridge of his nose and looking down shaking his head and let the reader surmise the reason!" Not only does this showing get very tiring and repetitive, but whenever I break away from it I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Glad to hear (for once, really) that it is okay to spend some time exploring the character's thoughts in a few sentences or even a paragraph. One video I saw basically forbid any telling and said if I want to be a good writer that "99%" of my text should be showing, which, when I tried it, resulted in a very dry script, like it was just stage play directions.

Apart from the excellent content (as usual), I must compliment you on the stellar video editing. Best irony: you were providing tips on how to excel in writing without emulating other media BUT you more than delivered on the visual pizzazz. I salute you. 😃

Comic books imitate movies too much these days as well.

Great video man! I started to adapt my screenplays into books, and the challenge has been trying to leverage the book form. This stuff is super useful!

One of the great advantages of watching lots of Korean and Chinese dramas is that you often hear character's thoughts in voiceover. Though it is a bit confusing when you're watching a fantasy cdrama and you're not sure if the voiceover is two character's talking telepathically, or just their internal thoughts. 😂

I might do that final exercise with Sam’s speech from LOTR

So glad you have a YouTube channel! Just came from your website, it was so helpful! Thank you!

I think this is fantastic advice , even for screenwriters

Love these videos! Short, sweet, useful and original. New favourite channel!

I come for the info and stay for the muscles ;)

Great advice thank you!

Excellent!

Your videos are SO fun and informative! I am a happy new subscriber.

That was a really well-made video. Informative and entertaining.

I read a lot more now and watch less tv.

Great video, snappy delivery! Loved the strong man fallacy, LOL

Do you have an opinion on reading books versus listening to audiobooks? I tend to read nonfiction but listen to fiction.

Where was this video 6 years ago when I needed to be told novels need interiority...