Mr. Math is on a spy movie kick lately and that’s just fine with me. One of the best ways to learn storytelling techniques is by watching movies – not that anyone needs an excuse! – and one of the best ways to learn new storytelling techniques is to watch movies from outside of the genre in which you write.
I also really like spy movies. The good ones have awesome pacing and lots of plot twists, all of which make perfect sense once they’ve been revealed. A good spy movie – or a good mystery – is like a jigsaw puzzle in which all the pieces come together perfectly. The climax makes complete sense when it’s revealed, yet was hard to see before it was revealed. And to be fair, all the clues need to be available to the viewer. This is sleight of hand of the highest level in storytelling, striking that balance between providing information yet still managing to surprise, and is always worth further study.
This does, btw, mess with my tv knitting if I have to watch every second of the movie to ensure that I don’t miss a clue, but if the movie is good, it’s worth it!
Recently we watched CASINO ROYALE, the newish one with Daniel Craig. I remember that there was a lot of uproar about his being cast as Bond, but he was fantastic in the role. CR is probably the most interesting of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels – it’s the first story, the one in which Bond earns his double-0 status and the case that makes him into the spy he becomes. It’s about character development and emotional scars, and it’s a very good book. This version of the movie was really good, too, even with the changes that seem inevitable when a book is made into a screenplay.
We also have been watching a lot of adaptations of John le Carré spy novels, and that’s started me on reading his books. More on that tomorrow.
If you’re a writer, do you watch movies to learn about storytelling? Or do you have another tool for developing your storytelling skills? Whether you’re a reader or not, do you like to be surprised by movies or do you prefer to be able to predict what’s going to happen next?
Deborah Cooke & Her Books 
As a reader, I like THINKING I know what’s going to happen. I’ve collected clues and bits of information along the way and developed my own version of what’s going to happen. The fun is finding out if I’m right or not. If the author changes “my” ending – that’s OK as long as it’s not contrived out of thin air. It’s my fault if I misinterpreted the clues.
Movies are a great way to study how to develop characters in a short amount of time. It’s always interesting to figure out how to translate the visual medium of a single shot into the word version.
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