The Movie as a Limited Form of Narrative

Note: The second half of this blog post uses the new Netflix Original series ‘Stranger Things’ as a point of discussion, but reveals no spoilers or plot points.

I’m not a big movie guy. Name a classic movie that everybody’s seen, chances are, I haven’t seen it. And after we get done with the ten straight minutes of “So you’ve never seen [x]?!”, I’m just about ready to stop talking about movies altogether rather than justify my reasoning. But here it is: I think TV series do it better.

Well, ‘TV series’ is getting to be an outdated term, what with the increasing number of shows releasing directly to and exclusively on streaming services such as Netflix. And sure, there are some stories which suit a movie better than being stretched out over a series. But the downside of cinema is that you’re highly restricted by the length which your movie is allowed to air for, so as to get the optimum amount of showings in the theater per day. This often constricts narrative cohesion, with most movies having plenty of cut footage. There is no movie that I can think of where there hasn’t been at least one scene that should have been explored in greater depth, or one plot point that feels somewhat convoluted in order to get the rest of the movie rolling. Much of the time, it’ll feel like we’ve barely become acquainted with a set of characters before we’re meant to be fearing for their lives, or rooting for their romantic interests, or whatever the subject of the movie is about.

‘TV Series’, on the other hand, have more than enough room for character development and a fully fleshed out plot. Often, of course, this leads to the opposite problem, with many series having ‘filler’ episodes (see: Breaking Bad’s fly episode), some plot points being redundant (see: Orphan Black S2E8) and the pace of the overarching narrative feeling a little too slow (see: The Flash, Season 1). But nothing is perfect; these are all good shows (in my opinion) and I’d much rather have something with a few redundancies that still makes sense, than something which is cut together and barely retains its narrative thread.

Fun fact: It is for almost the exact same reasons as I mentioned above that I thought season 8 of Doctor Who was just pants. They decided to do a series of non-linked, standalone episodes and almost every single one of them felt rushed and constricted.

Stranger Things just released on Netflix, and is what finally prompted me to write this blog post which has been brewing in the back of my mind for the better part of a year. Stranger Things has eight episodes, all of which were released at the same time, as many Netflix Originals now do. However, I believe that there was more of a solid reason behind why the Duffer Brothers released them this way (if it was in fact their decision). At the end of my viewing I felt that I’d watched an eight hour movie as opposed to a TV series, and lo and behold, when I looked this up, many others felt the same way. The Duffer Brothers stated that they envisioned it as an eight hour movie themselves, so kudos to them for achieving their desired effect.

I’m not a specialist in writing for screen. We had a few modules about it on my Creative Writing course (which I just found out I achieved a 2:1 in, go me!), but we didn’t delve too deeply into the overall craft of making a screenplay, and therefore I’m no expert on what the narrative difference between a movie and a TV series is besides quantity, and basing your structure around that. This eight-hour movie concept, then, is an abstract one to me, as there must have been a reason as to why I pegged it as more of a movie narrative myself. I just can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s to do with the fact that the series is more of a self-contained story (which may or may not have an ambiguous ending or some loose ends, I leave that for your viewing discovery), whereas most TV series are written with narrative threads for future series in place.

All I know is this: It proves my point about the limitations of standardised screen times for movies. In eight hours, there was enough time for character development, emotional exploration, side-characters that felt real, suspense that lasted long enough, and a plot that wasn’t in a rush to get to the end. And yet, when I review it in my head, it doesn’t feel like it stretched out at all; nor does it feel like a TV series. I remember it like it was an hour and a half movie… just a real, damn good one. Of course, you wouldn’t sit in a movie theater for eight hours straight watching ‘Stranger Things’, and I won’t deny that the movie-going experience is an enjoyable social occasion that I’d hate to lose. But maybe it’s time for us to stop restricting ourselves to the current forms of narrative we perceive as absolutes, and step into unknown territories such as eight hour movie-series hybrids.

The Joys of Writing for Screen

It isn’t very often that writers get to play with writing in formats they’re not familiar with. As a young writer who has only just started his Creative Writing course, I have the privilege of discovering what it means to write in these new formats. I’m sure when I’m older I’ll miss this sensation.

Having to adapt is not a bad thing. There have been times when I’ve been writing a short story and have wished that I could just skip the descriptive writing and focus entirely on the dialogue; there have been times when I’ve felt the opposite. This isn’t a major problem as I’ll typically just write a dialogue heavy or overly descriptive story, but now I’ll stop to wonder if I shouldn’t simply write a screenplay instead.

I had to write a script for either stage or screen for my latest piece of coursework. Having only written a stage play once and never having seen a screenplay in my life, this prospect was both alarming and exciting. To begin with I decided to write a stage play, as I already have a small bit of experience in it. After writing two pages, however, I quickly discovered that this particular plot – a quick encounter between a beggar and two politicians rather conspicuously named David and George – had no substance. It was only after I’d written two pages of the play that my brain informed me that there was nowhere to go from here. Being eight pages away from a finished piece of coursework, I turned to screen.

The first thing I did was download Celtx. That program is simply benign. As I mentioned earlier, I’d never even read a screenplay, let alone written one, so I had no idea how to lay one out on paper. After grappling with the UI for about half an hour, I’d gotten the hang of Celtx, and from then on the pages went by a little too fast. When I printed it off, it actually looked like a real screenplay. It was fantastic. Hopefully the content was up to par too.

Perhaps this is just my experience, but writing a screenplay allowed me to focus more on characterisation than in a standard piece of prose. I felt like the text automatically focused on the characters and their nuances within conversation more than any short story ever could. It was an interesting experience to play with stage directions and pay close attention to how a character should say something and what their body language would be like when saying it. I focused on an argument between two characters who had met for the first time in four years, so naturally I had a playground of emotions to explore. We had to include a monologue too, which I naturally turned into a hate-fuelled rant. I loved it. It was liberating, in a way. I do worry that I was a little bit of a control freak with all the stage direction, though.

Maybe it’s just been a little too long since I wrote any good characters in a short story.

Anyway, that’s my take on writing in a different format for the first time. I can’t remember my first time writing short stories as I was too young; I believe I started at the age of six. (I would love to go back and read my first few, but sadly, those are forever lost. What does a six year old even write about? I vaguely remember floating islands.) I was barely a teenager when I began my first attempts at poetry, which I blundered my way through for years until I found a foothold in the climb to not being awful. I suppose this is the first real writing format that I’d been taught about before I even began to attempt it. Maybe that’s what started this entire experience.

The next time I write a new format will probably be the first time I truly throw everything I have into writing a novel. I’ve written chaptered stories before, but I hesitate to call them novels. Minimal effort went into them with no thinking ahead. Let’s call them something different. I’m going to go with… abominations.