A new way to write?

So, it would appear that somewhen in the recent past, I made a transition in my writing. As I was working with a friend and colleague the other day on a novel we’re writing, I realized that something significant had changed.

I no longer write in words. I now write in pictures.

This is not to say that I have become an animator or that my writing implement of choice is a paint brush or crayon (nothing wrong with those choices) but rather that when I imagine a scene in my head, I no longer think to describe it in words but literally as visuals.

This may not sound like much to you, but for me—who has long held myself to be a wordsmith, first and foremost—it is huge.

For quite some time, I have been taking screenwriting classes, and the one comment that has been made consistently throughout that time is that I write like a novelist. I have mentioned before my affinity for narrative and my need to describe a scene to within a literal inch of its setting. Well, it would appear that in trying to break myself of the verbosity, I have swung all the way into pictures, leaving words in my dust.

For the case in point, I was trying to describe to my colleague how we might open the novel at the end of our story and then transition from one event at the end to a metaphorically similar point at the beginning of the story, which all sounded great until I tried to put that down on paper.

I managed to cobble together some verbiage that roughly describes what I saw, but I know it will take some time to effectively capture the visual in words…time I am more than happy to put in. But it rocked me to realize that I no longer saw things the same way.

Oh, my God. You don’t think… Nah, couldn’t be. I’m still working on being a writer.

Dear God, please don’t tell me, I’m thinking about become a… ugh, I can’t say it… a… a… director!

Anyone have a beret and megaphone I could borrow?

(Images are property of owners and used here without permission because that is Legal’s problem.)