Back in the late 1960s or early 1970s, Algis Budrys wrote an excellent series of columns for LOCUS magazine on what he called “cinematic prose,” using his Hugo-nominated novel Rogue Moon as an example. Alas, my copies have long since vanished into wherever things go when one has moved house multiple times over that many years, but I still remember some of what he said.
Chiefly, what I remember is his emphasis on the necessity for vivid visuals and over-the-top actions on the part of the characters, because in camera-eye, the visuals and actions are all the writer has to work with. In this kind of viewpoint, the writer can’t dip into anyone’s thoughts. He can only show whatever is on the surface…so he has to pick characters and situations where a lot shows on the surface.
Most of what I’ve learned about camera-eye since those early articles, I learned when I was asked to novelize the most recent three “Star Wars” movies as middle-school paperbacks. The job was a lot harder than I anticipated (partly because turning a 120-page screenplay into a 120-page novel means that every time you want to add something, like a description, you have to cut some of what’s already there). But the real difficulty came because of the difference in viewpoint.
Screenplays are, obviously, written for the camera. They don’t waste words or space on things the camera can’t see. Because I chose to write the novelizations as multiple-tight-third-person, I had to put in all those things…which meant I had to think a lot about the differences between camera-eye and tight-third-person prose.
True camera-eye has some fairly extreme limitations: no direct thoughts or emotions, no physical sensations (whether internal ones, like a sinking sensation in the character’s stomach, or external ones, like the feel of cool water running across a hand), no smells or tastes, not even the POV’s guesses about what characters are thinking (a camera can’t guess). The camera reports what it can see and hear, and that’s it. This viewpoint is generally thought of as both difficult to write (because the writer has fewer tools to work with) and distancing (because the writer can’t get inside the viewpoint character’s head – indeed, one could argue that there isn’t a viewpoint character at all, just someone the camera spends most of its time focused on).
Camera-eye has some advantages, though, which I might not have noticed if I hadn’t been converting a screenplay into a novel. The biggest one is the ability to change focus easily in mid-scene. In tight-third, once the writer has picked the viewpoint character for a scene, that person has to be at least present for the whole scene, and usually not just present, but involved in whatever action or conversation is happening. In camera-eye, the camera can follow the conversation or the action, rather than one particular character.
For instance, take a dinner scene in which the characters get into an argument. Eventually, Character A stands up and storms out. In a tight-third scene, with A as the viewpoint character, that would have to be the end of the scene; if the writer wanted to show the reader whatever happens next, he’d have to start a new scene with a new viewpoint character (which isn’t possible if the writer has chosen to write single rather than multiple viewpoint). In camera-eye, the writer doesn’t have to end the scene or follow A out of the room; the camera can focus on A until he storms out of the room and then pull back and continue to watch whatever reactions the rest of the people at the dinner table have to A’s abrupt exit.
Camera-eye is even more useful when there’s a less obvious division within a scene – say, a dinner party for twelve, where there are bits of important/interesting conversation going on all up and down the table. It would be tough for one single tight-third viewpoint character to see all of the important bits, but a camera-eye (or an omniscient) viewpoint can follow the key conversations wherever they lead.
Quite often, a multiple-viewpoint novel will have most of its scenes written in tight-third with different POV characters, but one or two scenes done in camera eye. These are usually glimpses of the villain(s), and the writer uses camera eye because it keeps the reader out of the villain’s head, and therefore limits the reader’s knowledge of just what the villain is really up to.
Camera-eye seems to be becoming more popular lately, possibly because the visual media (TV, movies, videos) have become so pervasive. I personally still prefer tight-third in most cases, because I think that the ability to show the viewpoint character’s thoughts is one of the advantages prose has over film, and why not use all the advantages one can get? Nevertheless, there are times and stories when camera-eye is just the thing (and flexibility is also an advantage). And it’s always good to have another tool in one’s writing toolbox.
Very interesting. Now I’m trying to remember if I’ve read any books in camera eye… I do think a lot of young writers start out writing more cinematically, and then get encouraged to deepen their POV. Don’t know if that’s good or bad.
I recently fell in love with a Camera Eye type writing style when reading Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones. The book itself I found lost its luster as it went into the second and third sections, but the writing of it was brilliant – it was written as a physical description of the movements/etc. that occurred, and used facial expressions, allusions to similar scenes in other movies/books, and his use of switching perspective mid-scene was GORGEOUS.
It was the first horror novel that actually gave me chills or kept me from sleeping, mostly mid-first-part, and I’m kind of really excited to try it sometime in a short story or something. : ] Because it gave you the visuals of a movie while somehow still injecting an emotive response. It both opens and limits the interpretable pallet!
I never thought of the ties between camera eye and omnescent. Interesting.
As I said in an earlier post I’ve been working on the camera-eye for my current WIP. I haven’t got it totally down as I’ve stuck in some sort of narrator. Given how the book is set up, it might work out okay, but in the edit I might get rid of it and go for pure camera-eye for some of the more over-the-top characters just to see how it works.
I’ve written a novella in camera-eye. I have no clue how well it works, I never had it beta-read. The whole finding readers and getting feedback thingy seems to be getting to be a bigger and bigger problem for me as time goes by. Nowadays I’ll accept almost any excuse to not even bother trying.
(Ironically, I was talking about my difficulties in getting feedback on my work to someone at World Fantasy — all about how the last thing I sent to critters.org got only one response during its week and that wasn’t worth the time investment of being a member, and how when I ask friends I’m lucky to hear back from more than one in four, and so forth, and she said “Send something to me, I will tell you what I think — If I think it’s good, I will say so, and if I think it stinks, I will say so.” So I sent her something. I haven’t heard back.)
@Michelle
Hmm…… a consistent problem of non-response? Sounds like your books have a problem of being “meh”. Try writing something deliberately over-the-top-horrible to see if its your friends or the books’ fault.
(Plus – writing ‘horrible’ on purpose is a pretty fun writing exercise)
@Michelle
PS – I went to your website you have linked to give some feeback on the short stories you have posted. But…. the email button is broken. Also, I think it would be kinda rude to do a critique in public on someone else’s blog. How do I contact you?
PPS – The email/comment function on my link works fine.
@Esther mbottorff at lshelby period com
@ Esther
If you tried sending me something, it hasn’t arrived yet.
@Esther
I got your feedback today, thank you very much!
I notice that the only thing that you seemed to find ‘meh’ you also thought read like many published books. That doesn’t make me hugely inclined to attempt any changes. I am glad you found the other stories you looked at more interesting.
@Michelle
Didn’t you read the posts here about writing so Publishers will like it? (hint: don’t) You and the publisher make money when the READERS like your work enough to spend $$ on it. Simply being “not bad” is never good enough. You want people to want your stuff! I seriously recommend taking both short stories off your site. They do nothing to encourage people to buy your stuff. The first chapter of your book you have posted does a much better job.