Visual Writing

How many times have you quoted a piece of dialogue while picturing in your mind the character or circumstance from which it was being said?

Remember Robert Duvall in APOCALYPSE NOW stating the infamous “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”? We can actually visualize him saying it in our minds. Same with Stallone’s ROCKY character at the end yelling “Adrienne!” with the visual of Rocky’s bloody face of victory. Or the “Run, Forrest, Run!” and we visualize Forest Gump running and losing his leg braces. You get the picture.

Visual Writing is essential to making your story memorable. You don’t remember what you read or hear. You remember the visual in your mind while reading description or dialogue in a book or watching a movie.

So how do you write like that? It’s simple. Try the following exercise:

Look at this sentence: “He was walking across it.

Not much visual there. First, change the boring, non-descriptive pronouns ‘He’ and ‘it’. Who is ‘He’? What is ‘He’ walking across? Here’s a change:

“The drunk was walking across the street.” Better but not enough.

Cut passive verbs like ‘was’ and try to write as much as possible in the present. Now we have: “The drunk walks across the street.” Better but still not enough.

Describe the drunk physically. What kind of ‘walk’ is he engaged in characteristic of a drunk? Why is he crossing the street?

Here’s one way to rewrite the sentence:

“The old, homeless drunk staggers across the street and stumbles over the curb, shattering his Vodka bottle right in front of Joe’s Bar.”

Of course, there are many ways to rewrite this sentence for a more visual impact. But I’m sure you get the idea. Notice the word choice “staggers” matches the trait of a drunk. Really important to match trait with action but that’s another article.

By removing all pronouns and passive verbs as much as possible then replacing them with more visual words, your characters and stories are guaranteed to be more visually memorable.