How Filmmaking Made Me a Better Descriptive Writer

When I was in college, the most defining feedback on my work came from my advisor Kathlene, who told me:

Which was fair. I hated, and still certainly struggle with, describing things. It’s never my first priority, never what excites me most in the drafting phase. I’m a character writer, not a world-builder. Not sure if that’s been made clear yet.

So I took this advice all the way to a graduate degree in Writing and Producing for Television, a style of writing that actively discourages you from describing things too much on the page because then you’re stealing opportunities for the directors and cinematographers to put their stamp on the visuals. I only have to write dialog?! Sign me up!

Then a pandemic happened, and a romance novel hyperfixation, and suddenly, I found myself back in the prose trenches. However, *Wicked voice* I had been changed for good. Specifically, because of production design, though perhaps I’ll be back in a few months to tell you about some other ways filmmaking influenced and improved my writing (foreshadowing).

Production Design: What Your Space Says About You

My very first film collaboration was on my web series, Brains, a zombie series about Alison Sumner (played by me) as she vlogged her college experience after the apocalypse started to let up and the internet came back. We were very much influenced by the narrative vlogs of the time (the series ran from 2015-2017) like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Carmilla, so naturally much of our time was spent in the character Alison’s dorm room.

Prior to being a filmmaker myself, I didn’t really spend a lot of time viewing media consciously considering the spaces characters inhabited. That didn’t mean I wasn’t absorbing something, though.

My production designer Page Schumacher (who now stages window displays professionally and also did our zombie makeup) was given $12 and free range, and here’s what we created together:

Important details:

• Torn posters. This was the post-apocalypse, many of Alison’s fellow students had fled campus or died, and Alison is a practical girl. We imagined that Alison, at some point, looted her classmates’ former dorm rooms, which led to an eclectic series of very basic-looking dorm room posters that were a little worse for the wear. World building: everything still exists, but in a state of disrepair, and likely much of her decor was looted. Also, the character prioritized science-y imagery, indicating she’s a STEM student
• Anatomically corrected phrenology poster. The centerpiece of our torn and looted posters was a phrenology poster (a eugenics pseudoscience) that Page went through and corrected with the anatomically correct areas of the brain, as Alison was a neuropsychology major. Much of the show is about Alison and her friends’ study of the brain (zombie and human alike… get it?? Brains??) and Page reasoned that when Alison found this nonsense phrenology poster, she liked a colorful brain poster but disliked its pseudoscience. World building: the character’s voice and priorities, not to mention her course of study.
• Skeleton endocrine system covering its balls. Made by my friend Chris in AP Psychology in high school and then gifted to me at the end of the semester, I was delighted this made it into Alison’s production design for three reasons- 1, an Easter Egg for my friend, 2, more skull/science imagery that felt on-brand, and 3, the articulated paper limbs allowed us to give the skeleton various poses in different episodes, aiding the tone of the show. This was a comedy series (or, as my director once called it, a horror series the protagonist thinks is a rom com), so this helped us add subtle levity to the frame so that no matter how dark things got for the characters, we knew there’s always a joke lurking as a counterbalance. World building: tone
• Ruffled sheets & discarded clothes. Alison, despite being a Type-A Science Girlie, is also kind of a mess. Emotionally, but also literally. World building: externalizing a character’s inner turmoil
• The color red. Early in the series, Alison states her thesis: she’s trying to seduce a cute boy in her class/survivor group, and while she ingratiates herself into his life, she’s also trying to subtly push him in the right direction (while also not-so-subtly flirting like a maniac). She’s doing this with color psychology- red stimulates your adrenal glands and primes your brain for sexy times (given that it’s present on someone you’re already theoretically hypothetically attracted to). As a result, there’s a clear bias in her looting towards items of decor and clothing with a prominent red accent. World building: the character’s hyperfocus, but also, a tone indicator- bold saturated colors implies a brighter and more comic-book-like tone, versus a gritty The Walking Dead-style project

And this relates to prose…how?

Before filmmaking, my reaction to feedback inquiring about character’s spaces was “I mentioned they’re in a living room. You’ve seen a living room before. Use your imagination.”

But spaces tell us about more than just the physical scenarios the characters find themselves in- they tell us about the tone of the piece in the language used, they tell us about the people who live there and their priorities, and they also tell us how the people who live in those spaces want to be perceived by others. It’s world building, yes, but it’s also character design, and the way a character reflects on their own space in describing it to readers, or a new character reacts upon being invited in, are extremely telling.

So now, when I get to a point in a novel draft where I’m entering a new place, I think… how would I dress this set?

What does YOUR space say?

Take a look around you right now, even if you aren’t at home (but especially if you are):

• What are the primary colors of the space around you, and how do they make you feel?
• What are unique items or elements within the space that mark it as this space and not another?
• Is it cluttered, messy, neat, spare?
• If you were to tell me about the person who designed this space based solely on how looks, what would you say?

A living room isn’t just a living room. An office isn’t just an office. Humans made the world and sell the trinkets and place the trinkets just so and all of that tells us something, or can. The curtains might just be blue… but if the writer chose to give them color, what can we learn just from that?

If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t have been written down, and if you, like me, sometimes struggle with things that in your mind don’t matter, consider making them matter. If I’m bored when I’m writing the description to a scene, then that’s not the scene’s fault. It’s a necessity to describe the rooms where my characters exist… but it doesn’t have to be a chore, and thanks to filmmaking, and zombies, and my friend Page, it’s not anymore.

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