Aatif Rashid March 8, 2021
I teach a class on Setting and Description at the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program, and many of the readings I assign make me think of comparisons between film and fiction. When you’re choosing short stories and novel excerpts for a class on setting, the similarities between these two forms become obvious much like a good filmmaker, a writer with a strong sense of place will take the time to write out paragraphs that have the same function as establishing shots in a scene in a movie: glimpses of the surrounding environment, where the characters are sitting, a sense of the atmosphere, the surrounding views, the sounds. In fiction, you can go even further than sight and sound, and good writers will detail their scenes with smells and feelings and tastes as well, a full sensory array to make the world feel real and vivid.