Although they’re very different from novels, there’s still a lot a novelist can learn from movies and long-form television shows, as author Joanna Penn points out in this week’s featured article. And since I know a lot of y’all are fans of the television series created from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels (you know the television show as Game of Thrones), this one should really speak to you.
Penn offers up five lessons anyone who writes fiction can take from this highly successful franchise. (After all, 14.2 million viewers and 24 million books sold ain’t too bad.) Here’s what Game of Thrones has that you should remember:
1. High stakes = excitement, anticipation, and addiction in your audience.
2. Take the audience out of their lives for a time.
3. Give everyone a character to root for.
4. Create humorous breaks in the carnage.
5. Evoke emotion.
I happily admit I have neither read the books (I’m just not willing to commit myself to five—and two more are in the works—really, really long books with an average page count of 864) nor seen a single episode of the TV series, but it’s impossible to escape them in the popular culture. Maybe I’ll get to it when I retire! 🙂
In the meantime, check out Penn’s article and consider how to put these lessons to work in your own writing.
Tweet: What Game of Thrones can teach you about writing fiction.
Tweet: 14.2 million viewers and 24 million books sold? I’ll have what he’s having.
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