5 TIPS ON WRITING VISUALLY by Paul Gallagher

1. Think of your scene like a moving painting, with its own narrative, an unfolding event , with a story that unfolds through space -  in the foreground, middle ground and background, and through time - with a beginning, middle and end.

2. Choreograph your visual actions like a dance of intentions.  It is the interplay of two people’s desires, conscious or unconscious,  a dialectic of forces,  and the interchange leads  to an outcome which  is not exactly the intention of either, and it is a surprise.

3. Show the visual interaction between your character and their world. Use it as a metaphor for the person’s inner state, their feelings, confusions, conflicts.  And when the character has a choice, a decision to make, illustrate the consideration of this decision by showing  their alternatives in  opposing visual ideas.

4. Think of your story like walking through an unknown building, discovering the spaces and events in each room, and then beginning to understand the architecture. Ask what happens and how it happens in each of your locations. Who else is there? How do the things happening in each room interact with your character’s story? And remember the accidental and the random is a part of life too,  this opens a scene up, making it alive and credible to an audience. 

5. The physical place is part of the character’s life, and their story.  Where is their home? What do they feel about it? Where do they escape to?  Where do they feel comfortable and where do they  feel ill at ease? And they will be discovering new places, how is it that they have come there?  And who do they encounter in these new places?  How does it change them?