I’m a very visual writer. To tell a story I have to see it as well as hear it and feel it. I need to find a personal way in to the story and I need to build the world which, in turn, provides story possibilities and detail to make the story feel real.
Before I wrote books I worked in film and TV for a few years and when you’re making a film you gather lots of visual and aural references – images, video, music and maps. I do the same thing when I’m writing a book.
Here are some of the key images I gathered during the writing of my new book The Fall and how they influenced the development of the Story, World and Characters.
CINEMATIC AND LITERARY INFLUENCES |
One of my favourite films is Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. It creates great suspense with few characters in a single location. It was a big influence on the development of The Fall. |
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I watched the Harrison Ford film Frantic and also The Bourne Identity when I was developing the story. These films have a good balance of action, suspense, character, heart and ideas. |
Sam Garner is a comic book creator. He’s writing a comic book series called Harry Garner: Crime Reporter about his dad. But real-life Harry is finding it hard to live up to the idealised version. Reading these comic books helped me to develop the creative, imaginative side of Sam’s personality.
WORLDBUILDING
A post shared by Tristan Bancks (@tristanbancksbooks) on
I often use Google Maps and Street View to gather details and lock down the location for a story. |
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Boss Fight is an amazing site with lots of extraordinary royalty-free images that helped me capture the tone and feeling of my story |
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When writing, I tend to keep an eye on the news. Sometimes there’ll be a story that resonates with what I’m writing and feeds the story with important real-life detail. |
BOOK SOUNDTRACK
Music helps to capture the tone and emotional core of a story. Above is the Spotify soundtrack I listened to while writing the book.
You can buy a copy of The Fall from your local bookseller, a signed copy from my online store here or you can buy it direct from a range of online booksellers like Dymocks, Readings, Booktopia, Boomerang Books etc here.
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To say an author is not driven by visual stimuli is a major inaccuracy. I love this visual pre-journey you take us on, Tristan. It is one I embark on on a much smaller scale when penning a picture book or short story, as well. Often times, without that visual anchor, I start to drift from the heart of the story. Thank you for your continued insight, even though this one did make me a little queasy from the height!
PS about to 'jump' into The Fall soon. 🙂
Thanks Dimity. Glad it's useful. I imagine picture book writing must be such a visual process, constantly imagining how the words can offset the illustrations and how you can avoid saying too much in the text. Happy writing to you. And hope you enjoy The Fall. Let me know if I can be useful to you on KBR. T.