Anatomy of a Novel #18
The storytelling power of 'quiet moments' - what I'm learning from screenwriting
I’ve been reading the screenplay of Moonlight—which, incidentally, won the Oscars eight years ago1—and I find myself talking about it at every opportunity. Its rule-breaking in terms of storytelling conventions has totally put a jump in my step.
This movie is at once subversive, poetic, shocking, tender, and deeply interior.
The fact that this “small” production got so much attention and won an Oscar is astonishing. A coming of age story about a shy, gay, black kid from Miami? A story where the fireworks (bullying, drug dealing, drug taking, death and violence) all happen off screen?
A film that includes scenes and long moments when not a single word is uttered and yet we know exactly what the characters are thinking? Yes!
The quiet moments reign supreme in this story. In a world in which being loud is a virtue, a world that demands us to be fast moving and quick to judgment, this is truly subversive.
High concept, action-oriented, page turners: commercial fiction
Literary agents want “high concept” books because these are the types of books that sell. Think Taylor Jenkins Reid, Britt Bennett, Cormac McCarthy. The premise is easy to explain and the plot usually has a great twist (and isn’t overly concerned with “being realistic”).
It’s about excitement and suspense on a grand scale: what will happen?
The thing is, “low concept” stories can also be compelling—yes, they, too, need a driving question but above all they need VOICE. For them to compel us, they must be written in a way that pulls readers/viewers into the interior life of the characters, so we feel emotionally invested in whatever the outcome is.
The question of Moonlight isn’t: will the world be saved?, it’s: will Little/ Chiron/ Black (the protagonist) be strong enough to become who he is meant to be?
Seriously. That’s the core of the story: self-actualization. And it had me glued to the page. How did screenwriter Barry Jenkins DO this?
Try a little tenderness
In the above scene, nothing happens except that Little/ Chiron (now, in Act III, referred to as “Black” since he’s become a tough guy) looks at the boxer shorts he hand washed earlier. That’s the whole scene. It’s a turning point that catapults him into action, kicking him off on a 12 hour drive to return to Miami to track down the boy he was in love with as a teen.
What’s great about reading screenplays is that it’s easy to “see” the story developing on the page, even though or perhaps because there’s so little description, characterization and scene setting. It’s an excellent way for novel writers to study plot.
You can find many screenplays for free here; so far I’ve read, The Bear, Moonlight, Casablanca, Psycho, The Beef and The Florida Project.
My agent and various book editors have always told me, “I want to know more about what s/he is feeling,” not trusting that the reader will get it.
But in a screenplay, characters just do things and there’s little to no indication of what they’re feeling. It is in the action—even the action of simply touching a pair of drying boxer shorts—that we intuit what the character is experiencing in that moment. Viewers fill in the gaps.
I love this kind of writing.
And here is the final scene of the movie. See how the spaces and the ellipses add up to a feeling, a voice that carries us along? This tells us that Little/ Chiron/ Black is finally actually becoming who he is meant to be, despite the pressures of his world.
Off scene action can speak volumes
Another realization came to me while reading Moonlight: the main action takes place off screen. Told in three acts, we see Little as a sensitive, bullied kid, Chiron as an observant, confused teen and then Black as a drug dealer, hiding who he really is (Little, Chiron and Black are all the same person).
Little befriends a drug dealer, Juan, played by Mahershala Ali (absolutely brilliant). We know Juan is “bad” (he sells drugs to Little’s mother) and yet his tenderness toward Little makes us sympathetic to him as we are SO rooting for Little already.
Juan is bad and good at the same time. This is a truth about humans: we can be both (it’s wildly confusing for us, but it’s realistic).
And then at the beginning of Act II, the characters casually mention Juan’s funeral. We never know how he was killed, why or when, but we assume it was because of his drug dealing. The reality of this loss—such an important character just disappears a third of the way through the story with no explanation—sinks in despite the fact that we never actually see the death, the funeral or the mourning.
To let something so important and emotionally resonant happen off screen runs contrary to everything we’re told about the rules of storytelling.
To be able to create a moment in which we feel surprise and sadness without it happening in scene is a coup. It’s all in the writing/ acting: in those quiet looks, inflection of voice, pauses filled not with words but with subtext.
I tend to write my novels firmly “in scene:” if there’s a dramatic moment, I want to use it, exploit it, even. But now I’m thinking, hell, isn’t it more interesting to get at the drama obliquely? To hint rather than shove? How can I use quiet moments to make my point?
Maybe I’m just tired of shouting.
And the best movie of the year is…
Inventive and self assured storytelling is SO POWERFUL. After all, what is the point of writing books or making movies or singing songs or painting pictures? It’s to make people feel something they would not otherwise feel. It is to create empathy.
Even if you make readers/ viewers uncomfortable, you’re opening their minds. Moonlight could have been told a thousand different ways, but it was told in screenwriter Barry Jenkins’ unique voice, with his unique point of view, and it works.
Now I have to watch and read Anora, this year’s Oscar winner. Who here has seen it? Let me know what you think!
Remember the Oscar fiasco, when they gave it to LaLa Land by accident??
Lovely post, Katrin. And it has a subtle relationship to current events: The NYT, in assessing Trump's speech, wrote about the rowdy crowd of celebrating Republicans, and the rare, telling moments of silence when tariffs and social security came up. Everyone knew the Republicans were thinking about how to explain this economic pain, and possible tear in the social safety net, to their constituents. The headline is very reminiscent of your post: "During Trump’s Rowdy Speech to Congress, the Quiet Moments Said the Most." I love that concept.
I enjoyed this post very much and all your previous ones, Katrin. How fascinating to hear a novelist thinking out loud. (I've always wanted to respond but never did, so shame on me.) I loved "Moonlight" too, and for all the reasons you pointed out, though I knew nothing about the screenplay. One of the most poignant moments in the film for me was the song "Hello Stranger," by Barbara Lewis. Too bad there's no correlate for music in fiction.