There are many ways to come up with ideas for memorable scenes in your novel.
One of course is to think something up just out of the blue. Another is to learn something perhaps from a book (fiction or nonfiction). You could even come up with something by dreaming it in your sleep. The ways to come up with ideas would seem to be almost endless.
One way is to use something that you have seen in a movie.
This is not stealing, or plagiarism as it is officially called.
Ideas are free. Using an idea is not wrong or illegal….if it’s just an idea.
If it’s not copying it’s not plagiarism. I’m not a literary attorney, but plagiarism is where you copy something word for word, same words, same characters and same exact situation.
An old comedian, Milton Berle was noted for stealing other comedians’ jokes. When he would hear another comic’s joke that he liked, Berle would say, “Gee, I wish I’d said that.”
The other comic would then say, “Don’t worry Milton….you will.”
I don’t want to sound cynical, but chances are if you’re writing a novel, something like it has probably already been done by someone before. There is very little today that is totally unique or new. That doesn’t mean your book is not worthy. You will present it as a fresh and entertaining approach, whatever story you tell.
You can use memorable scenes from movies to enhance your novel.
You change everything, the dialog, characters, situation, but the basic idea remains the same.
Everyone remembers a particular scene from a move that stands out from the rest of the film.
In the 1973 film “The Exorcist,” the little girl possessed by a demon twisted her head around a full 360 degrees. Many people recall that this was the most frightening part of the movie.
It’s a scene that really worked.
You can use a scene like this—-it can be recycled and work for you. Just change everything (the dialog, characters, situation, the setting).
Here’s an example. My new creature-horror book (released this month) called “The Parasitoid Terror,” about a monster wasp in Peru that stuns people with stinging venom. Then drags them off to its lair where it lays an egg on them….the baby wasp eats into the stomach of the human victim, hatches and flies away as a fully developed wasp.
I used two good scenes from movies for this novel and re-did them. I won’t divulge how I portrayed these. But I made them different.
In the 1954 monster movie “Them,” about giant ants, a little girl who is in shock from seeing the ants; they use a bottle under her nose that contains the odor of ants (formic acid). She comes out of her trance and screams.
This was a great scene.
In the 1976 movie Jaws, Richard Dreyfuss is scuba diving under a boat with a hole in it when he finds the shark’s tooth embedded in the hull. He tries to pull the tooth out, but a face appears suddenly at the hole—-a dead man killed by the shark.
Another great scene……
When you use these ideas, you change the scene so much that readers won’t recognize where you got the basic idea, and often enough people haven’t seen these movies anyway.
Creating a memorable scene in your book is one that provokes surprise, shock, fright, that’s what you’re after in a novel in the genres of creature-horror, sci fi or mystery.
Memorable scenes can also be used from movies for other genres as well, westerns, romance or fantasy.
Good ideas for a novel can come from many different sources. As an author you learn to go with what works and can be used. Ideas can be recycled just like food cans.
John Sammon is a freelance writer and the author of 41 books, many of which can be found here on Amazon. He is a resident of El Dorado Hills. His commentary is the first in a series on the trip of self publishing.
Copyright © 2026, Folsom Times, a digital product of All Town Media LLC. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
