Hail yeahz: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20389677_20862863,00.html

This shhhstuff ain't easy!

She hit it out of the park, IMO. I don't know how she did it though. I think she made the right choices on what to cut...but how the heck did she make those choices?  "Kill your darlings" to the extreme.

They're not bad at it, they just need practise. Don't we all start out writing short stories? In fact I could turn this around, with how easy it is to get published these days more screenwriters should try writing novels.

The two disciplines are very different.

Whilst screenwriters use words, they use them as an abstract representation of an audio visual piece of art.

A screenplay is essentially a film on a page...just things you can see and hear.

Film has more in common with sculpture, music, dance than it necessarily does with literature, and so does screenwriting.


PS I agree with Dustin's comment that more screenwriters should try different mediums...short stories, novels etc. Maximise your chances.

I have a short script that I also wrote as a short story, and although obviously the same story they turned out pretty different.

I found it refreshing to suddenly be able to write with less descriptive limitations.

Quoted from alffy I have a short script that I also wrote as a short story, and although obviously the same story they turned out pretty different. I found it refreshing to suddenly be able to write with less descriptive limitations.

I've done that with a couple of my short stories. One of them became my first feature and it changed so much it is now a different story entirely.

I have been thinking about writing a novel, just to experience that freedom you're talking about. The only thing I don't miss is past tense.

I wish I could write prose, but I can't. I tried once, but was told not to bother with it again, and I never did. I did get A's on my short stories in Swedish though when I was a kid, but that's not the same thing.

I wish I could READ prose again.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah ad infinitum...



Why would I want to spend eight hours reading something I can watch in less than two, half that if I watch in FF with the subtitles on, even faster if I watch the first ten/twenty minutes then just go read the synopsis online?

I recently started writing my first novel. Actually, as to not overwhelm myself, I'm going for novella which is way less intimidating. I'm not great at flowery, beautiful prose but I'm getting better at allowing myself to be more descriptive. After writing bare bones descriptions for so long and not being allowed to stray off course, it's actually pretty liberating. My biggest issue...tense. It gets really confusing.

Amongst the many incredible insights Stephen King shares in "On Writing" is a section on prose. What he does is pictures an entire scene and pulls out the important stuff, and the visual stuff. I think we all do that but you don't have to narrow it down as much with novel writing.

The novella I'm writing is based on a short SP I wrote for NYCMM some years back. My friend Robert and I are adapting it into a feature at the same time I'm writing the book. It's an interesting experiment. Not sure if it's gonna work. We'll see.

Quoted from Grandma Bear I wish I could write prose, but I can't. I tried once, but was told not to bother with it again, and I never did.

You always do what you're told?

Quoted from RayW Why would I want to spend eight hours reading something I can watch in less than two, half that if I watch in FF with the subtitles on, even faster if I watch the first ten/twenty minutes then just go read the synopsis online?

You could bring the film on the bus. But I'd prefer to bring a book. They don't require batteries or headphones. And they're often better.

Besides, you're being silly. It's like comparing me to Sophia Loren. Or a Ford Mondeo.

There are things you can do in books that wouldn't work on film. They are wonderful things if you want to use your imagination.

R

Quoted from rendevous There are things you can do in books that wouldn't work on film.

That's precisely why my story changed so much when turned it into a screenplay. What worked well as a short story, which was more like a novelette, did not translate so well as a screenplay.

Novels are considerably easier to write than scripts, however, adapting them into a script is much more difficult than writing 100,000 word novels.

What I mean, is when you're writing a novel you can go nuts with chapters.  One second you could be in a town, then beneath a mansion in a vast cavern system, then in some sort of ritual chamber, then beneath the town in Orphan Hollow, the the Forest, then you could be inside of a Troll, literally.

Unfortunately, movies are much more restricted.  So out of those 25,000 words I currently have in those 5 chapters, around 24,000 of them would need to be cut, and everything that happens in those 57 pages would have to be condensed into 10-15 pages.

That's really the difference and the issue.

This is why most authors don't adapt their own scripts, because they don't know what to cut and what to keep.

This is likely why JK Rowling allowed Steve Kloves to adapt 6 of 7 Harry Potter books, because she didn't know what to cut out to make it function on camera.

Like Voldemort for example, his demise in the book was a quick-sudden, in the movie, he burst into ashes and flaked away like burning paper, much more visual and exciting than seeing him fall down.

Anyway, good article.  Those were just my two cents.