Award-winning author Richard Ridley on how writing a screenplay might actually help you write that novel...When I dreamed of being a writer, I never thought I would have the patience and follow-through to ever finish a novel. They're so long! When I first decided I wanted to be a writer, I turned to a shorter format: screenplays. A final screenplay is usually no more than 120 pages and it consists largely of dialogue. Easy, right? I know it's not the most ambitious way to make a career choice, but I was an 18-year-old kid with very little confidence in my writing. I figured the less I wrote, the less chance I had to demonstrate my lack of writing talent.
I devoured books on writing screenplays. I read as many screenplays as I could find. I attended film festivals that had writer's workshops. I learned everything I could before I wrote my first word in a screenplay. Six months and 120 pages later, I had my first screenplay. I'm sure it was terrible, and probably completely unoriginal. It's long since disappeared within the virtual world of evolving data storage devices.
It was bad, but I learned so much from the experience. The most important lesson I learned was to create a very well-defined story structure. Screenplays are divided into three acts. Normally, act one occurs on pages 1-30, act two takes place between pages 31-90 and the final act happens from pages 91-120. These page numbers are somewhat fluid, but the basic rule of thumb is that one page equals one minute of screen time. I also learned that act one should end with an event that catapults the story into the second act, where all the major conflict takes place. In addition, act two should end with an event that pushes the story to a conclusion.
Eventually, I moved into the world of novels. And I've often thought about the "laws" of structure in screenplays. Do I subconsciously apply them to my novel writing? Can you break a book down into three acts (beyond the basic beginning, middle and end concept)? Obviously, you can't apply the 30-90-120 rule in the strictest sense, but are the catalysts for change in place at the same rhythmic pace? I have to say the answer is most likely yes. I wrote 12 screenplays before I attempted my first novel, so the story structure of the screenplay is deeply ingrained in my writing fiber. I don't think that's a bad thing. In fact, I would recommend writing a screenplay if you've never done it before. It's a story at its simplest. It may help you see novel writing from an entirely different perspective.
-Richard
Richard Ridley is an award-winning author and paid CreateSpace contributor.
Visit CreateSpace to read the blog, or check out other blogs and articles on Createspace Resources.
5 comments:
That's hitting the nail on the head!
Only tried script writing once, but the experience really helped polish the dialogue content of my first novel. Made it more natural somehow.
You're right about the three part structure as well... essential for producing a balanced story - be it in short or novel format.
Great advice and I wish I had started writing screenplays first. I tried to write a screenplay after completing two novels. I found it was much harder to go in that direction. Once you grow accustomed to writing a story at novel length, it's hard to confine yourself to 120 pages.
Several Authonomy scribes have commented on my "cinematic" writing style.
Screenplay writing is squeaky clean from all the distilling we have to do before we write. And this makes my novel writing difficult.
Percolated writing is, at times, less artistic, less reflective. I´m trying to flesh out my own thoughts.
Elina
Er ... Percolated writing may seem less artistic ... .
Elina
I think a screenplay teaches you economy. 120 pages to lay down a story, dialogue, and enough scene setting to create a sense of place without the luxury of describing the curtains. When you try to take it back from 160 pages to 120 the first stuff to go is paragraphs of flowery description. (The Director will decide how it's going to look anyway).Then, still being way long, you have no option but trim your scenes, but in the end you have to take them out because nobody reads scripts over 120 pages except script doctors who will cut them back anyway. There's a lot more discipline in script writing but you could argue, that craft produces a lot of James Patterson clones.
Post a Comment