Do you think that reading novels helps with screenwriting?
- Thread starter Celia Cyanide
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Yep.
Because you might find a nice visual set up, or handy way to communicate something fast and be able to use it in your own writing.
It's also good to read outside of your genre and writing format. It lets you take in other ideas and ways of writing. If you just bring in other scripts about romantic comedies, all you'll really produce is rearranged versions of what you're read.
Because you might find a nice visual set up, or handy way to communicate something fast and be able to use it in your own writing.
It's also good to read outside of your genre and writing format. It lets you take in other ideas and ways of writing. If you just bring in other scripts about romantic comedies, all you'll really produce is rearranged versions of what you're read.
It's really useful if you're thinking of adaptation at any stage in future, especially comparing book to film.
Read widely is excellent advice. It's amazing what examples of great dialog you can find in novels and descriptions that bring on that mood that you need for your script.
Reading...
Yes, is certainly will improve your writing. I actually asked this same question to the 16 screenwriters I interviewed for my new book, Q & A: The Working Screenwriter (now available everywhere online). Many of them read Mark Twain, Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, Hammett, Ian Fleming…and a whole flurry of interesting stuff. As for me, I just can’t get into fiction. I’m a non-fiction guy, so lots of biographies and autobiographies.
Jim
Yes, is certainly will improve your writing. I actually asked this same question to the 16 screenwriters I interviewed for my new book, Q & A: The Working Screenwriter (now available everywhere online). Many of them read Mark Twain, Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, Hammett, Ian Fleming…and a whole flurry of interesting stuff. As for me, I just can’t get into fiction. I’m a non-fiction guy, so lots of biographies and autobiographies.
Jim
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It will also help spicen up your descriptions, learning how to word something so it sounds interesting.