Screenplay Newbie

Sarah M

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I've had writer's block for months now (since before quarantine), so I've decided to turn my 2 books into a screenplay. I'm not actually expecting anything to come of it. It's mostly to try and get my thoughts going again, so I'm looking up things as I go. That being said, I want to do the best I can. So is it better to write out character descriptions and location/room descriptions before starting the script? Or after it's done? Or do it in between?
 

dpaterso

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Hallo hallo,

You've already written the novels so I guess there isn't much you can tell yourself about your characters, you know them already.

What I'd be doing is making a list of my characters and scenes, and seeing which are essential and must be used, and which could be dropped, or sometimes merged (2 characters becoming one character, a chimera who does double duty and takes up less space). Because as you probably know, everything in your novel isn't going to squeeze into a 120-page or less screenplay. Deciding what to leave out is as important as what gets left in. The core story might not change but any side quests or sub-plots may have to be shed, too.

Some use 5x3 cards and a corkboard to plan out their scenes, some use Post-It notes, others use software, some pro packages have a scene function where you can view them in a grid and move them around until you find your perfect combination. All useful tools that help you see problems and fix them. Whatever works for you is right.

In the past I've tried adapting novels but found it too much work, it's a skill that needs to be developed and I sucked at it. I had better success in adapting novellas, a 30k story for example slid pretty easily into the available page limits with minimal fuss. That's not to say I had an instantly brilliant screenplay, just like that. But it was a lot less work than having to prune a giant hedgerow into a neat little bush. If I had the crazy urge to adapt a novel again, I think I might try rewriting it as a novella first. But that's just me, each to their own methods.

Shrug, my thoughts, not a pro screenwriter, just a once-enthusiastic wannabe.

Hope you get through your writer's block, it's a frustrating thing, oh yes indeed.

-Derek
 

Sarah M

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Hey, thanks. :) There are definitely some things I can take out or tweak, especially in the first book. lol
 

Maddy Knight

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The writing from novel to screenplay, screenplay to novel is roughly 4 to 1. 4 pages of book will boil down to one page of screenplay, or one page of screenplay will end up about four pages of novel, or so that's been my experience in going both ways. A 200 page book ends up about 50 pags of screenplay once you pull all the prose out and keep the essence. From there you build it back up to 80-120 pages with your 'VISUAL' scenes and scene changes, etc.

I basically do a copy and paste as I go. Take page one of the novel and paste it below your FADE IN. then start picking out what you feel is essential to the story, delete the rest - being your own editor is tough! Once you have maybe ten pages, stop and arrange all your must-haves into screenplay format, then start the next ten pages. I work in Word, so not sure if you can do this in any of the nonsensical softwares. This process moves pretty quick for me.

Maddy
 

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[I basically do a copy and paste as I go. Take page one of the novel and paste it below your FADE IN. then start picking out what you feel is essential to the storyMaddy[/QUOTE]

Always wondered... is it taboo to use a lot of the same dialogue from novel to script?
 

dpaterso

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Always wondered... is it taboo to use a lot of the same dialogue from novel to script?
I'm not sure where that thought would come from, why would you not re-use dialogue that works for the story and characters. It might well define the flow of the story. Don't hesitate.
 

Maddy Knight

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Use the scenes and dialogue that work in the book. You are removing a lot of the prose needed to paint the picture for readers. In screenplays much of that will be accomplished via the camera angles, lighting, etc. keep what works. If you have page-long dialogues, you might look for a way to trim it.

You could also read a novel you know was turned into a film, and then watch the film and see what was kept.
 

nmstevens

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Hey Sarah,

Sorry I've come a bit late to this thread. Over the years, I've adapted several novels into screenplays -- unfortunately, none of them ultimately made it to screen, but the process has proven interesting and I have some advice, most of which may run counter to what you may hear from most people.

As I'm sure you know, novels, movies, the stage -- they're all very different media, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. No doubt, based on your experience and creative preferences, when you sat down to craft these stories, you may the decision to develop them in one particular medium -- as novels.

That decision shaped countless other decisions. How you were going to introduce your characters, develop the various conflicts, introduce side narratives, develop the structure. All of that is intimately connected to the medium that you chose.

Now, there are unquestionably some stories that, simply by virtue of their underlying narrative structure, lend themselves to moving from one medium to another with relatively few changes.

The work of Raymond Chandler, for instance, stuck largely to external action and dialogue, with characters moving through external narrative landscapes and physical action -- rendering that work ideal for adaptation.

Very few novels work as well.

So when I have been tasked with writing adaptations of novels, this is what I have done. I've read the novels in question a few times -- and then I set them aside and never look at them again. What I then proceed to do is to sit down and say to myself -- suppose that there never was a novel, that I was all the back at the beginning of the process. I only had, as once the writer of the novel did -- the bare concept of the story. Only now, instead of moving ahead and writing a novel -- I'm now going to write a screenplay.

I am now, in effect "unburdened" but the wait of everything that the novelist wrote. It may very well be that I will write a number of scenes that are similar -- or many scenes, or very few scenes. It may be that I will begin the story in the same way, or a very different way -- because the way in which the character were introduced in the novel might have worked really well -- on the page, but that doesn't mean that that's the optimal way to introduce those characters on the screen.

The way in which characters and conflict were developed on the page may have worked very well -- on the page, over the course of several hundred pages -- but the requirements of doing that work with around a hundred pages, through the requirements of dramatic action, may demand completely different scenes and different decisions.

And I always set out to write the very best version of that story -- for the screen -- that I possibly can. I'm not interested -- and I've always said this when producers ask me about doing an adaptation - in writing a "classic comics" version of a novel -- of writing something that's "faithful" to the book. If you want something faithful -- go read the book. That's optimally faithful -- because that is the book.

I'm taking the underlying concept and doing my best to create the very best motion picture I can, based on that concept, on that underlying premise. That may be quite similar, or it may be very different.

I'd also like to point out that in the two cases in which I wrote adaptations of novels that were very different from the underlying books, both authors, when shown the scripts, responded very positively -- because they understood that my job wasn't to attempt to duplicate their work on the screen -- but to create a new work, tailored to be the best movie that I could possibly write.

So that would be my advice -- go back to your initial premise, your initial inspiration and, to the extent that you can, forget about the novel -- and simply start asking yourself -- what is this "movie" going to look like? What's the opening scene? What do the first two pages look like? The first ten pages? The first act? How do I introduce the characters through action in a way that's memorable?

Those things may correspond to elements in your novel or they may be completely different. Don't worry about the novel. It's still there. Your goal is to create the best screenplay for the optimal movie version of this work.

Hope that this is helpful.

All the best

Neal Marshall Stevens