How can a screenplay writer learn to write a novel?

You have an ability to write screenplays that even you are forced to describe as "pretty spectacular." Given this, and your dislike of descriptive writing, I can't for the life of me understand why you want to make the transition to books.

Focus on your screenwriting. A screenplay will typically make you much more money a novel. Current WGA rates start at around $67,000 for a screenplay. Of course, a Hollywood production would make far more. Not many books get that kind of advance. Why bother with them?

posted almost 9 years ago

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Duncan McKenzie‭

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Practice differently. Go standing. Or go sitting.

Being a visual person is fine, I write my stories as visually imagined scenes, full of dialogue (in conflict, dialogue is a form of action).

I think your practice is (by your own claim) ineffective, so I will offer an alternative exercise; this can change your writing in very little time.

Find a visual setting. A bus station, a museum, a deli in the city. A dog park. Outside (or inside) an apartment building you would NOT want to live in. A neighborhood you WOULD like to live in. A building full of doctor's offices. A hospital waiting room. A college campus. Go to a courthouse and spend a few hours watching a trial that is open to the public (They may disallow laptops or cameras in there). A fast food joint, a cheap restaurant, an upscale restaurant. A convenience store with gas pumps out front.

These are settings. Obviously pick them with a modicum of care, don't walk into a daycare center or a grade school and tell them you are just there to look around, unless you are trying to get a feel for what it is like to be questioned by police and arrested for a day.

Actually go there. Give yourself about 90 minutes. Don't question anybody, just bring an empty notebook (a laptop if you wish). It doesn't make a difference if you can draw or not, circles and squares and X marks on a page would be enough. If you can't bring a laptop to write, try to remember how it used to work with pen on paper.

The point is to BE in this actual real-life scene, and take notes to help you understand what makes sitting in this ER waiting room different than sitting as a spectator for a jury trial.

First, your sketch of the scene. As a cinematographer, draw a frame, what is the dominant visual feature of this scene? Where is the eye draw first? Where is it drawn second, and then third? (for visual elements, cover what you feel contributes to this being a unique place; stop when what is left feels like nothing special: Are the seats and tables in an Olive Garden different than in any other restaurant? I don't think so, thus there is no need to mention them. However, the seats and tables in a fast food joint are as institutional as a prison dining room; cheap plastic bucket seats on swivels, joined to the table with aluminum frames, all bolted to the floor. I might want to describe that.

For each of the things you found visually important, in order of importance, write visual descriptions. You are looking at!

In an airport, perhaps the unnaturally long vinyl on concrete hallways, with the waiting and boarding gates scattered on the runway side, and overpriced restaurants, convenience stores and book and music stores scattered on the opposite, interrupted by the occasional roll-in restrooms without doors, just an L-shaped entrance.

What makes the ER waiting room different than the court room? What stands out in your own mind? Even if the number of people in the room are the same, even though you have a nurse in charge of the ER and a judge in charge at the courtroom, each with their attendants and staff, they are different.

What do you see? What are the important visual patterns? Where are the important color or light contrasts?

What do you hear? Close your eyes and listen: What are the dominant scenic "voices?" How do you describe the human voices and noises (coughing, snoring, labored breathing)? Are there mechanical noises (HVAC, creaking gates or chairs, TV on in the BG). Are people talking quietly in private, even whispering, or are there people (like lawyers, the bailiff, the judge) speaking to be heard? Outdoors: Do you hear animals? Vehicles? Workers loading or unloading anything? Birds? Insects?

What do you smell? Same exercise. Does this place stink? Is it unusual but not unpleasant, like a hair salon? Is it medical, like a dentist's office? Is it industrial oil, grease, and materials (metal, rubber, chemicals), like a factory? Is it a pleasant outdoor smell, or an unpleasant one? Look for contrasts, these can offer conflicts: My wife's flower garden looks beautiful, but on some days you best hold your nose for the stink of the manure she's added. There is something poetic to be said there, about the magical ability of plants to turn shit into the perfume of roses.

What do you physically feel? Is it hot or cool? A comfortable seat or an uncomfortable one? Does the air feel fresh or stale? Is the air moving?

What do you (or the people) emotionally feel? Is this a place of peace, or dread, or fear? In the ER, they wait in dread of bad news, with a thin hope of good news. People will literally hold hands and pray for the life of somebody they love. You may see tears in the ER. A man with a bloody towel wrapped around his right hand; simultaneously bored with waiting and fearing how much damage he has done to it.

You need to impart to the reader what it feels like to be in this setting. Your notes provide some material, you do not have to touch every note: You need enough so that what you describe, along with the reader's OWN imagination filling in a few blanks, lets them feel they are in a specific place. "A courtroom" is not enough. "An E.R. waiting room" is not enough. You need to provide details that move them from a generic setting to a specific setting.

In film this is work normally done by the camera and set designer, a screenplay writer seldom does it, but obviously "a dog park" will be generic in the slug line of a screenplay, but very specific on screen. You have to take the place of that.

That's the exercise. Mark your sketch for important visual elements. Work through your checklist of things to write about, write about each. Now leave it for a day, and come back to what you wrote. Do the words capture that scene? If not, what did you miss? (If you have a friendly reader, ask them, but that is not absolutely necessary).

This is just practice with real life settings, so you can learn to capture them, and see for yourself what is important to describe to convey in writing (for yourself) the feeling of being in a real place. Then when you imagine settings, a castle or a garden on another planet, you have practice in picking out the things you should describe, and for the reader making your imagined place a real place in their imagination.

Your readers are modern people, but in their imagination inhabit the world you are inventing. So you need to keep your descriptions in that world, too: For the denizens of medieval Europe, nobody looks like they got hit by a car, and nothing in their experience smells like a dentist's office or like Chanel No. 5, nothing feels like taking off in a jetliner: Not even taking off in some time-traveled jetliner!

So you need to keep your descriptions consistent with the time and culture of your book, but otherwise, write for how modern people (including you) experience the world.

posted about 7 years ago

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Amadeus‭

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