Screenplay vs Novel [closed]
Closed by System on Mar 10, 2018 at 23:37
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Now I know, that this question could be tagged too broad or opinion based, and that it might even be closed down. But I have been struggling over this for quite some time now and I want to get an answer to it. Please read the entire question before taking any action.
So my question is -
What is difference between screenplay and novel?
I know that both might be completely different fields. I know that screenplay has some standard rules that are to be followed, and same applies for novel writing too. But say I have a story, a story with the main plot, all the characters and the story line. Now consider one starting from scratch, in both the fields.
So what suits better - progressing the story into a screenplay? Or developing it into a novel?
What I am looking for is brief differentiation between both. Any key points and links would be highly appreciated.
A fantastic book which will explain these differences in far more depth than I can here is : The Playwright's Guidebook …
6y ago
Imagine it in terms of the types of stories you would tell your friends. If it is a sequence of events go screenplay (h …
6y ago
Screenplays are rather short story, when you think about it. A typical screenplay is 120 pages double-spaced, and 25% di …
6y ago
A screenplay is meant to be performed. A novel is meant to be read. (You can have an audio recording of a novel, but t …
6y ago
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/33996. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
4 answers
Screenplays are rather short story, when you think about it. A typical screenplay is 120 pages double-spaced, and 25% dialogue and 50% action. That is 30 pages of dialogue, but the margins (2.9, 2.3) leave 3.3" space for the speech. So this is a total of about 15 minutes of speech in a two hour movie.
That isn't very much! The visuals of the film cover the rest, the music is awesome at "describing" emotions, so you don't need any of that. But fifteen minutes is not a lot of time to convey a very complex plot. Movies are good at portraying emotion and visual complexity and action, especially with special effects. Their plots are typically very simplistic and virtually predictable in their pacing to the fraction of a page.
Also, the movie business is much, much harder to break into than the book business. You have to be very good at pitching in person, at understanding the psychology of what film people are expecting you to do in each meeting, etc.
Neither a script or book sells itself, but a book can be read in its entirety before it is bought, it is easily tested to see if it is entertaining. Screenplays are not so easily tested and are a bigger gamble. They can't see the film before they buy it, too much depends on who acts it, how much money they will throw at it, etc.
Another way of looking at this is a film is a bet of millions to over a hundred million dollars. Modern book sales can be tested for $10K or so.
Studios rely very heavily on prior success, reputation, and the opinions of their social circle, making "breaking in" much more difficult, because the financial stakes are so much higher.
Yes, newbies do it, I'm just saying the odds of commercial success is likely better with a book, because for new authors it is the finished product the consumer would read, while a script is nowhere near that: For movie executives, it is like buying a house from a partial blueprint and paying 100% of the price before they ever see it.
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A fantastic book which will explain these differences in far more depth than I can here is : The Playwright's Guidebook (Amazon). Even though you are writing a novel, I believe you'll find the explanations this book offers invaluable to your writing. Take a look at this overview diagram from that book and note that film is far more visceral and immediate and often built upon spectacle when compared to a novel (prose).
You can see many more details in my answer here at writing SE : How can a screenplay writer learn to write a novel?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34021. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Imagine it in terms of the types of stories you would tell your friends.
If it is a sequence of events go screenplay (had a crazy night last night, this happened then this happened then this happened leading to this conclusion - you are bringing someone on a visual journey that you had)
If the story is something more than a visual endeavour, go novel (had a crazy dream last night, felt like this, reminded me of this, smelled this - you are stimulating more than the visual/auditory parts of your brain - this word is used weird, it was like this time in history, what would that be like in the future. You have more brushes to paint your story with then with a screenplay where you are limited to audio and visual cues, in a novel you have all the cues that words can muster)
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34010. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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A screenplay is meant to be performed.
A novel is meant to be read.
(You can have an audio recording of a novel, but that's still someone reading it aloud, not a radio drama.)
A screenplay has stage directions. A novel has chunks of prose descriptions.
The difference is whether you intend for your story to be performed by one or more actors in front of an audience of one or more people to be experienced properly, or whether you intend for it to be read by one person.
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