Writing--Novels Vs. Screenplays
Hey everybody,
As I was going through the editorial process for my first book,
Mirror Images Book 1: The Darkness of Man, I realized how different the process
of writing a book is compared to writing a novel. Here are a few of the
differences.
Length: Screenplays should be no longer than 120 pages,
and even that is pushing it. Most readers don’t care to read anything over 90
pages. The reason is, each page of the script is thought of as being equal to
one minute of screen time. Most movies nowadays are right around an hour and a
half. So anything over 120 pages is like watching a movie well over two hours.
I got my script down to 110 pages, and that was after cutting out a few
characters and chopping the script up a lot.
Novels can be as long as they need to be to tell the story. Of
course, nobody wants to read a 1,000 page book full of description and no
action, but you’re not locked in to a maximum page number like you are with
screenplays. You can spend more time on your story.
Editing: Back to talking about length, editing a
screenplay isn’t that difficult. Most of what you read is either dialogue or
small sections of text. A novel can take forever to edit.
How you write: This is one that I’ve struggled with a little
bit. Because I started out writing screenplays, I was used to that style of
writing. I read David Trottier’s The
Screenwriter’s Bible (which is an awesome book if you want to learn about
screenwriting) and studied it, from front to back. With screenplays you can
only write what the viewer will see. So,
for example, you can’t write the following:
Dave stands at the front door of her house. He remembers how
nervous he was the last time he saw her, the time he almost threw up on her
shoes, and he considers standing her up, out of fear of his own lack of
confidence.
Why can’t you write that? You can’t because the audience isn’t
going to be able to see what he’s thinking. So your options would be to either
use a voice over, to show that he’s thinking out loud, or use a flashback and
actually show what happened the last time he was with her.
Novels are different. You can absolutely tell what the character
is thinking. In fact, that’s a part of character development. Knowing that Dave
is nervous and threw up last time, could make you feel sorry for him, and
worried about his upcoming date.
Which tense do you use: This is another one that’s
difficult, especially if you switch back and forth between writing screenplays
and writing novels. With screenplays you write in the present tense. Always. So
you would write something like this:
David walks up her driveway and approaches her door. He raises
his knuckles to the door, about to knock, when he hears loud arguing coming
from the other side.
Novels can be written in several tenses, but most of the time
you’re telling the story of something that has happened, so you write in past
tense.
David walked up her driveway and approached her door. He raised
his knuckles...
Since I often go back and forth between novels and screenplays, I
catch myself writing screenplays in past tense and novels in present tense.
Then, I have to go back and rewrite.
POV (point of view): Here’s another tricky one. I think
I’m a very visual writer. I like people to clearly imagine every piece of
action that’s going on in the story. If there’s a fight, I tell you exactly how
it went down. This can make staying in the correct point of view tough.
I like to write novels the same way I write screenplays. So, I
might tell you about Jimmy’s fight in the bar, but I’d like to also tell you
about the cops pulling into the parking lot outside. This becomes a problem
with novel writing, as you’re supposed to only write what the main character
can see. So if Jimmy’s in the middle of a fight, he won’t see the cops pulling
up outside. So, technically, I’m not supposed to write that.
POV glitches were the main things I needed to fix during the
editing of my book.
A good example of how POV is done perfectly is George R.R.
Martin, one of my favorite authors. He wrote the Song of Ice and Fire books
(Game of Thrones). In his books, he names each chapter after one of his
characters, and in the chapter, you only see things through the eyes of that
character. His way of doing it is just genius. I plan to borrow that style in
one of my upcoming books.
The fruits of your labor: Perhaps one of the biggest
differences, nowadays, between writing screenplays and writing novels, is the
ability to actually do something with your work. It’s difficult to really break
into Hollywood and land a big producer. So, unless you have a filmmaker buddy,
or you’re a filmmaker yourself, and you’re able to create a low budget indy
style film, you may never have the chance
to see your work on the screen.
However, through sites like Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes &
Noble, and many others, you can self publish your book. It’s free. If you want
to put it out in paperback you can do that too, at Createspace. You’ll only pay
for a copy of your book. That’s it. Marketing is a whole other story, but if
you just want to see your book on your shelf at home, you can do it.
Plus, there are tons of small publishing houses willing to take
on new writers. You might have to work harder than you would with some of the
big power companies, and you might have to pay a little bit for proper editing
and good cover art, but other than that, it’s cheap to publish your own book.
Just don’t go with one of the vanity publishers that will charge you $2,000 to
publish an ebook version of your novel. Why pay someone to do what you can do
for free?
Whatever you do, whether you decide to write screenplays or
novels, just make sure you write. Don’t let anything hold you back. Writers
write.
Thanks so much for reading,
C. Michael Powers
Mirror Images is available now from Amazon.
