Writing for the screen and writing novels…
Apples and oranges? Not exactly. But also, completely yes. I mean, they both have words and tell a story. In that way screenwriters and novelists are the same. The execution is where it becomes very different.
What to write today…
I feel I’m lucky to be able to shift between the two when the mood arises. It’s pretty cool to switch from one form of storytelling to another. I don’t like one more than the other, though I do like being able to just upload a manuscript and put it up for sale when I think it’s ready to do so. Getting someone to read your script that can actually do something with it is an art unto itself. Probably harder than the writing.
I find it much more important for me to outline the crap of a script before I begin writing it. For novels, I enjoy the crap out of not having an outline and just letting the story tell itself.
Some screenwriting gurus out there who are actually very successful say you don’t need to follow traditional beats when writing a screenplay. In general, these writers are geniuses and if you watch their movies and read their screenplays, you will find that they hit those beats on the money every time. They may not be trying to, but they for sure do it.
For idiots like me, I follow the beat’s rules when writing the screenplays. I don’t mess with that. Geniuses can afford to be arrogant.
However, when I write those freeing, funky novels and just let it fly, I don’t try and hit any beats.
There’s a huge “BUT” here. It was learning those beats when writing screenplays that fueled my ability to write novels and not have to outline…
So, I guess having the ability to understand the craft of storytelling within the world of screenplays has helped me not have to outline my novels.
But I’ll bet if you read my novels, you’ll see I hit every beat.
The main difference between the two crafts is that when you write screenplays, you can only show what your characters are thinking by showing what they do. You can’t write in there what they are thinking.
That fact makes screenwriting incredibly difficult. You can’t write in a screenplay that Luke Skywalker stared broken at the smoking corpses of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru wondering how it all came to this, his heart stricken with the shame of not being there to save them and being too weak to do anything about it if he were.
No. It would simply say:
EXT: LUKE’S FARM – DAY
Luke looks painfully at his smoking family, turns to Obi-Wan with tears in his eyes.
LUKE
I need to learn the ways of the Force so
I can kick the crap out of whoever did this.
Or whatever he says.
Plus, with the screenplay, there is a limited number of pages, each page basically being a minute of total screentime. A hundred-page script is essentially a hundred-minute film. This is another limiting factor that makes screenwriting difficult; you need to hit your beats on specific pages… or be pretty damn close.
With a novel, you can go to town. Write it as long as you want. Say exactly what the character is thinking. Hell, you can say what a character is thinking about what another character is thinking. Carte friggin blanche.
I’d say, however, that being able to go from novel writing to screenwriting or the other way around, is an incredibly challenging and rewarding endeavor. I’d say give both a try. If you’re writing wide-open novels, make the jump to a rule-stricken screenplay (you know you wanna) and if you’re writing those claustrophobic scripts, give the wide-open spaces of novel writing a go.
Writing scripts teaches you to say more with less.
Writing novels teaches you to get deeper into characters.
The perfect complement.