Screenwriting: More to Consider Before Turning Your Story Into a Screenplay

Notice I said story instead of novel.  Most of us could name dozens of bestselling novels that have been adapted.  Three recent ones: Memoirs of a Geisha, My Sister’s Keeper, and The Time Traveler’s Wife. 

But there are numerous examples of other story forms that have been successfully adapted:  autobiography (Pursuit of Happiness), YA (Holes), novella (Shawshank Redemption), picture book (Where the Wild Things Are), Comic Book (Spider Man), nonfiction (Helter Skelter), short story (Brokeback Mountain), collection of short stories (Trainspotting), play (Death of a Salesman), journalism (All the President’s Men), lecture (An Inconvenient Truth), blog (Julie and Julia), T.V. Script (X Files), TV skit (Blues Brothers), graphic novel (V for Vendetta), video game (Mortal Kombat), poem (Iliad adapted as Troy), earlier film (Oceans Eleven 2001, 1960).

If you obtain the rights to adapt another author’s work, and even if you adapt your own story, be aware that film is collaborative; your script and the way it comes off on the screen will likely be different from your vision of it.  Other writers have a go at it.  Even the directors and actors implement their own visions.  Some say the writer is the lowest woman on the totem pole. 

I’ve heard successful novelists insist the writer’s dream is to sell the script and have it NOT made, get the money but not have the work butchered.  When eating lunch with David Morrell, I was surprised to hear that he wasn’t happy with the hugely successful adaptation of his novel First Blood/Rambo.  His main beef: a character he considered very important to his story was simply dumped for purposes of the movie.  Though it went on to become a Sylvester Stallone vehicle franchise and made Morrell loads of money, it disappointed him.

Don’t let the warnings discourage you from adapting your story, however.  There are still good reasons to do it. 

1)    If your agent can sell your book to Hollywood (ka-chink), having the script ready to go means the agent can more easily negotiate for you to be paid to do the first pass at the script (ka-chink).  Count on other established script writers being brought in to do a rewrite or two or three…

2)    You might be one of the lucky few whose script sells before the book or simultaneously.

3)    As I will preach throughout this series, writing screenplays will improve your other writing.

Next time I’ll discuss methods of turning your story into a screenplay.  In the meantime, keep your dialogue snappy and your directions brief.  Don’t step on the director.  Avoid dusk and dawn. 

 

---- from the Inkpot

 

(first published in the Writing From The Peak blog  June 20, 2011)