Screenplay vs. Novel

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  • #16
    Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

    That is correct, sir. Except that even if a self-published novel is good, no one's going to see it save for the author's relatives and friends. And they'll probably get free copies.

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    • #17
      Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

      the one advantage to writing out your idea/story as a novel - is that when you come to visualize a screen version, most of your visualization has been done already - and if anything, you can streamline and distill scenes, idea's and concepts even more, ahead of writing the screenplay.

      Obviously a novel is a long winded version, but thats useful, because it gets everything out of you, and so when the screenplay scene comes to be written, you can distill the essence of the scene down to a few short pithy moments. Whereas the bloke who hasn't written the scene out from A-Z - ends up over-writing everything into the screenplay.

      My 2 cents worth - having just done an adaption of a novel of mine into screenplay form, and having to find rapid visual elements to convey what takes half a page to describe in prose form.

      If you have the energy, it can be a good educational experience to write it out as a novel, then pick away at the structure, sifting through the excess words, to find the gems and simpler visual ways to convey stuff, as well as to determine what dialog makes the transition, from the book version, into your film script.

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      • #18
        Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

        I've always wondered why there is a stigma attached to publishing your own novel and not to shooting your own script or producing your own musical or stage play?
        Jake has pretty much covered this already, but I will add my two cents.

        Let's take theatrical productions first. If you produce your own work at, say, a community theater, people will come to see it and will even buy tickets. Your produced work most definitely becomes an asset when you try to get your stage plays published. A frequent requirement for publication is that your play must have been staged already.

        Similarly, the indie film that you produce can win you some attention in film festivals and can at least be a good sample of your grasp of filmmaking.

        Self-published novels are a joke. Nobody takes them seriously. And nobody should take them seriously. They have no outlet. Bookstores do not want them. Critics know that they are worthless.

        A few exceptions have come along through the years, but they are about as rare as winning the lottery.

        "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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        • #19
          Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

          I think it also comes down to money+vanity. Producing your own play means finding actors, stage crew, etc. It means getting other people excited about the project and willing to become involved in it. Likewise for a self-produced film. In the worlds of theatre and cinema, this is an accepted path to take.

          Publishing your own novel through a--let's call it for what it is--vanity press, only involves putting up money. It's not collaborative, and when editorial help is involved it's not objective--hell, you're paying them.
          Last edited by Jake Schuster; 04-25-2007, 07:00 AM.

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          • #20
            Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

            Money and vanity certainly play a role in a movie like Redline. It just cost him a whole lot more to make his disaster and at least he had the sense not to direct it himself, though ultimately it didn't matter. Maybe he should have just self published a coffee table book of his cool car collection.

            There are hundreds or thousands of self financed feature films made each year - many of them so bad they don't even play in festivals, let alone have any shot at distribution. I don't think this is any more admirable or less foolish than self publishing a book.
            http://confoundedfilms.com

            http://www.myspace.com/confoundedfilms

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            • #21
              Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

              I wasn't passing judgment on what's foolish or not. Just stating the fact from my point of view as a novelist. To get a novel self-published is like masturbation: there's an expense of energy, a moment of satisfaction, and zero progeny. But it's all done on your own. At least when you make your folly of a movie you've involved others who may share to some degree your enthusiasm for a project.

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              • #22
                Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

                Good point. At least with making a movie you're not killing trees.
                http://confoundedfilms.com

                http://www.myspace.com/confoundedfilms

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                • #23
                  Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

                  Originally posted by Jake Schuster View Post
                  To get a novel self-published is like masturbation: there's an expense of energy, a moment of satisfaction, and zero progeny. But it's all done on your own. At least when you make your folly of a movie you've involved others who may share to some degree your enthusiasm for a project.
                  Then that would be a circle jerk?

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                  • #24
                    Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

                    Originally posted by santino2699 View Post
                    Have any of you ever written a treatment, then decided that it was better as a novel and written that instead of a screenplay?
                    Never. Like Jake, a story is either a movie or it's a novel in my mind. It really depends on what comes to me first. Usually it's a stunning visual image that absolutely must be on screen. But there are times when what moves me is the beauty of the language on the page, in which case it must be a novel. Otherwise, no one would ever be able to appreciate it.

                    Not that it's made any practical difference (unproduced screenplay vs. unpublished novel), but it's just the way my mind works.
                    "The only reason most scripts are bad is because most people can't write." Leslie Dixon

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                    • #25
                      Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

                      A novel is to a very large degree about the language on the page. If you read, say, Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives (just out in English), though it's ostensibly about two South American poets, you see very quickly that it's about the tongue that tells the tale. It's about style and language, the thicket wherein the characters live.

                      If I come up with an idea I know at once whether it'll be prose or script, though I can also come up with a story that, in my eyes, could work either way. It's just that it'll work in a very different way and have a significantly different impact in the way it's told (or shown).

                      I should add to my masturbation image: because the cost of self-publishing is high, all of the activities described in my scenario are to take place before the expensive and watchful eyes of an, ahem, escort.

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                      • #26
                        Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

                        Just to add to what I said. I've stated it before, but the act of writing a novel is the act of exploring--you discover and uncover as you move into the work. As in an archeological dig you come up with shards, pottery, broken statues, and if you're lucky you come upon the lost city of gold in all its splendor.

                        Writing a screenplay is essentially the act of disclosing, of methodically and craftily laying out something you already know. So writing a treatment for a novel, though helpful to some (and many outline first, though I never do), in a way--at least for me--takes away the element of chance and accident that makes novel-writing so pleasurable.

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                        • #27
                          Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

                          [QUOTESo writing a treatment for a novel, though helpful to some (and many outline first, though I never do), in a way--at least for me--takes away the element of chance and accident that makes novel-writing so pleasurable.[/QUOTE]

                          Wow, This is so surprising to me.

                          Because I think about how many notes we get on screenplays and the million different directions in story that people "wished" we would've taken it and I have to assume that it is amplified to the nth degree with a novel.

                          particularly one that was written without an outline.

                          I mean, how does it work in that world? Is the rewrite process similiar where sometimes you just scrap the whole thing and start over?

                          how incredibly daunting.

                          S

                          PS> I only say this out of naivete for that discipline.

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                          • #28
                            Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

                            Writing a novel, santino, is really a kind of psychological process, which is why, when you work with a reputable editor, there's very little "note-giving" and a lot more "gentle suggesting" and negotiating. A novel is much more the property of its creator; it's not seen as something that'll get into other hands and be turned into a property that people will pay to see. So there's a lot of respect for the work at hand.

                            When I begin a novel I know what the basic situation is and who the main character(s) will be, but the end is a vague cloud on the horizon; I'll know what it is once I've made my way through the landscape leading to it.

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                            • #29
                              Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

                              Jake

                              So is it safe to assume that someone who is seasoned at the craft as you are does NOT really rewrite at all? That once it's done, it's (more or less) done?

                              What about your first 2or 3 novels? Were there massive rewrites or has it always been this way?

                              S

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                              • #30
                                Re: Screenplay vs. Novel

                                Santino, my first published novel was actually my thirteenth; I'd been writing for twelve years, producing a novel per year, so when I wrote the one that was finally accepted (and quickly so), I'd been writing steadily for all that time.

                                Some novelists write a draft, then rewrite and rewrite, as we do with our screenplays; others (such as Anthony Burgess)--and I include myself in that category--try to polish each page before moving onto the next. A lot of it becomes second nature after all this time, so that the writing that gets on the page is pretty finished stuff. The tweaking and editing that takes place is very much plot-related and in reducing the verbiage. It's stylistic more than substantive.

                                The two major revisions I was asked to do by editors was, first, on my first novel. The editor didn't "get" the ending, and asked me to redo it; I had an alternate ending that I liked equally as much, and that replaced it to his satisfaction (and it made a much better scene when I adapted it for the screen).

                                The second time was in my fifth novel, where the protagonist travels once abroad to London and then a second time to Paris. My editor felt that one seemed more or less a repeat of the first, and so asked me to combine them.

                                That was an easy edit.

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