Treatment or Full Script?

Here's a question that's probably answered in one of the FAQs, but I could not find it. So, I apologize for the rehash...perhaps someone can point me to the links?

A novelist (he publishes his own novels) and I are currently pre-writing our first screenplay. It is a true story based on an incident that happened off the Texas coast a few centuries ago and and I was wondering if it was best to pitch this as a treatment or develop it into a full screenplay? I've dabbled in screenplays before but have really never completed a feature length script. My friend has never written any scripts and nor is he fluent in the industry.

What route would you recommend we go? Thanks!

write the script. Few people will be interested in reading a treatment from those who haven't written a script.

I'm assuming that you guys want to be screenwriters - hence, write the script.

If you're just hoping to sell the idea, then write the treatment.

Hi Jim,
I think we may be interested in just selling the idea. However, what are the benefits of each (treatment or write the script)?

Thanks!

I think it's so so difficult for unproven writers with no prior writing sample (a feature screenplay or some script) to get a meeting with the executives who make decisions that the notion of just selling an idea is a near impossibility.

Unless your name is on the cover of that book, your only way to get anything out of this is to write a spec and pray that no studio or producer decides to take out an option on it in the meantime. Unless you optioned the book, you have no legal claim on the material. If someone else options or buys the rights to it, you, a first time writer, will never get the chance to write the script. And there is nothing you'll be able to do to change that. So the author of the book will get his paycheck. You, however, will get nothing.

Hi Thanks for your replies.

There are NO books or documents about this story. It is just based on material we found in Spanish archives.

Definitely write the script.

If this is based on a true story there is nothing to keep the producers from reading your treatment, saying 'thanks, but we're not interested' and then turning around and hiring a proven screenwriter to do the work for them. You're more protected if you have a copywritten script in hand.

Excellent point, however, like I said before, this is our first script and so I don't know if we'd be able to do it justice. Is it common for people like us to hire other screenwriters to write it for us?

Not really. I mean, to hire a professional screenwriter to do it for you you'd have to pay them as much as the production company would pay you to buy the script, I imagine.

The thing is, if you write the script, and they like the concept, but not the execution, they can then go ahead and buy your script and hire someone else to rewrite it. That's very commonly done. They're much less likely to steal the idea if you've presented them with a completed script.

It's much easier cheaper for them to buy a script from a first time writer than to pay out to a potential lawsuit later....

Good luck!