Screenplay or Novel?

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  • Screenplay or Novel?

    Anyone do both? I would rather write screenplays but novels seem to have a slightly better chance of being published (or is that a myth)? Afterwards, I could always adopt it into a screenplay. Perhaps there is more credibility in this. Thoughts?
    "Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction."

  • #2
    Re: Screenplay or Novel?

    Start with novels. Infinitely easier to sell. And it's a pathway into the screenwriting business (at least it has been for at least one of the DD pros).

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    • #3
      Re: Screenplay or Novel?

      I think it depends on the genre. Some are easier to break into (novel-wise) than others, just as some genres are more open to new screenwriter. I have a mega-budget historical drama I know I probably can't sell as a newbie screenwriter, so I'm not even bothering showing it until I finish the novel and find a publisher or I break in the screenwriting field with other material. The key, I suppose, is figuring out where a particular story has the best shot.
      It's kind of fun to do the impossible - Walt Disney

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      • #4
        Re: Screenplay or Novel?

        I do both. In the beginning, though I'd written a number of novels, the first agent I was able to get was a theatrical/film/TV agent in the UK (I moved there simply because it was impossible back then either to get an agent or publisher for books). Through her I procured a book agent, and my thirteenth novel became my first published book.

        Is it easier to get published? Sure. It involves considerably less financial investment than making a movie. But one can't just flip around and say, "Hell, I guess I'll write a novel." Either you can or you can't, and if you're writing simply to get published and your name in print, it'll glow with desperation from the first page onwards. Write the story in the only way it cries out to be written. If it's introspective, and you want to show the thoughts of your characters, opt for the novel. If it's dramatic and moves inexorably forward, shoot for a script.

        But they're twoo very different disciplines and even after many, many years of doing this I find moving from one to the other increasingly more difficult.

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        • #5
          Re: Screenplay or Novel?

          I'm doing both. I completed the screenplay for my supernatural thriller back in March and am about half-way through its adaptation into a novel. I think it depends on the subject matter and genre.

          I have written several other screenplays which I feel are not really condusive to writing a novel...It was only at the suggestion of a director who read my thriller screenplay...his comment to me was that the story sounded like it should be written as a novel and would be a good compliment for the screenplay.

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          • #6
            Re: Screenplay or Novel?

            I want to turn my first screenplay into a novel. I think it would help sell the script. Truth is, I'm still attached to the characters and I just want to spend more time with them

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            • #7
              Re: Screenplay or Novel?

              i write both. i tried to write my first screenplay after i outlined a mess of a novel trying to figure out what it wanted to be, and what i ended up with looked like a screenplay, sort of.

              two different varmints, though. screenplays and novels. two very different varmints.

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              • #8
                Re: Screenplay or Novel?

                I had the same question 10 years ago and was told by literary agents that I had a better chance seeing my story on the screen if I wrote the novel and optioned it off to Hollywood. So I started out writing novels (4 of them in various stages of re-write hell) but now I write screenplays. Story ideas come fast and furious to me. I found that it's faster for me to get the story out through the screenplay format. Two screenplays a year vs. one novel is a better use of my time.

                Also, you might want to consider short stories. I recently submitted two short stories to Zoetrope AZX Publications. They are looking to turn short stories into treatments for potential movies. I've made $750 this year in short story contests. Keeps me in paper and ink.

                The literary world is as hard to break into as Hollywood. Everyone has limited money and they want a fresh new dynamic blockbuster for that money. If you have the time to write novels, do so. It's a great exercise. But the best advice I can give you is that you'll have to look at your story (the genre, scale of shooting), examine the movie market (what's selling/what's not) and decide the best format for presenting your story. Good luck.
                Last edited by rcdiggs; 10-07-2005, 09:45 PM.

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                • #9
                  Re: Screenplay or Novel?

                  I just like to write, so I write both. I'm working on a novel right now, that I hope to later adapt into a screenplay.
                  ~* Kelsey *~

                  http://kelseytalksaboutmovies.blog.com/

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                  • #10
                    Re: Screenplay or Novel?

                    My next project was intitially going to be a screenplay but it can adapt well to a novel so I am going to write it as a novel and then later adapt it into a screenplay.

                    IMO I think it is easier to adapt a book then to adapt a screenplay especially if you like prose and like adding those little details that don't add to the story but add to the journey.
                    One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it. - French Proverb

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                    • #11
                      Re: Screenplay or Novel?

                      It's important to understand the breakdown of a publisher's list. Once upon a time, and not all that long ago (at least in my lifetime), every publisher of any importance had a backlist--titles that remained in print, and usually in hardback: Scribner's led the way, with Fitzgerald and Hemingway. So that one's goal was to get into the backlist eventually, and have your stuff in print for decades to come.

                      This is no longer the case, for various reasons. The blockbuster phenomenon is based not on quality of writing but on the same factors that determine a blockbuster movie. It's well known that a title such as The DaVinci Code(in which even the title is a joke, since DaVinci was always known as "Leonardo") is a poorly-written book based on other people's speculations. But it gives audiences another conspiracy theory, and some people like to think there's a network of sinister intent sizzling in the background.

                      The much larger midlist factor is where most non-genre writers fit in. "Literary fiction" (the kind I write, though I use numerous thriller elements) is a kind of catch-all for fiction that will have its respectable reviews and six months of shelf time. Advances for midlist fiction swing between the dismal and the less-dismal. My estimate is that an advance for a first midlist novel these days, especially for one of real quality, would be around $10,000. That's half on signing and the other half, eighteen months later, when the book comes out.

                      Will it sell to the movies? Maybe. My agent's Hollywood associate only sells literary properties, and if any book comes his way that's too introspective he doesn't even bother to take it out.

                      Then we come to the genres: science-fiction, thrillers, mysteries, romances. In Europe, at least (and of course here, as well), the thriller and mystery genres have gained great respectability. Ian Rankin, the Scottish writer, is no longer considered strictly a genre writer in the UK. His work reflects the social order in his country, and touches upon many more issues than "whodunnit". You get a real sense of an invented and a reflected world in his works. Henning Mankell in Sweden has the same effect. Some of the best writing today is being done in the genres. And they have the best chance of being adapted into screenplays.

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                      • #12
                        Re: Screenplay or Novel?

                        Jake - Thanks. That was very informative. :-)
                        Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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                        • #13
                          Re: Screenplay or Novel?

                          I just started reading The DaVinci Code and I can't agree with you more Jake. I don't see why this is on the 'must read' page. It is poorly written, the exposition scenes are terrible, the dialogue is painful to read and the whole thing feels like a cheesy hollywood thriller and I'm only a few chapters in.

                          It does nothing for me. I'd probably see the movie before I even finish the book.
                          One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it. - French Proverb

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                          • #14
                            Re: Screenplay or Novel?

                            The fact that it's poorly written doesn't really clash with the fact that it's a huge bestseller. Bestsellerdom of this magnitude doesn't usually fall upon Saul Bellow or Philip Roth or any other "good" writer. The people who devour this book (which has been savagely exposed for the shoddy job it truly is) aren't those who tend to read quality writing.

                            For me, if you want to read well-written, literate thrillers you go to Ian Rankin from Scotland or Henning Mankell from Sweden.

                            As a disclaimer, I should say I haven't read more than the first page--out of curiosity and in a bookstore--of the book, and I was struck just in the first paragraph just how clumsily Brown uses the language and how hamfisted it all was.

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                            • #15
                              Re: Screenplay or Novel?

                              I didn't get past chapter 5 of that book. It was awful.

                              Oh, and I started out writing a novel (I have about 9 chapters so far), but then wrote a short story that then became my first script. I haven't worked on the novel since, but it's still there. Waiting. Mocking me.

                              I like screenwriting because I actually finished a script. I can't say I finished a novel (writing one, not reading one ).

                              "We're all immigrants now, man."
                              - Zia (Patrick Fugit), "Wristcutters: A Love Story"

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