Fiction writing v Script writing

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Thu, 2007-02-08 21:38

Not really a writing ‘tip’ as such – but some thoughts about these two types of writing.

Anyone who may have been following the ‘chapters’ of ‘The Diaries of Alan Benefit’ (I got up to 21) will know that they ground to a halt a few months back. I enjoyed doing these chapters, but by the time I reached 40,000 words I felt it was time to forge something out of them. You couldn’t really collectively call them a novel, because there was no real plot structure or narrative dynamic. They were just a series of episodes linked together by a common setting and characters. They weren’t even, really, short stories either. The problem came when I decided to formulate a plot to fit them into – something normally alien to the way I like to work. So… I now knew what was going to happen, I had somewhere to go with the narrative, I could see the whole thing panning out and coming together...

BUT... it wouldn’t work. No matter how much I tried, I could make no progress.

After months of stewing, I’ve decided to take a different approach. Instead of trying to write it as a novel from now on, I’m going to try writing it as a film script. “What’s the difference?” Well… good question. You still have to create characters, develop a narrative, keep it going, develop sub-plots, reach a climax and a resolution. Personally, though, I’ve always found scriptwriting easier. The only long works of any substance that I have ever managed to complete have been scripts – two 120-page film scripts and a one-hour stage play. None of these have been produced (though I almost secured PFD’s representation on the strength of one of them) – but the completing of them took a matter of weeks each, and they all do, in a sense, ‘work’ in ways I haven’t yet been able to accomplish with fiction.

I was just wondering if anyone else has found that using a different method of working has freed them up from a plot bind. I honestly can’t put my finger on why it is that I find things easier to work with if I’m scripting. Okay, you don’t have to worry about all those descriptive passages, and trying to make them fresh-sounding. But you still have narrative, plot and characterisation, and other quite different complications to deal with.

I’ve often wondered why some stories that would make perfectly good novels are written as films instead, and vice-versa. Maybe it’s simply to do with the experience I’m having: it’s whatever you find that works best for you. What do others think?

Fri, 2007-02-09 09:16

maddan

There's a wonderfully acerbic quote from Nick Cave about writing film scripts (he supposedly wrote the script to The Proposition in two weeks), I can't find it but it was something like "writing screenplays is easy, script writeres only say it's hard to justify their arts council grants." Personally I've found writing short film scripts immensly rewarding because they sometimes get made and I get a lot of very good feedback from other people involved. Consequently I've probably spent much longer on some than on any story. As for swapping a story from one medium to another, I'm not so sure. I tend to feel I know what something is from the moment I first think of it. When I've tried to adapt short stories into short film scripts it's proved very difficult and the film has ended up almost unrecognisable.

Fri, 2007-02-09 09:54

alan_benefit

"I tend to feel I know what something is from the moment I first think of it." Yes, I know what you mean, Dan. I usually think 'Okay, this is a script' or 'This is a story'. It also depends on what you're writing. But I often find, when I'm in a bind with fiction, that if I try to reimagine it as a script - cut to next scene, dialogue, etc. - that it frees things up. I've been stewing on Chapter 22 for months. Now that I'm thinking of it as a series of scenes with dialogue, it's moving. I can 'see' it progressing. If it works, I can always convert it to prose fiction later. I suppose what I'm saying is - if it ain't working one way, try it another and see if it helps. I think there's something in that Nick Cave observation - though there are different skills involved, too.

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