Book to Screen 4: Writing Structurally, The Script by Shonell ...

Becoming a Lifelong Learner of the Craft of Writing

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By author, editor, educator Shonell Bacon aka ChickLitGurrl?

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Book to Screen 4: Writing Structurally, The Script by Shonell Bacon

In part one of this series, I offered some advice on books and software to help you on this journey and gave you guys a little homework.

In part two, I talked about seeing your book as a visual story. I asked you to look at your book as a movie goer, not as a book reader, and to discern what about your book was visually appealing, stimulating?to see if the book had good stuff to be developed into a script. The point of part two was not to start thinking about the movie, per se, but to see if there was material in the book?enough material?to move on to this step, part three. Thinking structurally.

In part three , I talked about structure?movie structure, the visual story itself. I briefly talked about the three-act structure as a way for you to begin to see how re-development of your book is shifted when we move into scriptwriting.

SO, after spending several months going from the book in your hands to ideas of how this book can be restructured for a script (or if it can be?remember, some books are just books?which is not a bad thing), we now come to the place where we talk about the SCRIPT itself.

This is where the products I talked about in part one, especially the software programs Celtx and Final Draft will come in handy. As I mentioned in part one, Celtx is at the time of this writing a free product; however, for a very low monthly fee, you can become truly integrate yourself into the Celtx community?and they have great add-ons for purchase, too.

A lot of writers who decide to write a screenplay often feel daunted by the task of adhering to the format of the script. This is actually one of the things I love about scriptwriting?its format and structure. If you love those things, this won?t be as painless as you might think. If you?re not a fan of having a lot of format and structure thrust upon the work (and I could argue that novel writing has just as many format and structural needs), then this might be tedious to begin, but after more practice, it will become natural to you.

Whether you use Final Draft, Celtx, or some other software program, most of these programs have a drop-down menu with the most-essential components of a script just a click away. What are those components?

• SCENE HEADING ? where you tell the SETTING of a scene: inside/outside, location, time of day. For example, INT. JOSH?S LIVING ROOM ? AFTERNOON tells us that we are INSIDE (INT) Josh?s living room during the afternoon.
• ACTION ? this is where your ?exposition? goes; what are people DOING?? You write that here, using present tense.
• CHARACTER ? who is speaking?
• PARENTHETICAL ? often described as ?attitude, verbal direction, or action direction for the actor who is speaking the part?
• DIALOGUE ? what your characters say.
• TRANSITION ? used to move seamlessly through scenes

A few things to be mindful of?

As I?ve already mentioned in previous write-ups, screenplays?unlike novels?do not typically contain long paragraphs of exposition. We don?t spend pages detailing a character?s thoughts or feelings. In a screenplay, those things are illustrated in what a character says (dialogue) and what a character does (action). Therefore, when writing action, you want to make sure to be concise. This will probably be one of the biggest hurdles for writers that move from novelist to screenwriter. The word ACTION is a dead giveaway. It?s ACTION not long, drawn out feelings and thoughts that are needed.

Now, a note on parentheticals. You do want to use these judiciously. I liken the parenthetical to the exclamation mark. Anyone who has read me knows my feelings on exclamation marks. Use them sparingly and let your words?not your ?marks? reveal things for the reader. With the parenthetical, many argue that novices tend to use these more often than is needed; dialogue and action, when written well, often will show, dictate to an actor how he or she is supposed to feel, react, move while in dialogue. Actors have studied their crafts just as screenwriters should study theirs, so often, they do not need to be told in parentheticals how to act. If you believe wholeheartedly that a parenthetical is necessary, place it. In revisions, when you have the critical eye, make sure to read the dialogue and action that surrounds the places where you drop parentheticals and seriously ask yourself if the writing is strong enough as is to delete that parenthetical. If they aren?t, then ask yourself what you can do to revise the action and dialogue to make them stronger. THEN?delete the parenthetical.

With dialogue in screenplays, remember that just as in novel writing, we typically don?t go for long, monologue type pieces of dialogue. We want it crisp, concise. We want it to reveal character and help move the story forward. This is even more so in movies. Because it is a visual medium, we expect to see movement. If we?re stuck in a monologue-like type of dialogue, we don?t get much movement?and it?s even worse when the dialogue doesn?t seem to move the story forward or reveal anything about the character.

Transitions, like parentheticals, should be used sparingly, some in the field argue.? As the writer of this link [http://www.screenwriting.info/10.php] further illustrates, unless a transition is necessary to the script, it?s best to leave them out and use that space to develop more important components to the script, such as dialogue or action.

In my last posts, I provided you with movies to check out that were based on books. This go around, I want to spotlight a few screenplays for you to check out that are based on books.

Two places that I go to often to download screenplays are Simply Scripts and Drew?s Script-O-Rama. Be sure to check some out. Make yourself a Screenplays file and get to downloading.
Here are four screenplays to add to that file for starters:

1. Precious, screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher, based on the novel PUSH by Sapphire
2. The Silence of the Lambs [http://www.horrorlair.com/scripts/lambsfinal.txt], screenplay by Ted Tally, based on the novel by Thomas Harris
3. Shutter Island, screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis, based on the novel by Dennis Lebane
4. The Social Network, screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, based on the novel THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES by Ben Mezrich

My suggestion would be to skim through some screenplays to get a feel for the format, structure, for understanding how each major component works within the screenplay, and then TRY it. Someone once said the only way to learn how to write is to write. Well, the only way to learn how to write a screenplay is to write a screenplay. You?ll figure it out as you go along and do more of them.

Thanks for checking me out @ The Write Life for You; next month, I will offer information about contests, agents, management companies, and websites you should check out!

Shonell

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Source: http://www.apooobooks.com/book-screen-4-writing-structurally-script-shonell-bacon/

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