Novel Craft: Screenplay Lessons

Hi, folks! I am an artistic person, and I buzz around art. I will dip my toe into most forms of expression. There are a few that I've focused on and have found that those experiences have informed my novel craft.  This week I'm going to talk about screenplay lessons.

I've written a few screenplays. This experience has helped me with novel craft.  A screenplay is a working document, it is not the finished product: the film.  I've learned about writing novels by writing screenplays. Here are three useful bits that I've learned:

First, screenplays force you to think about scenes and pacing.  A screenplay has a tight structure. It is much more compact than a novel and rarely has any room for internal thoughts. Becoming more aware of scenes has made me more aware of what to cut in my novels. Every scene in my novel must argue for its right to be there.  Novelists tend to be in love with the beauty of the words, and sometimes that is at the expense of storytelling. Each scene in my novel must move the plot forward, develop the journey of the main character, offer serious conflict, offer a glimpse of the internal working of the main character, have laser focus on the goal of the story, and offer some beautiful language and deep internal thought. If I can't achieve this with a scene, I toss it on reject pile.

Second, screenplays can help you move forward when you are stuck.  Like picture books, screenplays are a visual medium. Sometimes, I reach a place in the novel that I'm not sure how to proceed forward. I break open Final Draft or Celtx and move forward with my novel in a screenplay format.  My first drafts are now always a mix of screenplay sections and narrative. Writing a screenplay is analogous to sketching. A rough draft is a sketch of the novel. All the needed scene pieces are broken apart: opening with setting, dividing the dialogue, dropping in an emotional tag, and then describing the action can keeps me from bogging down in a first draft.  Next time your draft grinds to a halt, try writing the next scene in screenplay format.

Finally, screenplays can help you beat the static parts out of your novel. Screenplays do not welcome big chunks of dialogue, must keep action swirling on screen to entice the film goer, and must be aware that the person who plays the character in the screenplay is paramount in making that character come to life. I avoid prosy dialogue. Screenplays have made me aware of this. No one wants to read about nothing happening. It's surprising how easy it is to write about a character watching the sunrise or swimming in the lake, or reading a book.  Blow up that sun, fill that lake with piranhas, and have the heroine  toss that book into that arrogant so-n-so's face.  Also characters must be nuanced. I really cast my characters now when I write. I learned this from screenplays. Character on a great journey is still a working document, the character in the screenplay vs the character in a film. It's the little things that set characters apart and make them spring from the page. You have to know if your character loves chocolate, scream when she is angry, or bite her fingernails.

Novels need to breath with life. Screenplays have helped me achieve that.

Hope something here is helpful. :) I will be back next week with more novel crafty lessons.

Here is a doodle: Clown

Finally a quote for your pocket:

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. George Orwell

Novel Craft: Picture Book Lessons

Hi folks, a brand new shiny year! Love it! I hope that you are making goals and opening up to new possibilities. Fold up all those disappointments and failures. Take anything you learned from these experiences and move on. Look forward. Huzzah!

In January, I always explore one of my great passions and that is novel craft. I'm a novelist at heart. My first published book was PLUMB CRAZY.  It was out from Swoon Romance in June 2014, but is going away soon. Cancellation--just like so many fantastic TV shows that get cancelled (cough, Firefly), so goes my book. C'est la vie.

Don't despair, you who hunger for a paperback of PLUMB CRAZY to hold. I am going to self-publish the book for anyone who is interested. It's going to take a little time to put that together, but the book should be ready to be a summer read again. :) Thanks to all the people who have supported this first novel publishing effort of mine!  Galaxies of stories are ahead!

Anyway, onto to novel craft. I am an extremely visual person. I see three dimensional landscapes in my head. I also write in many genres and find that the skills I use in one genre inform me as I approach a different genre. These skills serve me well.  Writing picture books helps me write novels.

When I write a picture book, I write the text and then I write what is going on in the picture. From an absolute telling perspective, I write what is going on in the scene before I actually write the text for the picture book.  I do this for every page. It turned out that this is an effective technique to write novel scenes, especially ones I'm stuck on.  I just tell what is going down in the scene in a fat paragraph. When I'm finished I write the scene with that word picture I created in the back of my mind. Writing the scene rolls out a lot more smoothly.

Picture book structure helps me plan the structure of my novels. Picture books have the same beats as a novel but they come much faster. I make sure that my novel has clear beats that echo picture book structure.  What is a beat?  Plot points, turning points, plot twists. If you are having a tough time figuring out if your novel has a decent story arc. Study a few picture books. What launches the action? How does the mc react? What happens at the midpoint? How does the action rise? What is the climax? How long does it take the story to resolve? All these questions and a picture book in hand should send you on your way while writing a novel.

Well, there is a tea cup of usefulness for your creative journey. I hope you come back next week for more Novel Craft.

Here is a doodle. :)  PINK

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. Robert F. Kennedy

Golden Advice -- Good Pacing

Hi, folks, this is the second in a series of creative analogies that I hope you will find golden on your creative journey.

The week the Golden Mean or Golden Section or Golden Ratio is a line segment divided like this: the total length a + b is to the longer segment a as a is to the shorter segment b.


The idea is one segment is twice the length of the other segment.

In terms of storytelling the Golden Mean is like good pacing. :) It's esthetically pleasing. It adds interest and depth. It brings the magic of thirds to your work. It's a good guideline for creating meaningful art, but like any kind of advice, this is a guideline not something set in stone.

A book has three parts: a beginning middle and end. Again, how can the Golden Mean Guide us. Two-thirds of the book is the beginning and the middle --the build-up, one third is the end. The third act should be the whamdoozie. This is a natural rhythm that writers gravitate toward. Me too.

Scenes to me have three major parts. One part is the setting, one part is the dialogue, and the third part is the reflection from the narrator or character or both. If a scene is weighted with dialogue, say 80%, has no setting, and the minimun of reflection, it usually won't seem to flow.

Think about this when you want to have a chapter with two scenes. One scene should take up a third of the chapter and the other scene takes the other two thirds. If you have three scenes in a chapter, each scene takes a third of the chapter, but the most dramatic scene doesn't go in the middle. I like to weight the end of the chapter with that third dramatic scene, but sometimes I put it at the front. I very rarely stick the dramatic scene smack in the middle. My story sense tell me that is a very hard sell.

I hope my thoughts have sparked something in you. I hope you look at your work today and are able to solve a problem or two with pacing. It's often not the content of you story that is the problem,it's the way you synthesized the elements.

Good luck! Seize the day!

This week's doodle, "How fast I write".

Quote for the week:

Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pacing

I have to shout out for the University Bookstore and Reading with Rover this week. They helped make my Book Launch Party a rocking good time.

It's funny how life and our stories reflect each other. Sometimes we will feel like our life is spinning out of control; our stories feel that way too. Other times, things feel slow and lazy; our stories can reflect that too. I think being aware of the connection between our stories and our life can help us with pacing.

When you put on your editor hat and read your story, open yourself to the heart the pacing. Have you spent five chapters on one day and the rest of the chapters take several weeks? Ask yourself why you've done this. I find if I feel stagnant in my real life some of that will sneak into my writing. Being aware of this connection, let momentum in your life translate itself into momentum in your story.

I write from a story telling tradition and this is only true for a small percentage of writers that I meet. I feel the connection with the rhythm of telling. This rhythm deals with pauses and expressions of the teller. When you write, you lose this part of the story. In writing you fill in the pauses with releasing the tension in the story. Word choice holds the expressions. Be aware of what might be missing from your story and compensate.

I hope that find something that helps.

I call this week's doodle Storybook.



Remember: ©Molly Blaisdell, all rights reserved. If you want to use my cool doodles, ask permission first. It is so wrong to take people's doodles without permission!

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

--Ashleigh Brilliant