Script Frenzy—The Collaborative Experience

Guest blogger, Kate Robinson

When Melissa asked me to serve as an early reader of her draft novel, I was thrilled. The writing filled my mind with images, my heart with feeling and spoke to my lived experiences. In the midst of reading the book, I kept thinking, “This would be an amazing film!” Melissa’s novel was written during NaNoWriMo. Anyone who has done that crazed task during November likely knows about Script Frenzy, which is when participants write a one-hundred-page script in the month of April. I’ve always wanted to write a script, but was also daunted by the formatting, which seemed complicated. I hastily downloaded the formatting basics from the Office of Letters and Light (which runs both NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy) and then asked Melissa if I might take a stab at turning her fabulous novel into a script.

I thought it would be simple to take the novel and turn it into a script because of all the sights, sounds, and feelings it brought to me as I read. As far as I was concerned, the scenes were already there! The thing you forget when you read great writing and see the images it brings to mind is that films rely not on language, per se, but on visuals, scenes, dialogue and action. For example, all that amazing internal dialogue in a book must find another mode of expression in a film. It can be narration, yet most often, films are best when information is expressed through dialogue or action, not voice-over. There are ways to handle narration even, such as a voice-over while the character performs an action, a voice-over while a character writes in a journal or the character might express internal thoughts by addressing the camera directly. A little of this works wonders in films. A lot of it can make you feel like you’re getting the audio/video version of a book, which is not the same thing as a movie. There are lots of options; the bottom line is that you must do something to express the written page in visual form. This is a lot harder than you think it might possibly be.

The challenge gave me a new appreciation for films and script writing. I love movies, but I also now understand why the film has to be different from the book in many instances. What is stunning on the page does not necessarily translate into the visual medium of film. The beauty of great writing is that the images the words conjure are specific to your own mind, and you never notice what the author is and isn’t actually telling you. Stephen King, in his book On Writing, demonstrates this concept. King claims that good writing gives us enough detail so that we get a picture in our minds, but not so much detail that we lose the story in description or have every hue and pattern determined by the author. To illustrate this point, he describes a scene and asks the reader to visualize it. He then delves further into it, giving more detail and speculating about what your mind might have come up with compared to another reader’s, or his own. This is why book-to-film adaptation often brings disappointment for the reader turned viewer. What we picture in our minds is usually different not only from what the author might have thought during the writing process, but also different from another reader.

Taking part in Script Frenzy was a frenzied experience despite having a fully fleshed story before me right from the start. Now that I understand the basic formatting principles, I’m inspired to write a script I’ve had floating around as an idea the past few years. One thing that might help others who wish to try script writing is that I believe an outline is even more important to script writing than it is to writing a novel. Having a basic idea of the story arc will help as you set scenes and determine what elements you will employ to tell the story. Will there be narration? Will there be flashbacks? How will these be introduced? The other advice I have, which Script Frenzy and NaNoWriMo also recommend is this: analyze the scenes and scripting of favorite films. What is it that you liked about the flow of the story? How did the director tell the story? Answering these questions will help you gain knowledge about timing in films, setting a scene and how information is conveyed, whether through dialogue, action or narration. In some films, information can be conveyed with camera angles. This is somewhat difficult to write into a script, since the cinematographer and director often add their own vision to the final product. If there are themes or ideas you want included, you might consider other ways of expressing them within the script.

As the project has come to a close, I wonder what Melissa will think of the changes I made and the liberties I took with her story. Have I changed it beyond recognition? Have I enhanced it for a visual audience? Hopefully, Melissa will share her experience of reading her novel as a script in a future post!

Kate Robinson is an artist and writer who actually likes pie much more than cake. She earned her bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Lesley University. Kate enjoys reading, writing and recently began working with artist trading cards. Her steady pay comes from assisting an e-commerce website, paralegal work and instructing medical students in physical exam skills. A wife and mother, Kate is in the research stage of a book about women’s identity and development within marriage and motherhood. 

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