How screenwriting is different from writing novels

I made a lot of mistakes in writing my first novel, but an inadvertent one had to do with the story's abrupt ending.

Now, unlike mistakes caused by carelessness (editing) or inexperience (the original book cover), this mistake was the result of being too experienced in a different genre---screenwriting.

In screenwriting, a writer has about 120 pages, or 120 minutes to tell their story.  This means that everything has to be distilled to its essence, and screenwriters strive to capture only the most emotionally impactful moments in any scene.  While novels also follow certain structures, they have an unlimited number of pages in which to do it. 

Films, on the other hand, have the most unrelenting editor of all:  time.  Few people will sit through a movie longer than two hours, and even fewer studios will consider reading anything longer than 140 pages.   Perhaps in no other medium is the approach so formulaic:  an inciting incident within the first ten pages, a set back by page thrty, a turning point on page sixty, the final set back on page ninety, and final resolution by page 120. 

In order to tell a complete story in this amount of time, screenwriters have to train themselves to think in terms of action rather than thoughts, impressions, or feelings.   Backstory is still important, but instead of ten or twenty pages showing a main character thinking, describing and remembering their troubled relationship with their mother, a script would summarize the conflict in a sentence or two or dialogue or description, and preferrably one that isn't even telling you about their relationship.  For example, "Camera PANS across her apartment, filled with lovingly framed pictures.  There isn't a single one of anyone related to her."   Done.  Twenty years of dysfunction in two sentences, without even a mention of the word mother.  This works in a script, but in a novel it would seem rushed, to say the least.  

There is even a phrase for when in the story a screenplay should begin:  in medea res, which means "into the middle of things".  Think of a Bond film.  The very first scene shows the hero in a car chase, escaping an underwater dungeon or free falling into the Hoover Dam.  Transport that same scene in novel form and a reader would flip to the Table of Contents, wondering if some pages had been truncated.

Then there are the endings, which are even more terse.  Once the golden elixir is found, the city is saved, the boy gets girl back---there's no point in lingering, and we immediately FADE TO BLACK.

Most of my writing experience is in writing for the screen---whether television or movies.  I knew novel writing was different; in fact, when I used to read screenplays for a production company, we could always spot the novelists because of the sheer amount of…words on their screenplay.   Some screenwriting gurus even recommend that any block of text in a screenplay longer than five lines be edited.  This seems absurd until you start reading scripts from films that were actually produced and realize that this is not only true for the most part, but it's one of the reasons the film succeeds.

Which leads me to the feedback I get the most:  that the story started too quickly and ended too abruptly.   I realize that this is true, and I'm writing about it now not as a way to make excuses, but as a way to remind myself that there is so much more to learn. 

Although now that it's been pointed out to me, I do wish I could re-write my book and flesh out the ending a little more…

Writing is an art.   Sublime writing IS art.  The most important thing will always be a great story creatively told.    My mistake (which I will correct with my next novel!) is in not respecting writing as a discipline---and experience in one genre doesn't necessarily carry over into another.

What happens next...

I've been struggling to write my second book for awhile now.  I really wanted the story of Jamie and Chase to continue, but as much as we would love it in our own lives, two hundred pages of a couple in love just wouldn't be that interesting of a read.  Shortly after finishing the final, FINAL versions of "Fame, Love and other Lessons", I was trying to imagine what would happen to the characters.   Something that would show that their story wasn't over yet, but something that would ring true.

I pondered.

I procrastinated.

Nothing.

So I thought I should move on.  Luke, Jamie's older brother, was a character worth exploring.  He was a nice, if typical guy in his twenties, albeit one who was handsome, had a great job, and the worldliness that came with having lived the life of a college athlete.  What would it be like if his heart got broken?  What kind of woman would he fall head over heels for?   I still may get back to Luke, but not yet.

Most writers can probably relate to what happened next, while those who aren't will wonder if I drink (the answer: no, because it takes me two days to recover from just one glass of wine).  But I had an image of Chase in a foreign country, seriously hurt, thinking that he was going to die all alone.  My first thought was, wait---what?!  No, no, this isn't what I had in mind!  Can we go back to Luke?  In short, I had that all-too-common experience of creating a character that began to take a life of it's own.  A writer friend of mine once told me that he saw his characters, like minature toy soldiers, enacting scenes of what should happen next on the top of his monitor.  Another one told me she would have dreams about them.  My characters sneak up on me unannounced, and I find myself watching them like a film in my head.  Anyway, I really didn't want to pursue this line of thinking.  One, because I didn't want to write a story about loss and two, because as a reader, you expect a certain trajectory in a series.  "Fame" is a light, happy read.  It would be as if the second installation of "High School Musical" suddenly turned into "The Virgin Suicides". 

So I procrastinated some more.

But eventually, it became too clear to ignore.  A scandal has caused Chase to be expelled from the NBA for a year, and he moves to Spain to play in the European League.  As a result of what he's done, he and Jamie break up.  During a game, a bomb goes off, and he's hurt.  As he lapses in and out of consciousness, unsure of whether he's still alive or not, he thinks about Jamie, and we find out what happened to get him to this point.

This isn't the story I expected, but now that it's crystallized, I think it's the story that I'm ready to tell.

More books, more problems

The good news is, "Fame, Love, and other Lessons" is doing well.  It's hovered in the #10 spot for the past week in the Sports Fiction genre, and even better, is around #50 in the Coming-of-Age bestseller list.

The bad news is, my book was placed on a website that has "pirated" works.  This may explain the large number of returns I got during a one week period---the week my book was first listed.

There's nothing to be done about this, apparently.  Online piracy exists and people who are willing to break the law can get any book, any song, online for free.  I've already written a letter to the site asking them to take the link down, but as I've read in discussion boards, it's only a matter of time before the book shows up somewhere else. 

Other writers should Google their book title:  I didn't think that my little ol' $2.99 book would be worth pirating, but I was wrong.   So if you, too, discover some bad news, this link was very helpful in learning more information:

http://stephanielawton.com/2012/06/24/for-writers-steps-to-deal-with-book-piracy/

the post also had this template, which I used:

Attn: Copyright Agent, [list illegal file share site here]

Pursuant to 17 USC 512(c) (3) (A), this communication serves as a statement that:

1. I am [your name] the duly authorized representative of the exclusive rights holder for [book title] as listed above;
2. These exclusive rights are being violated by material available upon your site at the following URL(s): [list URLs];
3. I have a good faith belief that the use of this material in such a fashion is not authorized by the copyright holder, the copyright holder’s agent, or the law;
4. Under penalty of perjury in a United States court of law, I state that the information contained in this notification is accurate, and that I am authorized to act on the behalf of the exclusive rights holder for the material in question;
5. I may be contacted by the following methods: [email address--many request physical addresses and phone numbers, too. I am leery of this].

I hereby demand that you remove or disable access to this material as it appears on your service in as expedient a fashion as possible.

Regards,

[Your name]

 

 

Writers who don't write

Hi, my name is Jo.   And it's been three weeks, five days and nine hours since I last wrote.  I am a writer who doesn't write.

 

There.  I've admitted it.  And like an addict, I probably wasn't even telling the truth about when the last time I wrote was.  My sense is that it's been longer.  I just don't want to know.

Now that I'm older, I've built up an entire warehouse full of what-could-have-been's.  How my life would have turned out if I hadn't done this, taken that call, listened to my instincts, moved to this city…I try not to do it, not only because it's useless and painful, but also because it's unfair.  At the time I made those decisions, I made them with the best information, and as the best; albeit misguided, weak, immature person I could have been back then.

But the one thing I WILL allow is the regret of not writing more.  Because what 18, 28, 38 year old aspiring writer doesn't know that they are supposed to write everyday?  I love writing, and can easily get in the zone when I'm writing free form like this.  But working on a novel, which is more long term?  Writing without an ending by the time I get up from my computer?  I have always had a hard time with that.  Much to my regret and detriment, obviously.  If I could have been discplined enough to write everyday, to commit to writing even when I didn't want to, I KNOW that I wouldn't be struggling today.

 

Do I really think I'm that talented a writer?  No, but I do agree with books like "The Talent Code" that says you will develop mastery over anything you do in a substantive way for ten thousand hours.  Any writer---unless you're F. Scott Fitzgerald---can pick up something they wrote ten, fifteen, years ago and be struck by how much better they are today.  If I can improve when I only wrote intermittently, I'm confident that I would have improved even more if I actually took the whole damn thing seriously.

Which is the point.  I wrote as a hobby.  I wrote blogs, articles, essays---quick one hour projects, in between the big projects like scripts and novels I'd work on twice a year.  I didn't exactly stop writing, ever.  I loved writing too much to do that.  But I was a careless and indifferent lover, to be sure, and I certainly took my writing for granted, always confident it would still be there anytime I wanted to return.

I'm thinking about this now because in a way, writing is no longer a hobby.  I have finally gotten paid for my writing (although the check is still in the mail) and I need to start treating it as if it's a job.  At least, if I want to continue getting checks, let alone aiming for bigger ones.  Which means I have to work even when it isn't fun, when I'm not in the mood, and a whole host of other excuses that I let myself get away with when I don't take my writing seriously.

It's time to start working on the next book.  I'm not sure if it's going to be a sequel to "Fame, Love and other Lessons".  This makes sense, and commerically, I know this is the way to go.  But the story ended with them HEA, and I really don't want to ruin that with some kind of crisis that tears them apart.  So I have to look towards another character; probably Jamie's brother Luke.  Anyway, this is why I need to get started writing.  I've read other writers talk about putting out a sequel within months.  And really, why not?  I've pushed myself to write 1500 words a day, and it's not that hard.  Well, it's hard for me, but on the scale of eight hours doing a job you hate (which I have to remind myself is the alternative) then it's really very easy.

 

Reviews

Another author scandal, this time by a British crime author, RJ Ellory.  Ellory was caught writing glowing five star reviews about his own books, and giving his competition scathing one-star reviews.

Before I published on Amazon, I would have heard about this and given a big "so what" to the whole thing.  But now that I see how important reviews are to the sales, and therefore ranking of our books, I can certainly sympathize with the need to help the process along.

As an author, reviews matter.  Not only are they a way for us to get feedback about our work, IMO they are also the best marketing tool we have.  I can spend hours promoting on social media, and expose the book to hundreds of eyeballs.  But these are all superficial.  The person who is on my Amazon page is the equivalent of the browser in a book store who has my book in their hands---this is the critical 'buy' moment and what influences them at that moment is golden.

If the person is like me, they will read the reviews.  True story; before buying a pair of pants online that I ALREADY OWN, I read the reviews.  I have a pair of pants that I love and simply wanted to get a different color.  Yet when I found myself reading what other people had to say about the pants, I grasped how influential reviews were.   

This influence is more amplified with self-published authors.  Reviews can reassure a buyer that what they are about to spend their hard earned money on is not an unintelligible vanity project, but a story that at least meets a minimum standard for editing and craft.

In turn, the more sales a book has, the higher it places in the rankings, and the more exposure it gets.  Which leads to more sales, etc.  Really, there's nothing I can do to market my book that is more powerful than someone leaving a good review.

My book has reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and as much as I wish they were all five stars, I'm OK with the two-star ones because they legitimize the other reviews.  Full disclosure, I also gave myself (using my own name!) a five star rating on Goodreads.  I hesitated about doing this because I've read rants about how misleading such a practice was.  But ultimately, I decided that as a reader and purchaser of the book, I was entitled to that one vote.  If politicians can vote for themselves, I reasoned, then why couldn't I?  Of course, I didn't write a review, let alone one that called my book a "masterpiece".  I also didn't attack my competitors.

Which brings us back to RJ Ellory.  I'm fascinated by what he did because he is already successful---his books have sold over a million copies total, and one of them was named Crime Novel of the Year 2010---can a person with that kind of validation still be subjected to the same insecurities about his skill as a writer, and the worth of his books as the rest of us just starting out?

The answer, apparently, is yes. 

 

So far, so good

I think the changes I've made (changing genres, putting a 'sexually explicit' warning in the description) has worked, because I've been in the Top 100 list for Kindle ebooks this week. 

Next, I have to decide whether or not I'm going to use up my last two free Kindle book days. 

Sex doesn't always sell...

Know your audience.  Know who you are writing for. 

Sound advice.  Too bad I didn't take it.

I started out writing "Fame, Love" as a story about first love that also happened to be sexual---because quite honestly, when you are 19 and in love for the first time, sex is a very big part of the relationship.  However, the sexuality meant I couldn't classify my book as Young Adult.  I've read enough publishers guidelines to know that even though my protagonist is of age, and other books have college-age characters, YA is geared towards the younger readers in the 13-19 age spectrum.  OK, fair enough. 

But I didn't want to write "erotica", either.  The sex was neither gratiutous nor titallating, and quite frankly not that graphic.  Again, it was part of the story, but not the reason for telling the story.

So onto Romance.  The only problem was, this book doesn't really read like a Romance in the traditional sense.  Generally, virgins in Romance are firmly placed in the Edwardian era.  Virgins in modern times fall into two categories:  Young Adult, as in "Twilight", or Erotica, as in "Fifty Shades"...my book was neither, so around and around I went. 

I wrote the story I wanted, and only came across these issues when it was time to answer the all important question of which category this book would fall under.  I'm not sure I would have changed anything.  I MAY have made it less explicit to fall into the Young Adult category because these titles are so commercial.  But if I had, would I regret it now because Romance is such a consistent best seller?

What did happen is that my book has jumped from one category to another in it's short life.  Initially, I think I classified it as a Contemporary Romance, where it promptly fell into the black hole of all the Sex and the City-like books out there.  My character was not an urban, jaded, sexually adventurous woman in her late twenties on a quest to get married.  She was an innocent young woman in a committed relationship with someone who was just as crazy in love with her.  Clearly, this was a different story.  Because if the overarching conflict of most contemporary Romances is overcoming baggage from past relationships and learning to love someone, and if the question was whether the characters would wind up together, then...my book wasn't quite it.  As a Romance reader myself, I know there are specific elements I look for and I didn't want to annoy people because my book didn't deliver those elements.

Onto Fiction/Drama.  Initially, I felt better about this category because I liked focusing in on the "drama" of the story (celebrity culture destroying a sound relationship), rather than the will-they-get-together part.   However, I noticed that the book was getting returns, which didn't happen before.  Was this book was failing to meet expectations; or were the descriptions of sex were a problem?  I couldn't fix someone just not liking the book, but I could fix expectations.  When a reviewer addressed this by saying that the books was not for young readers, my suspicions were confirmed.  I had avoided any "teen" labels, stated "sexual awakening" in the description, and placed it in an adult category.  But without the Romance designation, was the book confusing people?   Again, for those who haven't read the book, this story is about two young people who are perfect for each other in every way, but because of their successes, are having a hard time staying together.  I kept the romantic and emotional elements in---but I certainly didn't use euphemisms when describing what happened between them. 

Now the final (or should I just say current) iteration of the book is that it is in the Sports Fiction category, and the very first line of the description states that it is sexually explicit, so the "Adult" designation is made clear.  The male character IS an NBA player, and the problems in their relationship are caused by the fame that this brings.  If found in a Chick Lit, Young Adult or Contemporary Romance category, readers may be disappointed at the role sports plays in the story (god forbid, I don't get into stats or anything, but if you "hate" sports, then it's probably too much).  Alternatively, women browsing the "Sports Fiction" category are probably women who like reading about the challenges that pro athletes face (fans of Basketball Wives?)  will find this book to be just what they are looking for.  Which is exactly who my audience is.

I may not agree with changing elements of a story to fit into a category, especially if done for marketing purposes.  But once the book is finished, I do see the importance of knowing who will love your book, who will hate it, who will be offended by it...and THEN market accordingly.