Me & Bobby McKee
When I was offered the opportunity to write the screenplay adaptation for my novel ‘The Olive Sisters’ it was nerve-wracking and exciting and sent me off on a (never-ending) journey to learn a whole new writing craft – the toughest gig of all; the Hollywood screenplay.
The big obstacle with screenwriting is that, as a writer, you need a whole team of people, bucket loads of money and truck-loads of sheer luck to deliver your story to an audience. Despite the number of movies being made, it’s a near impossible genre to succeed in. There are hundreds of thousands of would-be screenwriters churning out scripts and only a fraction of these find the backing and get made into movies.
But, despite the odds, if you wannabe a screenwriter you have to soak up everything you can find on the subject. Keep writing, keep learning.
Over the past two years I have been to LA to attend Robert McKee’s legendary workshop (see pic above) , listened to online workshops, read books, sat through hours and hours of script meetings and had two scripts optioned.
In the process I tried to learn everything I possibly could about the Hollywood genre. Here’s the five top basics:
1) A screenplay is not a novel. Film is a director’s medium. The skeleton of the plot is written as list of instructions for a director and dialogue for actors. Just write it down and butt out.
2) Structure is everything. Hollywood has a very specific structure, although teachers of the craft differ as to what that is – three, five or seven acts. But turning points must hit in all the right places. The most useful guide I found is Michael Hauge’s ‘ Six Stage Plot Structure’
3) Format matters. Final Draft is the most popular screenwriting software but there are others. It’s easy to use and the short-cuts make things quicker. Have a look at produced screenplays (you can download them free from Simply Scripts) and notice the little professional quirks like using CAPS when a character is introduced etc.
4) Write good dialogue. Don’t use actor instructions (angrily/furiously) to make wishy-washy dialogue powerful. Keep it lean. Too much dialogue swamps good dialogue. Exposition has no place in dialogue – neither does cliche.
5) Make the time period short. Many of Hollywood’s most successful movies occur in the span of a few hours, a day or a week. Start as close to the end of the story as you can.
There are some great writing teachers and resources available to screenwriters, these are my favourites:
Robert McKee Story Seminar – the Obi-Wan Kenobi of screenwriting.
Michael Hauge – Screenplay Mastery – very helpful articles.
John Truby – Screenwriting – does a good breakdown/critique of new movies.
Dov Simen’s Two day Film School – haven’t done his industry crash-course but it’s top of my list to do.
Watch movies, download screenplays of movies you love and read ‘em – write, write, write.
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Hey Amanda
Adaptations are a really tough gig. I tell my students at http://www.wordsmythe.ca that ‘adaptations are to screenwriting as bicycles are to swimming. ‘ They both use muscles, but are completely different forms…. as you’ve no doubt found out.
Good luck with your screenwriting…. it IS about the most fun you can have legally speaking and of course JOY in your writing!
Cheers – Jana / http://www.wordsmythe.ca