I keep praising Devorah Fox for her stunning short story, BLACKWING, which will appear in next month’s Magic Unveiled anthology. Steve Shupa has rugged good looks, mad handyman skills, and the right amount of charm to balance his snark.
I was enamored by the story when I got a sneak peek, and I knew this would make an amazing short.
Devorah agrees, and now I get to write the screenplay adaptation: how cool is that?
But adapting books to screenplay is a different beast, as I can attest to while I’m also writing The Tower’s Alchemist screenplay.
I did most of my media/communications writing in college (as well as journalism), and dabbled a bit with creative writing–and now, ironically, I’ve gone full-on novelist and am just now getting back to screenplay writing. Ha!
Here are a few things I learned about the process (for anyone interested):
You’re Going to Have to Cut Your Baby
And by this, I mean you’re going to have to shorten and even chop out certain dialogue and events when going the screenplay route. And as much as we love *that* particular scene in a book, it may not transfer over to screenplay. This also goes for certain conversations, narration, and even characters. I think this will be easier with Blackwing since it is already short, but if you’re doing a full-length novel, you are going to do some cuttin’.
You Still Have to Stick to the 3-Act Structure
You’re still going to want to have those story arcs, character development, climax and resolution, etc., so don’t think screenplay = action + explosions + banter. It should flow and read like a great story–which is what it’s supposed to be, right? 🙂 And even with the cutting and adjusting, it still has to fit together and make sense.
Study Great Examples
Whether you go to Simply Scripts or elsewhere, there are online archives that you can access to see how other scripts have been written (for reference). A comedy or drama is going to be different from a sci-fi/fantasy, so depending on the genre you’re writing in, you’re going to want to study up on those closest to your work in progress.
I’ll be sure to keep updating you as I go along, but I hope in the meanwhile you’re able to check out the Magic Unveiled anthology. It releases October 13, but you can pre-order it for just 0.99¢ at any major online retailer:
Wherever did you find that photo of Steve? 😉
You have set yourself a challenge. Writing for a visual and aural medium is much different from writing for the page. I’ll be getting a demonstration of that later this week. While most of us in the Fantasy and Science Fiction Writing course that I’m taking are crafting short stories, one of my classmates is writing a comic book. We’ll be critiquing her script and she’s already apologizing for how different it will be from the short stories and novel excerpts that the rest of us are working on.
Meanwhile, I can’t wait to “see” Steve. I know that there’s an aspect of the story that truly suits itself to a visual presentation.
So true, Devorah!