{"id":98073,"date":"2022-03-01T01:40:40","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T01:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/?p=98073"},"modified":"2022-03-01T01:40:44","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T01:40:44","slug":"whats-the-difference-between-writing-a-novel-and-a-screenplay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/whats-the-difference-between-writing-a-novel-and-a-screenplay\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the Difference between Writing a Novel and a Screenplay?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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While many novels are turned into screenplays or stage scripts, each writing format requires a different skill set. If you’ve wondered about the relationship between novels and their movie versions – read on!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How Does a Novel Get Turned into a Script?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are several ways this happens. Sometimes, the book\u2019s author will be involved in transforming their novel into the screenplay; other times, once the movie rights are sold, a scriptwriter will get involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes scriptwriters contact authors to write the script. Sometimes, a film production company will contact the author and use their in-house scriptwriters. Other times, the author will dream of seeing their book in film and reach out to film producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Novels and Screenplays Create Scenes in Different Ways<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You often hear people who have read a book and then seen the movie version comment that the book was \u2018so much better than the movie\u2019. This verdict can be due to that person\u2019s own imagination. Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a movie, there\u2019s little imagination involved. The viewers see exactly what the director, set designer, and producer want them to see. They hear the words written by the scriptwriter, spoken by the actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a book, they read the characters\u2019 dialogue, but they interpret the description of the scene by way of their own imagination. The reader does most of the work in visualizing the characters and settings in their head. The better their imagination, the more vivid those images will be. It can be hard for a movie to compete with that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Novels typically portray the inner thoughts of the main character. In a screenplay, these thoughts will need to be represented by other means for the viewer to understand what the character may be feeling or thinking. Therefore, the screenwriter will need to write scenes that depict the way the character acts, rather than just writing the character\u2019s thoughts for the reader as in a novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, a novel needs to depict with words what a film can convey with images. The novelist thus uses more descriptive passages, making books longer than screenplays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Question of Wordcount<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Because a screenplay doesn\u2019t need to depict these \u2018mental images\u2019, a screenplay page count will typically average between 90 to 120 pages \u2014approximately one page per minute of screen time. If you\u2019re used to writing novels, you may find that your first draft might be longer, but you\u2019ll edit it down as you work towards your final shooting script. Novels, on the other hand, are typically hundreds of pages long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newbie screenwriters sometimes use voice-over as an easy way to sneak in information: telling instead of showing. The clich\u00e9, \u2018a picture tells 1000 words\u2019 is even more applicable to film than still images. Show what\u2019s happening instead of telling the viewer; otherwise, you\u2019ll quickly lose your audience\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Will My Book Make a Good Movie?\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When converting a book to a screenplay, the order of the story in the book is not always the order in the movie. Sometimes the film will start with a memory or back story \u2013 this would be one way of replacing words or voice-over of a character to portray what they may be feeling or thinking, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Books need drastic trimming to be turned into screenplays \u2013 if the character isn\u2019t an integral part of the story, it often gets cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapting a novel to a screenplay creates a fine balance of developing a new story from an original one, all while respecting the author, the reader, and the film audience. Not all screenplays originate from novels, of course. But bear in mind that the style of writing is completely different for novels and screenplays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depending on whether you see yourself as an author of a best-selling novel, or a scriptwriter of the next blockbuster, the Writers College has a course for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Check out our #1 writing courses:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Scriptwriting Course<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Write a Novel Course<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advanced Novel Writing Course<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Write a Romance Novel Course<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy Course<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Creative<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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While many novels are turned into screenplays or stage scripts, each writing format requires a different skill set. If you’ve wondered about the relationship between novels and their movie versions – read on! How Does a Novel Get Turned into a Script? There are several ways this happens. Sometimes, the book\u2019s author will be involved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sawriterscollege.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}