Should I write a novel or a script?
After dreaming of publishing my own stories, either in screenplay form or novel, I finally landed a job writing for a local alternative music publication. With a year of deadlines, word counts, and earning endless scorn from my editor (who I am convinced possess more red ink than blood) under my belt, I now feel comfortable beginning the process of flushing out these stories in a structured form.
My question is: Which format should I pursue?
Through your site, I now understand the plus and minuses of writing a screenplay. And, I take heed into delving into the business end of screenwriting. (I enjoy living in Florida and have little desire to pack up for L.A., at this time.) Also, some of my ideas just seem easier to tackle for a first time screenplay than a first time novel, such as my quirky rom-com outline rather than my existential mind bending sci-fi epic. Finally–not to belittle the screenwriting process–there are some stories that I feel more comfortable sharing credit on the final product compared to other stories I feel so strongly about that I want to collaborate with no one.
I know your personal answer would always be a screenplay. But, have you ever read a friend’s or fellow professional’s script and advised her material is best suited as a book? For what reasons? And, what format would be best for a (semi) unpublished writer? (For some reason, the Premiere magazine feature on Rex Pickett and his struggles to sell “Sideways” as a screenplay keep popping in my head.)
I searched your archives and could not find a similar question to answer my query. If I missed it, I apologize.
– Mike Rabinowitz
Head Writer
REAX Music Magazine
Assuming you enjoy novels, you should probably write one, rather than writing a screenplay.
I know that seems like heretical advice for a blog about screenwriting, but I think the numbers support me. In the U.S., more than 3,500 novels are published each year. Compare that to film: For 2006, there were 607 movies released theatrically.
If you’re looking to put your story out into the world, paper beats film, hands down.1
Beyond the hard numbers, consider the relative levels of authorship. Novels are a final art form — you write a book and that’s it. It sits on a shelf with your name on it. Screenplays, on the other hand, are one link in a long process leading to the final art form: a movie. While it’s your name on the script, the movie is the result of a huge collaboration. Right or wrong, the director will get most of the credit for what makes it on screen.2
So why would anyone write a screenplay?
Based on questions my readers send in, a couple of scenarios come up frequently:
To get rich. Often, when you read about a new script, the story has a dollar figure attached: “Joe Smoalan sold his spec MONKEY BUTLER to New Line for high six-figures.” One you figure out that “high six figures” means more than $500,000, you realize that there’s a lot of money to be made in screenwriting. Most of the authors you find on the shelves of Barnes and Noble aren’t making that much money.
“I could never write a novel, but…” Because screenplays have fewer words than a novel, they should be easier to write, right? Besides, everyone’s seen bad movies. It can’t be hard to write one better than The Grudge 2.
“I could never direct a movie, but screenwriting is just words.” So much of moviemaking is esoteric and intimidating. Just watching the end credits scroll by is bewildering to anyone outside the industry — who rated the men to pick the Best Boy? But it’s not hard to imagine writing a script. It’s just words and margins.
It will surprise no one when I point out that these are three terrible reasons to write a screenplay.
We’ll start with the money. I get frustrated when journalists treat screenwriting as a kind of lottery, emphasizing the payday rather than the work. Most scripts never sell, and most scripts that do sell, sell for a tiny amount. The reason why you read stories about million dollar sales is because they are pretty infrequent.
In terms of the “I could never write a novel” excuse, yes, some writers seem better suited to one kind of writing than another, just as most painters aren’t sculptors. But creating characters, shaping storylines, and stringing together words in a pleasing fashion are prerequisite skills for both novels and screenplays. I would lose respect for any working screenwriter who professed an inability to write traditional fiction.
It’s true that the learning curve for screenwriting isn’t as steep as it would be for, say, directing. And it costs a helluva lot less. But a screenwriter quickly finds that maintaining a willful ignorance about the moviemaking process is impossible. In order to get your film made, you’re going to have to learn about the physical and political ordeal of production. You can do that in school or on the set, but you’ll soon know your grips from your gaffers.
So back to the original question: Should you write a screenplay or a novel?
The answer is a question: What does your idea want to be?
Do you envision an intimate psychological profile of a half-Korean woman trapped in a mediocre marriage who imagines an affair with her co-worker? That’s probably a novel. The story is largely internal; the action is minor; the stakes are low. In the novel version of your story, you can spend a paragraph detailing her decision to buy percale sheets, describing the different textures and comparing them to the geography of her homeland. In the movie version, she buys sheets, and maybe has a conversation during the process.
Are you looking to write a comedy about a deposed crime boss who goes into witness relocation at a fat camp? That’s a movie. Here’s a test: Can you envision a one-sheet poster? It’s a movie. Could it star Martin Lawrence? It’s a movie. Could you describe it as “something meets something?” (e.g. SOPRANOS meets SISTER ACT) It’s a movie.
What happens if you have a novel-worthy idea, but you’d rather write a screenplay? Tough. Don’t make the mistake of trying to force it into screenplay shape. Yes, some books can be adapted into great movies, but it’s because they inherently had enough cinematic content to make the leap. If yours doesn’t, you’ll only frustrate yourself and your readers.
- Yes, I’m omitting films not shown theatrically. That’s a significant number. I’m also leaving out television, which is kissing cousins with screenwriting. On the book side, however, I’m omitting paperbacks and genre fiction. The total number of books published in the U.S. is 50,000 — and they’re not all gardening manuals. ↩
- Interestingly, the screenwriter may get a lot of the blame. In my experience, the screenwriter’s name is approximately three times as likely to show up in a negative review than a positive one. That’s a master’s thesis waiting to be written. ↩
Articles
May 18th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
John, The mob boss at fat camp logline is hysterical! I would love to hear more of your thoughts about this aspect of the screenwriting process. It seems like a simple one sentence description of the project is the most critical component; even at the earlier stages of development. -J
May 18th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I hope MILLIONS of “would be” screenwriters read this post because let’s face it… Most of the screenplays I read should not be screenplays. Having said that, I still think that writing a screenplay makes a fairly decent outline for a novel.
Good post!
Unk
May 18th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
MONKEY BUTLER!
May 18th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Great post. I’m a little curious about your second footnote. Have you actually been tracking that, or is it like a bad beat in poker: you remember the ones laid down on you, but not the ones you accidentally inflict on others? I don’t doubt the likelihood of the writer being more often trashed in a bad review than praised in a good one, but wonder if that’s really true.
Sucks if it is.
May 18th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
wow, what a great reply. i had the same question three screenplays ago–shoulda just asked you first
but no! i had to write the three screenplays to come to those very conclusions.
am going back to writing novels now. but writing screenplays has utterly not been a waste of time–it’s taught me to tighten up writing until it screams, to plot, and to know my characters so well i can tell you their favorite brand of shoelaces.
it’s all words on paper. it’s all great experience.
May 18th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Hi, John. I found your site through The Marvel Family Web. First off, congratulations.
I’d like to know, in very general terms, what you think of Machinima as a story-telling medium/format?
(For examples, there is some really compelling stuff at The Movies Online (http://movies.lionhead.com/) along with a good deal of crap, of course.)
Personally, I find that a tool set that helps me visualize things so concretely really gets my creative juices going in ways that staring at a blank piece of paper or a monitor screen (along with other creative writing exercises) can’t/doesn’t. And a finished product that’s animated, has audio, and rendered in 3D certainly grabs the attention of people who probably wouldn’t want to read a script or short story.
Lastly, as someone who writes screenplays, do you think that adding a multi-media component to a pitch is going to become an accepted - or maybe even expected - practice? Do you think that this is a worthwhile new area of artistic expression, or something that detracts from a person’s ability to tell a story or make a point? Are we entering a period where it’s not enough to be just a writer or a graphic artist or a programmer or a musician, but some combination of them?
May 18th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Valuable thoughts as always. Thanks for the insight.
May 19th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Dear John,
I found this question particularly interesting to me, as I faced the same decision quite some time ago.
I was in Southern California and studying a TV/Film writing course, and I was also working at Universal Studios at the time, and I wanted to put one of my ideas into a screenplay.
The first thing I did was put it into outline form, and my writing teacher liked it very much, which encouraged me to actually start the script for the project.
After starting the script, however, I realized that trying to get all the expository material into a screenplay was never going to work–my lead character really needed to have internal dialogues and back story to explain what would be the climax of the story.
I’ve written a lot of short stories and even had one [unpublishable] novel to my credt, and have always found this format suits me better personally, so I changed my mind and began working on the novel form of my idea.
Success! The novel took a lot more time to write, but in the end, it was a fait accompli, with a length of over 100,000 words. And in the end, I wrote a script on a different subject, and have used that script as a spec piece when I have needed one.
I personally believe that some people are far more suited to specific areas of writing, though they always have the ability to learn others. For me, the constrictive form of the screenplay is not suited to my style, which often involves a lot of exposition, self-examination and internal dialogue. Others can, on the other hand, be far more free to write dialogue without a lot of exposition in the way.
In the end, I believe I was more satisfied with my final product, and simply hope that when the novel sells that it’s popular enough for someone else to write it as a best-selling screenplay with only some minor input from me!
May 19th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Oh, dear Lord, you crack me up, John.
JOHN SAID: “… In the novel version of your story… can you spend a paragraph detailing her decision to buy percale sheets, describing the different textures and comparing them to the geography in her homeland…”
I’m sorry, THAT is funny, an soooo true.
As a YA author, I struggle coming up with those “comparing them to the geograpy in her homeland” scenes, because I’m naturally more suited to screenwriting.
I think a person is better suited to one form of writing, half of what I know about screenwriting CANNOT be applied to novels, and vice versa.
May 19th, 2007 at 8:23 am
For me, screenwriting is a spiritual practice. I imagine cinematically. Tried prose, didn’t take me where my soul needed to go.
May 19th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Why stop at a screenplay or novel? Why not an epic poem? Or a play? Or if you’ve got the background, a musical or lyrics to a song?
What’s in the driver’s seat here? Your story or your interest in pursuing a different way of writing?
If it is the story, then I think you need to choose what will do it justice, what elements you’d like to highlight, where your skills lie. Like John said — if it’s more heady, make it a book; if it’s got great visuals and a line of action, make it a movie; if it can be put together almost exclusively through rocking dialog, make it a play…etc.
If you’re more interested in branching out your writing, then choose the format that excites you the most and mold the story to fit.
As you might be able to tell from this response, it’s a question I’ve worked through as well. I think all of us confront this issue at some point — several???? — in our work as writers.
May 19th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I am now.
May 19th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
My girlfriend just saw the screening of a short she wrote. The screenplay was one of 6 (out of 200+) to be produced by the school.
This is the second year in a row she was chosen. And for the second year in a row the school would not allow her to direct it. Talk about politics.
After last year’s fiasco, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with her script if she couldn’t direct. This year, she simply handed it over.
The directors that were chosen and attached to her script (a brother team, those are so popular these days) actually won this year’s Best Director(s) and Best Film with a different film, their thesis. It was a rather clever comedy and they handled the tone well.
We were very excited to be attending the screening of her script, as the directors said they wanted to honor the script. To not change anything. The comical tone of their thesis had us rather excited, as my girlfriend writes very quirky comedies.
The curtains raised. The film started.
It was well cast. The actors were good. The production design was phenominal. We were so impressed that what had been written, what we had pictured in our heads, had actually been put on the screen.
Despite that … it was horribly, horribly WRONG. You see, she had written a light-hearted, fast-paced, quirky comedy. And these award winning directors turned it into a sappy, cliched melodrama.
The TONE was completely off.
When we left, she was near tears. Mostly because, she felt if she had been a male writer they would have directed the script as a comedy and not misinterpretted the script because it had female characters in it, and her being female she must obviously write sappy melodrama (which she despises by btw).
I, for one, don’t know why screenwriters do it.
We go in knowing that our vision will be altered. And most likely damaged. That we will bear the brunt of negative criticsm, have no control over our stories getting screwed up, misunderstood, mutilated, and yet do not reap any of the benefits of our screenplays actually being realized onscreen.
I actually think that is why I like it. Maybe I am just a glutton for punishment. My girlfriend… I dont know. She just has a gift. Both in writing and direction.
Now to play the game of politics. And maybe she will get her shot.
Me. My favorite artist is Van Gogh. I wonder if there is something symbolic behind that.
May 19th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Long time lurker on your terrific site. This is a topic of great personal interest to me. I’ve been writing movies and TV shows for 15+ years. When the show I was working on most recently (ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT) got cancelled, I decided to take a crack at writing a novel I’d been wanting to write for a while, mostly for the reason you mentioned — that novels are a final art form and, after years of executives and directors and actors and notes, I thought I might enjoy doing something where I actually had the final say.
Long story short, it was a joy to write, almost a creative rebirth, and it ended up selling to HarperCollins (NIGHTMARE ACADEMY — it comes out in September) as well as to Universal Studios. The giant revelation for me was that you don’t really have to choose between novel or screenplay. As you said, some stories just want to be screenplays (and I really like your “one-sheet” test). But, for the others, you can write them as novels, experience the true enjoyment of actually having the final word, and then you can adapt your novel as a screenplay (which is a strange process, by the way).
To me, it was the best of both worlds and it made me realize that there are a variety of ways to satisfy your creative instinct. Oddly enough, as a long time screenwriter, writing a novel was both freeing and terrifying. There’s a few odd quirks you don’t think about — dialogue attribution is strange and novels demand that you write the interior thoughts of your characters which is pretty much forbidden in a screenplay. Also, the very notion of having the final word can be a little paralyzing. When you write a screenplay, there are so many hands it has to pass through before it gets to the screen that you don’t really view every word choice as being set in stone, but it is in a novel, which you can view as either wonderful or panic-inducing. For me it was a little bit of both, but now that I’m writing my second book, I’m settling in a bit.
Anyway, it was a turning point in my life and I’d greatly encourage folks to think about a story as being raw material for many things. It doesn’t have to be a novel OR a screenplay — it can be both and you can have the pleasure of adapting it yourself. By the way, I think your blog is just great and I really appreciate your taking the time to keep up with it!
May 20th, 2007 at 11:38 am
“Interestingly, the screenwriter may get a lot of the blame. In my experience, the screenwriter’s name is approximately three times as likely to show up in a negative review than a positive one. That’s a master’s thesis waiting to be written.”
What’s also interesting — that you, as a screenwriter who has intimate knowledge of what it means to be rewritten by writers and producers alike, will acknowledge this face… while at the same time feel completely comfortable in slamming the writing on a fellow screenwriter’s movie, without any consideration or knowledge of the experience THEY went through.
There’s another “master’s thesis waiting to be written” for you.
May 20th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Stephen (#15):
Sensitive, I see. I can relate. The default credit that shows up next to my name in IMDb is Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, which is a pretty shitty movie — for reasons I couldn’t control.
Re-read what I wrote, and I think you’ll see that while you might not like the particular example, I was referring to the general sense of, “Hell, even I, a cement truck driver, could write a movie better than ___.”
I didn’t use your name. I didn’t say you were a bad writer, or that you’d written a bad script. I said that popular consensus is that Grudge 2 was a a pretty bad movie. It got 11% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s bad.
In terms of the master’s thesis, I’ll bet your name appeared a disproportionate amount of times, compared to other movies released that week which were reviewed favorably. If that’s true, that’s unfair.
Why not publish your Grudge 2 script online? That way, people can see what might have been. I’m happy to host it, or put up a link to it.
May 20th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
No, not very sensitive — not anymore, I learned quickly to give that up. I just wanted to point out to the readers on your site that hard as screenwriters have it in this town, sometimes you find you can even get it just as bad from the people who have, in fact, walked a mile in your shoes. Even if, as in the above case, they’re not even intentionally trying to stick a finger in your eye.
As for singling out GRUDGE 2 — if you wanted to be general, you could have easily used that blank space right there… or you could have said: “Many movies stink.” So no, you weren’t being general. You singled out one movie.
As for the Master’s Thesis, I can happily report that you are absolutely correct — my name was bandied about quite readily, in a great majority of negative reviews (of which, as you indicated, there are Legion). Many of them went so far as to lament the poor director, and what he could have accomplished if only the writer would have stayed out of his way.
(sigh)
As for the GRUDGE 2 script — which one? I wrote about eight fully different drafts, most of which had uniquely different characters from every other one. And all of them, every single one, a result of the “collaboration effect” that you indicated in your article. Were any of them spec scripts, and the result of 100% of my own imagination, I’d happily post it here. But unfortunately…
May 20th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
The screenwriter (”Schmucks with Underwoods”)is so far down the food chain, they end up with the credits nobody above them wants. Movie bad - screenwriter. Movie good - director, actors, producers, etc. And many of the Mouth Breathers think the actors make up all their lines and the directors make up all the scenes.
May 20th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
As someone who has worked with many writers and read many pieces of material on the job, scripts and books alike, I would say that if there’s even a question of screenplay vs. novel, go with the NOVEL. That’s probably a sign you’re more comfortable with writing fiction, and it’s probably a hint that your learning curve for screenwriting is going to be a steep one. Which is fine, you’ll get there with time and practice, but just be aware that screenplays are a COMPLETE DIFFERENT ANIMAL than any other written form, and I’ve noticed that novelists have a particularly tough time learning the structure and form of the screenplay. fwiw, IMHO.
May 21st, 2007 at 1:56 am
In defence of John (not that he needs it, he’s a big boy), I think this whole post was a little tongue in cheek - though picking a particular movie to rag on was probably a bad idea…
I can only take the ‘novels are highbrow, screenplays are lowbrow’ argument that finishes the post so seriously. Of course, the mob guy fat camp pitch is a movie. A stupid, summer movie, probably with Robert DeNiro, slumming. However, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Limey, Adaptation, and I suspect The Nines could only have been screenplays, and eventually movies. Most genre fiction, by the same argument, is lowbrow tripe. Hell, most literary fiction is balls-achingly pretentious and dull. There’s a line of quality that most of us never achieve, in whatever medium we work.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:02 am
Please tell me there is a Monkey Butler script floating around.
But what kind of movie is it? I say “Any Which Way But Loose” meets “Remains of the Day”, but set in Miami.
Given what you were able to do with Jessica Tandy in “Goodnight Moon” I would hope we could get Christopher Reeve as the patrician Roger Pennilsworth. And Matt LeBlanc as the monkey (chimpanzee) butler. (No CGI for him, just more hair.)
Jennifer Lopez and Ray Romano would be the monkey butler’s parents, whom he sneaks into his chimpanzee butler ‘cage’/apartment over the garage when they show up one morning after immigrating here illegally from [place that has chimpanzees] on a boat full of [old cruise-goers/hardworking deckhand types] who mistakenly treat them as [the help/people]. And instead of Nazis and amateur boxers, our bad guys would be…ok, we’ll stick with the Nazis and amateur boxers. But maybe we’ll have Nazi ultimate/MMX fighters for a freshening of the concept. We’ll have to get the CGI Christopher Reeve into good shape.
I would also like to get the Olsen twins in on this, though that’s largely personal.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:44 am
Short stories are relevant to this discussion. They’re closer to screenplays than novels are. Short stories tend to be action-oriented; they tend to leave out a lot of the same elements of the novel that screenplays leave out. Attempting to write your idea as a short story can be a good way to test it and see what format fits it best. (And a good way to figure out how the story’s structure is working.) You’ll be working with screenplay length, but in story form. And you can finish short stories (or even novellas–say, up to 100 pages) much more quickly than you can finish a novel.
Of course, experienced writers probably have a feel for what shape best fits a story the instant they come up with the idea. But for a writer—like Mike, in this case—who wants to flesh out some ideas and get a feel for writing stories in various forms, short stories seem like a good place to start.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Long time lurker first time commenting. I am an exec at a production company. I have written scripts in the past and have received some positive feedback. I am in middle of re-writing my first novel and it has been an incredible experience.
The two forms are very different (a reader of an early draft of my manuscript said it read too much like a script) but I think writing scripts did help me with the novel.
Like Dean above said, the thing I like most about writing a novel versus a script, is the same thing that scares me to death. Complete freedom. An editor or your agent will give you notes but no one is going to re-write you. No actor or director is going to make your words sing. That is a lot of pressure.
June 18th, 2007 at 5:27 am
wow, things really are a bit different outside the US. Your example of a movie with “half-Korean woman trapped in a mediocre marriage who imagines an affair with her co-worker” sounds just like European/Korean “art-movie.”
I believe almost nobody ever sells a script with high-six figures here, but then again you can probably do a movie where action is mostly internal and stakes are low.
Not that I have (almost) any first-hand knowledge about European film industry, except for the films that are released theatrically. And those kind of films get made here.
And, occasionally, someone even goes to see them.
August 1st, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Long post ahoy!
My interest in screenwriting began after reading parts of someone’s fan-fiction-ish script for a television show I enjoy watching (it’s a long wait until the next season begins
). It sucked, to say the least, so I decided to write my own. I wrote the first act/teaser and really worked on it for a while. It’s a very complex show and season premieres are definately the most ambitious and groundbreaking episodes of each season for the series, so I was very picky and perfectionist when it came to my approach and execution.
I never finished the script for the episode only because I enjoyed writing it so much that I decided to learn more about the screenwriting process/rules/and so forth. I’ve been reading a lot about writing for the past while and, while I’ve always taken an interest i creative writing, I’ve never looked into it seriously. I’ve been learning more about the things I’ve ‘touched upon’ in my high-school ‘Writer’s Craft’ class, as well as other things I’ve been familiarized with bya watching tv/movies. Watching dramas on television - such as Lost and Battlestar Galactica - definately teach me a lot about good character arcs and so forth. And, of course, there are some television shows that have taught me a lot of what ‘not’ to do.
However, I’ve been reading more and more about the tv/film ‘industry’ and it isn’t looking like the place for me. It’s not that I don’t feel I can compete, it’s just that it’s not my type of game. I’m sure you can fill in the rest as I’m sure you know many other people who feel the same about the screenwriting industry.
Anywho, I have considered writing novels in the past, but have said ‘no’ to that idea simply because I don’t read. It’s not that I don’t ‘like’ books, I just don’t want to read one. I have read books, of course, I just don’t enjoy the novel format. Likewise, I don’t enjoy writing in the novel-format. I tend to lost my ideas and passion for a scene/conversation/whatever because of how novels are structured or whatnot.
Through educating myself about screenwriting and fiction-writing in general, I’ve also taken some time to try and find a way to tell a story that works for me.
Graphic novels and Comic books are brilliant. I will read one no-problem - I’ve actually recently read a Wolverine comic book (where he’s a spandexless leather-jacket-wearing badarse in the city who fights thugs) and I really liked it. I’ve also read one where Hulk kicks the crap out of the Avengers which was cool. I don’t read comic books, though - those two are the only ones I’ve read in a long,long time (besides the horrendous Sonic comics I ‘looked through’ as a kid). Thing is, I don’t draw. On top of that, it doesn’t feel up my alley as far as I know. I don’t see myself writing a comic book or graphic novel. I’d like to go ito more detail, but I’m not exactly sure what those details are. Writing a graphic novel just doesn’t seem ‘me’.
Then there’s something that I learned about on Finn Harvor’s blog (http://screen-novel.blogspot.com/) called the Screenplay-Novel. You may be familiar with the concept. It’s new, of course, and I’m not sure how I’d approach such a thing. Do I write a screenplay-novel (a screenplay with the freedom of a novel, basically), or do I bite the bullet and write a screenplay? The formatting in a screenplay-novel is also free-for-all (like a novel, for the most part), so I’m sure reading a screenplay novel could be similar to reading Shakespeare. But then it comes down to the fact that I don’t necessarily enjoy reading Shakespeare. I respect his work as a great writer and so forth, but I don’t take too much joy in reading.
Anyways, I’m just caught in the middle of a crossroads. Well, maybe not a crossroads, but an open field with screenwriting on one side and something else on the other. The ’something else’ is something I’d rather take on, but I just don’t know what it is yet. Television/film is definately the medium I enjoy watching, but it doesn’t seem to me, at this moment, as the industry I want to work in. I know getting anything published is hard work, but the Hollywood-writer lifestyle definately doesn’t look up my alley or within my tastes.
Carlo
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:34 am
Hi, Carlo (#25):
I’ve been subscribing to this post hoping to get an answer to my question about machinima as new story-telling medium and your post seems topical enough for me to bring the topic back up again as a question for you - have you ever considered it as an alternative to to established media and the entertainment industry?
There’s a lot of exciting development in the space, even since I posted here just a couple of months back. A new tool is being released called MovieStorm (www.moviestorm.co.uk) that’s not a game that can be hacked or modded to be a virtual studio, but is instead a toolkit for actual machinima development from the get-go. The other thing that’s intriguing about it is that it is apparently going to be released for free, and that the company making it is going to attempt to finance it through the sale of expansion packs rather than the core product (source: http://www.machinimafordummies.com/)
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:56 am
Carlo, if you don’t read books you shouldn’t try to write one. It’s like someone working in film who doesn’t watch movies.
Most graphic novelists are actually very well read. Writing and reading go hand and hand. Good luck.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
ragazza, What I meant was television/film is my choice for entertainment mainly due to the theatre aspects of it (me and my brother watching it at the same time and discussing it, for example). There’s a lot in a visual medium that you simply don’t get in a text medium and vice versa. I’ve enjoyedcertain books, it’s just that I love, say, watching Lost with my brother and putting together the puzzle pieces and what’s exactly going on in a given character’s mind. That’s what I enjoy. Sure, it’s easier to watch than books are to read, but I personally prefer more complex stories and characters in my television and film. Anyways, I respect your honesty and I do know that anyone who writes is well-read. The thing is, while I know reading novels is essential to being a novelist, reading comic books and graphic novels are essential to being a good graphic novel writer. The main thing that reading a novel will do for a graphic novelist is the wide array of elements that go into creating and executing a good story and plot. There’s a reason why screenwriters read a lot of scripts - it’s their craft. That isn’t to say screenwriter’s need to read ‘novels’ in order to get better at their craft. Of course, reading novels will help, but so will watching a movie, reading a graphic novel, and so forth. The only way reading a novel will make a profound effect on your writing is if you write novels. Otherwise, if you’re not writing a novel, what you get out of the experience is the aspects of storytelling.
With all that said, it’s clear that many novels are must-reads for almost any writer. 1984 is one of these. Actually, I’d go as far to say they’re must reads for anyone living in today’s society, but that’s besides the point.
So no, I’m not well read persay, but I will definately read the must-reads. I’ve read some of them already (shakespeare, 1984, etc). Otherwise, I simply prefer the theatrical experience as I prefer experiencing a story with somebody else. I love critiquing and discussing and so forth, even while the movie/show is playing (though I sometimes have to press the pause button
).
– Jeff O’Connor, Machinima. The only machinima I felt has made a significant breakthrough is Red vs. Blue. Otherwise, it seems like many other machinimas are clones of red vs blue. However, I’m definately not too familiar with the scene so I can easily be proven wrong. I can’t say whether or not I feel it’s legitimate. Shows like Beast-Wars and Reboot are obviously a step-up from machinima, though I’m not too sure what machinima is even trying to be. If they were trying to be like Beast-Wars and Reboot, then I’d say Machinima is simply a poor-man’s 3d tv show. However, if a machinima based on Half Life simply extends a ‘half life’-esque story, then it’s quite different from a 3d animated tv show in that it’s fan-fiction.
So, are you asking me about 3d animated shows? Or are you asking me about a videogame’s graphical engine being used to tell a story that pertains to the same genre/theme/universe as the initial videogame (fan-fiction-esque)?
3d animated shows are obviously an alternative. However, I do feel sour about videogame machinima that are based on their videogame. Red vs Blue is slightly different because it’s not a halo-esque story that is told with the elements of the video game Halo. It is, however, geared towards halo fans because of the undertones of the game. What I mean is it’s not fan-fiction of the halo story, it is fan-fiction of the halo game.
I guess I’m not the best person to try and explain this as I’m not into machinima and I haven’t watched a Red vs Blue episode in a long, long time. I do remember that Red vs Blue is well written and entertaining, which makes it impossible for me to see it as an amateur fan-fiction machinima.
So I guess my question to you is how different is machinima from 3d animated shows?
To the rest of you (and John August), my writing dilemma is still in the air.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Also, ragazza, you didn’t really answer my question.
I said fom the beginning why I’m not going to write a novel. That’s not my question/dilemma.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Carlo:
I’m talking about it in a much broader sense, both as a tool for people who work in the “real” film and television industries to prototype a concept before putting it into production and as an art form in its own right.
The tools that I’m talking make machinima more like digital puppetry, and less of an exercise in skillfully editing screen captures and then doing a voice-over.
My experiences with it have been primarily centered on what people are making with “The Movies,” but I am also familiar with Red vs. Blue from Machinima.com. I only discovered machinima because of my interest in politics, specifically the story of the Paris riots as seen through the eyes of a French-Algerian teen. It was in French with broken English subtitles, but because of the medium it could be understood by just about anyone regardless of whether they understood either language. It also gave a teen, who was not described as an activist or writer, a very powerful and expressive medium to work with.
Anyway, I’d like your opinion on either aspect. Personally, I think there’s an audience for machinima for machinima’s sake, but (again, my opinion) the bigger audience is for film maker wannabes who don’t have the money, connections, looks, or whatever to get a real shot in the industry.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I think if you want to write in the tv/film medium you have to try it. Once you have given it a shot maybe you will at that point decide it’s not for you. Re: working in film/TV, yes it is a tough business to break into and has its frustrations but if it’s your passion you have to go for it.
I disagree that reading novels only helps the writing of novelists. Most of the A-list writers I know or work with are very, very well read.
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Ragazza, I know they are well read. I never said reading novels only help novelists, I said they’re only ‘requirements’ for novelists. For everybody else, they’re a huge help along with graphic novels and films themselves. For any writer, reading and being a part of your craft’s culture is prettymuch a reccomendation. For example, if you write novels, you need to read novels. If you write screenplays, by golly you need to have seen many movies. That’s all I meant.
Jeff, I’m still fuzzy on machinima. There doesn’t seem to be much of a definition towards what makes machinima ‘machinima’ other than how it’s made with the tools of a videogame or something similar. Otherwise, the rest of machinima is similar to animated shows/movies. Right? So it seems, to me, like any other animated way of telling a story.
August 7th, 2007 at 3:31 am
So what does anybody have to say about something like a screenplay-novel?
August 8th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Writing a screenplay takes skill. You don’t just roll off the bed one morning and create the English Patient.