John August

Adaptation

Short answer sprint

Adaptation, QandA, So-Called Experts, Television, Words on the page

Questions have been backing up in the inbox for a few weeks, so I thought I’d do a Short Answer Sprint to work through a few.

questionmarkIf a friend or co-worker tells you an anecdote, or describes a character eccentricity of one of her relatives, and you use it in a screenplay are there any legal ramifications? I have no intention of using the name of the friend’s relative (I don’t know it), but the story and the relative are so funny and eccentric, respectively, that a very amusing character could be made from them. Do I need to get my friend’s permission to use this information?

— Derek

Legally, no. Ethically, yes. Particularly if said friend is a writer who might be planning to use it herself. I borrowed an anecdote from a screenwriter friend in Go: the moment when Simon accidentally sets the hotel room on fire. I changed pretty much everything about it, but I checked with him first to make sure he wasn’t planning on using it.

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questionmarkI’m writing a scene between a Chinese immigrant woman and a man from Mexico. Both characters speak in broken English, and I’m wondering how to correctly write broken English with a Chinese accent and speaking pattern, as well as how to do it for other languages. Do you just write the dialogue in “good English” and then somehow note that the character has a thick Chinese accent? How would you tackle this challenge and could you an some example or two?

— Jules Hoffman

No time for examples in a Short Answer Sprint. But when writing non-standard English, you walk a fine line between “giving the flavor” and “annoying the reader.” So here’s the simple advice:

1. Use the speaker’s words
2. Use the speaker’s grammatical structure
3. Don’t try to duplicate the exact speech pattern on paper

If you have more than two apostrophes in a line of dialogue, you’re probably overdoing it.

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questionmarkI’ve been building a bit of a gut. Too many years of balancing a day job with writing time and squeezing in food when I could led to some really bad eating habits. One of the perks, though, was that I became a “Shit Camel.” I could go for a week without taking a dump. Sure, it was a massive, hour-long endeavor that afforded plenty of reading time whenever I did take a crap, but it left the flow of work or writing largely undisturbed.

Now that I’m eating better and trying to work this fat off, I find that I’m visiting the john much more often and depositing much less when I leave. I hate that. This has been especially annoying in the past few days since I blocked them off for writing time only.

All this is to ask, what do you eat as a writer? Are you hunched in front of your Mac for hours on end like a crazy Korean gamer, with Red Bulls and candy wrappers scattered everywhere? Or do you have some kind of healthy eating regimen that keeps you energized? Just curious, because distractions of any kind really destroy my momentum.

— René Garcia

Writing is sedentary, and sedentary people tend to get fat. But most screenwriters — even the fat ones — defecate more than once a week. Yikes.

In terms of health, I eat pretty sensibly. If you’re trying to lose weight, South Beach is actually very easy and sane. Excercise-wise, I lift three times a week. (A lot of writers go to my gym, for reasons unclear.) I do less cardio than I should, but I’m walking 4+ miles per day picketing, so that kind of makes up for it.

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questionmarkI am a beginning screenwriter and I am very intimidated by plot design. I love reading good screenplays because the plots seem like clever puzzles where each piece fits snugly but unexpectedly into a grand scheme. When I try to construct plots on my own, however, I feel they seem contrived and unrealistic. It seems like a very intellectual process to me, even though the ultimate goal is an emotional one. Do you have any advice for someone struggling with this? I’ve read about three books on screenwriting, and they make plot structure seem so basic, but it doesn’t feel that way when you’re creating from scratch. Any helpful words from you will probably do a lot for me.

— Jim

Screenwriting books make everything seem so tidy, when actual screenwriting is gory and difficult. Plot and structure are really just the answer to a single question: what happens when?

Look at your story from your main characters’ perspectives. What are they trying to do at each moment in the script? What do they know, and what do they learn?

Then look at it from the audience’s perspective. What do they know, and what do they expect will happen next?

A good plot keeps surprising both the main characters and your audience. Probably the reason your plots feel contrived is that you’re trying to drag your characters through some pre-determined series of structural benchmarks, rather than focusing on what’s interesting and surprising right now in this scene.

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questionmarkI read in your comments, some time ago, that you had a mix tape you listened when you wrote for “Go” to help you get in the right mood. Did any of that music find its way into the movie? If so, how did that happen? ex. did you suggest it to the music director? If not, why not? Wasn’t it a key factor in setting tone for you?

— Dan

None of those songs made it in the movie — and that’s fine. A playlist is a great way to help capture a certain tone while you’re writing, particularly when you need to get back into a mood. But it’s really just for your own preparation. Screenwriting is a lot like acting in that way, incidentally. Actors often have touchstones to help them get back into a role. Music is a great one.

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questionmarkAre you inspired to help new writers because you had the good fortune of a mentor when you were starting your career, or do you do it because you had to figure it out on your own?

— Annabel

I didn’t have a mentor, at least not for any significant period of time. I started this site because I remembered what it was like having 1,000 questions about screenwriting, and no good place to ask them.

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questionmarkStop me if you’ve heard this one, but do you think the stop of “Ops” was related to the imminence of the somewhat similar secret-adventures-’round-the-world “The Unit”?

— Matt Waggoner

The Unit is a lot like Ops — but done as a CBS show. I don’t mean that as a slam. They figured out how to take a potentially risky premise and turn it into something embraceable by a mass audience. What’s funny is that we met with Scott Foley for Ops (at Susina, the coffee shop featured in The Nines). He read the script and really liked it. We liked him, and would have cast him in a second. He’s an undervalued actor, and a nice guy.

But no, I don’t think The Unit derailed Ops. Our project hung around longer than it should have largely based on my name and the quality of the writing. It really wasn’t a Fox-appropriate show, and it’s for the best we never shot the pilot. (The two Ops scripts are in [Downloads section](http://johnaugust.com/downloads) if you want to read them.)

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questionmarkI’m in early discussions with a producer about writing a biopic. One thing that has come up in these discussions is the producer’s insistence that the movie adhere to a traditional three act structure and not be ‘episodic’ – and I agree with him in principle (I’m frequently dissatisfied by biopics for this very reason), but I also feel that the complicating factor in this case is that lives simply don’t unfold in three acts – they are, by their very nature, episodic. I was curious as to how you might approach this kind of assignment in terms of finding a three-act story within an episodic sequence of ‘true’ events.

— M

History is history. Movies are stories, and good stories have forward momentum. Your challenge is finding the thread(s) that keep the main character working towards a goal, with obstacles, setbacks, and moments of success. And that may not be possible. There are many remarkable people whose lives are surprisingly resistant to dramatic staging. There hasn’t been a great biopic of Lincoln, Da Vinci, or Einstein. [Amadeus](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086879/) succeeds because they elevated a fairly minor character in his life (Salieri) and told a largely fictionalized story through his eyes.

Don’t try to tell the story of a great person’s life. Tell a great story using the details of a person’s life.

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questionmarkThis may be kind of a loaded question, but have you ever read Stephen King’s Dark Tower books? They’ve just been finished, thirty-some years after the first book was started, and are so old fashioned and evocative of Rod Serling — like some weird combination of The Lord of the Rings, Sergeo Leonne’s Spaghetti Westerns and The Twilight Zone — that a movie adaptation has to happen eventually. The fan base is much too huge. Could you ever see yourself considering adapting this?

— J.R. Flynn

This is an example of how long questions sit in the box sometimes. [JJ Abrams is now adapting it](http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1574452/20071115/story.jhtml).

But to answer your question: sure. I could see myself doing it. But JJ Abrams or not, I try not to dwell on the projects I’m not writing, because that can drive one mad with frustration. As busy as I am (when not on strike), barely a week goes by that I don’t see a project announced in Variety which causes that spike of envy. If that ever goes away, I’ll probably quit.

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In the re-design of the site, I inadvertently got rid of the “Ask a Question” link. Until I find a good home for it, you can ask a question [here](http://johnaugust.com/ask-a-question).

Is it risky to spec something in the public domain?

Adaptation, Pitches, Producers, QandA

questionmarkLately I’ve been adapting novels and shorts stories that are in the public domain and I’m worried that some producer I query could just forget about me and hire someone else to adapt the same novel after my query letter puts it in their head it would make a good movie.

Now I know stealing ideas rarely happens and there isn’t anything I can do to protect my rights on a story in the public domain, but if a producer I query decides to adapt the same novel I have, without using my script, well then my script is pretty much dead in the water, right?

Basically I was curious to find out if you think I should stop worrying and pitch these adaptation, or should I focus on pitching the other two scripts I’ve written (which are based on true stories I control the rights to) and then pull out my adaptations once I forge a working relationship with a producer?

— Rob
Ohio

Would it suck if a producer, upon reading your query letter (or hearing your pitch), decided to go off and use the same public domain material as the basis for a different writer’s script? Yes.

Is it likely? Not really.

Let’s say you wrote an adaptation of some lesser-known [Christopher Marlowe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Marlowe) work. Say, “Dido, Queen of Carthage.” The producer is unlikely to know anything about the story, so if your pitch (or query) is interesting enough that he wants to know more, he’ll read your script. At that point, you’ve succeeded in getting a producer to read your material, and that’s the whole point of pitches and queries at this stage in your career.

Sure, you hope he loves it and wants to produce it. But that’s all dependent on his reaction to your writing. If he likes your writing, and he likes the idea, you’re golden. If he doesn’t like your writing, his loss.As a reminder, I assume that everyone writing in with a question is a fantastic screenwriter. This is an absurd postulate, but lets me sleep better at night.

Either way, I think it’s unlikely that your script would suddenly kindle an interest in a long-ignored literary property. I’m sure there are cases where that’s happened, but it feels like the exception, rather than the rule. So if the best script you have available is an adaptation of a public domain piece, by all means show it around.

Based on your own novel

Adaptation, QandA

questionmarkWhen writing a screenplay (under contract) that is based on a book that you also wrote, do you still include the “Based on the book by…” line on the title page? Or would that be seen as pompous overkill?

In the same vein, if you have a PhD is there any reason to put it at the end of your name on the title page? (My personal opinion is that only a douchebag would do either of those things, but then again I’m not yet qualified to make that call.)

— Daniel
Portland, OR

Yes. “Based on his novel,” might be another way to handle it. It’s not boasting, really. It helps explains the rights situation, and might clear up confusion down the road.

No. A PhD means nothing in screenwriting, and to include it would only invite mockery..

Should I write a novel or a script?

Adaptation, Genres, QandA, Words on the page

questionmarkAfter 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

answer iconAssuming 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](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eCBxfetMdAMJ:www.mjrose.com/content/journalism.asp+http://www.pw.org/mag/rose0205.htm&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari&source=www.google.com) are published each year. Compare that to film: For 2006, there were [607 movies](http://pds4.egloos.com/pds/200708/28/11/2006-US-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-Report.pdf) released theatrically.

If you’re looking to put your story out into the world, paper beats film, hands down.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.

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.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.

So why would anyone write a screenplay?

Based on questions my readers send in, a couple of scenarios come up frequently:

1. **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.

2. **”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](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433386/).

3. **”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.