How to Write a Screenplay

Writing for people who don't read
Or: How to adapt your novel into a script
AKA To The or Not to The
By Scott Nicholson

There was a post-New Wave and pre-Grunge band called The The's.
I'm sure they read a lot of Bentley Little novels, though I don't know
where they got the apostrophe.
The band's moniker is a nudge for writers who want to reduce their
work to the bare, and barely sensible, bones. To the core. Where the
meat stinks the most. I am, of course, talking about trimming it down
for Hollywood.
First, let me say I'm not a regular check-cashing resident of that
sandy, slightly arid, and architecturally homogeneous section of Los
Angeles. I have a couple of scripts in the option process, been a
Chesterfield semifinalist a couple of times, and a small handful of
directors and actors have liked my work, but nobody has yet said, "Let
me give you lots of money and let's get this bit of genius on screen."
So I admit I'm not a professional, but after five screenplays and
eight novels, I can make some primitive comparisons between the two
forms.
The simplest distinction I've discovered is in the elimination of a
specific, nonessential, but ubiquitous article of speech. If you ever
write a screenplay that includes the phrase "specific, nonessential,
but ubiquitous," then you are either writing for PBS or you are in an
insane asylum scrawling with blunt crayons.
While adapting some of my work for cinema, I've discovered everything
moves faster and works better for the eye if you rarely say "The."
Most of the time, "the" only works in dialogue, but that's only when
you can't get away with a mere grunt or F-word. You can't afford
description when the person reading your script is making 10 times
more than you are. Their time is money, and they know you have none
and want theirs. So you have to trick them. You have to make them look
smart.
The way to do that is to make your script look dumb. Act like you
don't know how to construct a sentence. This is a craft unto itself.
The art of fragment.
It's okay to admit you hate words. These days, the New York industry
barely reads the books it publishes, and there's a direct correlation
between the publicity budget and the amount of time spent editing and
proofreading. The higher the advance, the more quickly a book races
through the pipeline toward paydirt. Aim for a seventh-grade reading
level. And throw in some sex. With serials.
As goofy as that sounds, if you want to write for Hollywood, then you
need to aim lower. Target the work to fifth graders. Keep in the
present tense because movies happen now, as opposed to fiction, which
has already happened and is probably already out of print before you
even read it. These are the people with one finger in a nostril and
the other nine fingers on an X-box control. This is our future. These
are our purse handlers of the arts, our audience, the ones weaned on
the glass teat. This is the era of "three thumbs up" and "instant
classic."
Do you really want to give them anything that doesn't jump around,
lest you risk an ADHD apoplexy? I'd never give this advice to a
novelist, but if you're writing a screenplay, automatically cut your
first draft by 10 percent. If it's 100 pages, make it 90, make it
quicker, make it yesterday with a postmodern twist, "Titanic of the
Caribbean." Less is more. Tell the story with as much white space as
possible, starting as close to the end as possible, leaving as much
unsaid as you can. There should be nothing but a greasy popcorn stain
between "Fade in" and "Credits over."
Not to suggest cinema is in any way an inferior storytelling medium;
it just relies a little less on a single person's vision. And the
writer is fairly expendable, if you think about it. You can make a bad
movie out of a good script, but you can make a movie that's decent
with any of a hundred or even thousand different writers, as long as
the other elements carry their weight. It's so simple even I can do it:

The Greatest Movie Ever Made
By Scott Nicholson

FADE IN:

Dark and stormy night.
Strike match, candle flickers to life.
Angeline Jolie, nude, smiles at the camera.
Pull back to reveal Scott Nicholson, frumpy, creepy middle-aged
writer, mercifully clothed.
Scott reaches over and blows out candle.

CUT TO BLACK

Note: Any producers who want to option this script can contact my
agent. I'll throw in the acting for free.

If I were selling this as a short story, getting paid by the word, I
would have written, "It was a dark and stormy night. A match struck,
sulfur stench wending across the room as it touches a candle wick and
the flame bobbed to life. Angeline Jolie, nude, smiled at Scott
Nicholson, who mercifully was clothed and only three weeks late for
deadline. Scott reached a creepy hand to the light switch, flooding
the room with a harsh yellow glow. Angeline winced. `Excuse me,' he
said to her. `You're standing between me and my typewriter.'"
Yeah, ever since I started writing screenplays, I've gotten a whole
lot dumber.
--------------------------
Scott Nicholson is the author of THEY HUNGER, THE FARM, THANK YOU FOR
THE FLOWERS, and four other novels. He's a professional freelance
editor, an organic gardener, a semi-professional liar, and a goat
breeder. His website www.hauntedcomputer.com serves up a blog and more
writing advice.