Should You Write A Screenplay?

SHOULD YOU WRITE A SCREENPLAY?

With screenwriting contests in abundance these days, it's easy to see there is a definite trend towards this type of writing. Writer's Digest has had a contest going for years, and the perks for the winners are nothing short of fabulous. Who couldn't use a few thousand dollars in their pocket, an award for Screenplay Excellence presented in person at a banquet and a three night stay at the Sheraton in Los Angles?

http://www.writersdigest.com/contests/internat_screenplay.asp

Or how about the one endorsed by Warner where the winner can receive up to $70,000 in option money and have his or her screenplay sent directly to production companies and studios?

http://www.moviebytes.com/mb_contest_detail.cfm?contestnumber=499

Maybe you have what it takes to be the next great screenwriter who'll turn Hollywood upside down. Before you pull out the incognito shades and start saying "Where do I sign?" you need to determine whether or not you have a screenplay to write. How do you know if your story should be told on the big screen, rather than in a novel or as a stage play?

Knowing what's most needed for each venue is the simplest way to determine what you ought to be writing. Once you've got that figured out, we'll move on to what you need to know to write your screenplay and sell it! Look over these simplified guidelines and decide if you'd like to go further with this type of writing:

Novel: Readers are invited into the minds of the characters so we can know things about these people through their thoughts.

Stage play: More detail is needed in setting up a scene for the stage than is required in a screenplay, and the dialogue must tell us about our characters.

Screenplay: Action and dialogue are the key ingredients to understanding the characters.

There are some stories that can be translated into all three of these mediums, as in the case of "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo, but this is not always true. "The Sum of All Fears" by Tom Clancy was great in both book and movie form, but couldn't possibly be a stage production. If you feel you have a story that could be told in two or more mediums, then your only job will be to determine which you'd prefer to write first. Examples of the three styles mentioned here are offered at the end of this article.

If you've decided scripts are the way for you to go, the next thing you need to do is learn what works and what doesn't. The best way for new writers like us to do this is by reading successful screenplays. Success in this case is not determined by whether or not you personally liked a particular film, or how great it did in the box office, but by the fact that it made it to the big screen at all. The more current the scripts you read, the better it will be for your writing. It'll help you get a feel for structure, style, content, as well as aid you in understanding what directors are looking for these days. To help you get started, see what the internet has to offer. Free scripts are everywhere!

http://www.screentalk.org/gallery.htm
http://www.simplyscripts.com

Interested in checking out some contests? The following two sites have plenty to offer. You'll find that some of these contests are free to enter, while others do charge a fee. Considering the potential payoff though, 25 to 45 dollars isn't as hefty as it first sounds.

http://www.moviebytes.com/
http://www.hollywoodlitsales.com/cf/contest/contestlist.cfm

With these resources as your fingertips, you'll be off to a good start. In the next article of this series, we'll take a look at the structure of a screenplay. Following that you'll learn what works and what doesn't, and why it's important for you to know it. Further in the series, you'll learn how to find material to write about, what you need to know to get your script past the Hollywood reader, the real role of a screenwriter and much more.

EXAMPLES.

In the following examples, I've written one scene, but altered it for each of the three mediums discussed; the novel, stage play, and screenplay.

Please note that in the screen and stage samples, margins are not set as precisely as required due to site versus word program discrepancies; however, I did my best to give you an idea of what your manuscript should look like.