I’ve written one book and I don’t know the first thing about
the publishing world except it was a long slog to find a publisher which seems
to be a common experience. I’m not qualified to comment about the business side
of things and one book hardly makes me an authority about the creative side.
I’m reasonably sure-footed discussing screenwriting because this has been where
I’ve invested most of my work life and it pays the rent – most of the time...
So the only angle I could think of to deliver a mercifully short article is to discuss
why a screenwriter wrote a novel. First of all, prose is terrifying to me.
There’re no short cuts – none that I have discovered anyway. It’s the most
muscular and honest form of writing I’ve ever attempted. I think I may hate it
as you do most things that are diabolically difficult. Most feature length
screenplays are between 90 and 120 pages – but anything over 105 is viewed with
suspicion and unease by producers. That’s about twenty thousand words and under
– about the length of a solid novella. Books, as I’ve discovered, are a LOT
longer. Most books are at minimum three times as long as the average screenplay
and sometimes substantially longer. It’s a big decision for a screenwriter to
write a book because they are committing to a word count that calibrated back
to scripts would mean between 3-10 feature length screenplays. That’s the math
– one book or 3-10 screenplays. One story or ten. A road diverged in a wood a
long time ago, as Mr Frost said, and I took the one that led to cinema and endless
producer’s notes (some lucid). The reasoning was simple – I want to tell a LOT
of stories – and because screenplays are shorter and quicker to write than
novels (unless your Stephen King of Georges Simenon) I knew it was the right
medium for someone who is too bone lazy to care what the inside of a room likes
like or what a character is wearing – or looks like. I was content with INT.
ROOM – DAY and to move on. There are other attractions to the screenwriting
medium of course – the decadent wrap parties (never been invited to one), a
chance to work with a good director (only happened once), sleeping with
starlets (ain’t ever going to happen) and of course being treated like dirt but
at least getting paid for it (now that happens every day). It will bruise you,
a career in screenwriting, but as the saying goes, it beats working. So why
this short detour into prose? The answer is simple and horrific at the same
time. Most of a screenwriter’s output will never be turned into movies. It will
never be seen or read beyond a handful of producers who have said “no” to it or
killed it through the slow shredding torture of development. Screenwriting,
like so many other creative enterprises, is a numbers game. You write a lot to
get a few things over the line. My Australian screenwriting hero is the late
and great Everett De Roche.
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This cyclone of screenwriting had about 20 movies
made from his work. But to achieve these 20 credits he had to write more than
60 screenplays. I use this ratio also. It means that 2 out of 3 stories you
sweat over and pour all your talent and passion into will never truly exist.
Screenplays, sadly, are nothing unless they become movies – as John Carpenter mockingly but truthfully
said to a difficult screenwriter “Well, just thread your script up in the
projector and we’ll take a look at it”. Writing a book, provided it was good
enough, was a chance to make sure at least one story was bullet-proof – that it
would be read and exist not in the quasi, delicate state that screenplays
inhabit. It was also a rare opportunity for a holiday from notes and other
input that must be processed into a screenplay to keep it alive – because the
second you stop processing this input the project is dead or you’re fired.
Something that a very talented and well-produced screenwriter said years ago
has haunted me.
Toward the end of his life Richard Matheson – a titan of film
and TV – mentioned in an interview that his only regret was he hadn’t written
more books. So many of his unproduced screenplays would never be read or
enjoyed. Those words have haunted me so much that this screenwriter sat down
and wrote a book.
TJ
Park is an Australian novelist and screenwriter. He was raised on a steady diet
of Stephen King novels, British science-fiction television, and the cinema of
John Carpenter and Sergio Leone. Not much else is known about him. That's just
the way he likes it.
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