This workshop will explore how screenplays are written, and use techniques employed in scripts for writing stories and novels.

As a filmmaker turned writer, I’ve had extensive experience crafting screenplays for short and feature-length movies. As a writer of literary fiction, that background now informs how I work.

The film writer has to externalize each character’s interior thoughts into actions. Dreams or voice over describing the interior life is discouraged. In a script it’s difficult to show backstory. Flashbacks are unpopular. Screenplays are divided into scenes, a new scene required for each shift in time or location. To avoid what’s described as “foot leather”, where there’s nothing going on but an actor walking, screenplays often follow the mantra of entering the scene at the last possible moment. Although the Director and Cinematographer decide on camera shots, in the script writers can suggest a close up or a wide shot by describing what the camera sees. Dialogue in screenplays has to be kept short and concise – long rambling soliloquies are alright for stage but not screen.

Examples of screenplays will be presented and we’ll explore how they are written. Movie clips will be shown and we’ll examine how each shot is a building block for a scene.

Literary writers can borrow these techniques. For example, in an action scene, it can be written in short details, like shots, that are elaborately described as the event evolves in slow motion. Pacing can be speeded up or slowed down based on sentence and paragraph structure. Characters can be described more viscerally by imagining them as actors walking through our sets. Tools like Beat Sheets can help with novel structuring. We’ll explore the freedom of literary writing where we can occupy the character’s mind, show backstory and dream worlds, jump in time and location.