Do a novel and a screenplay really differ that much?

[Stuart St Paul]

It has been a real fight for me, changing from being a screenwriter to a novelist. This is for so many reasons. The common factor is story telling.

I have heard many a great one liner supporting a thought or belief, but what holds true for both formats is that opinions are diverse and the debate goes on whatever the topic.
It used to be, that in television they felt grabbing the audience meant they may stay with you all evening. It was a combination of our love for familiarity, and the laziness stopping one getting out of the chair to change channel. Book series I hear you shout and we see the parallels again.
In the visual media we have had to lean to deal with choice as channels exponentially increase in number, and see the viewer become bored wading through mediocrity and looking for something to watch. Writers of books have had to compete with that kind of competition forever. The poster or book cover, and the elevator pitch are common to both.
The remote control to the box in the corner of the room became an enemy of broadcast TV. Now potential purchasers are able to read the first few pages of an ebook on line means the author is faced with the same. As such, the crime, the murder, or the dead bodies, which used to have to be in the first ten pages of a screenplay, no longer get that long. It is no secret that you have to be clever and interesting very quick.
In my early days in radio, there was a poster either side of the studio clock. 'Engage brain before opening mouth', and 'entertain and don't educate'. Rules are meant to be broken, but those two always apply to all media to a large degree. In film we would say, often on set, 'when the air has gone out of the scene, it has finished'. It doesn't matter what over words were written beyond that moment, they are gone. The editor, who steps in after filming, cuts even more. Only too often the postscript of a chapter, book, scene or film can linger too long. Ending sharply can be correct, but it can be too soon, or take way too long. Watching the TV series Blue Bloods will offer a variety as the post script is a style.
Considerations of reduction apply to all art forms, and in books to every chapter. Start with meaning and end when finished. Do we not stay for a cuddle? Only if there is reason, need, style, or interest.
Starting late is a screenwriting tool. Often in development, we used to rip the first twenty pages away from a script and start reading at page 21. It was a tool. We then had to ask ourselves what is it that we are missing? Often the answer was nothing. If you rip another twenty away and the script survives then you have issues.
Around 1996 I was due to direct a Sci Fi movie starring James Caan and Jean Marc Barr. It collapsed and I was moved to a Thomas Hardy love story set in 1802. I still don't know if the logic went any further than availability and knowing that I would complete the task. Here is the bigger smile; Thomas Hardy took the short story of The Melancholy Hussar for a short newspaper article in a Dorset newspaper. His expansion was developed by the original screenwriter into what I was given, which was a wapping 327 page screenplay. I worked and worked at what all good chefs call a reduction, but after sliding to just under two hundred the vast changes had upset the original writer. That was not Hardy, or the journalist who wrote the piece. What is interesting is that I was banned by the film's lawyers from reading Hardy's eight page story. Copyright law had changed from 50 years to 75 years and the original screenplay writer was the only one who could have referenced it, and only in the period of law allowed. I insisted the script stay on the heat, and a battle broke out between me and the original writer. I had five weeks to make this! A house writer from Universal was brought in as both a referee, and to lend a finishing hand. He and I worked well together and we delivered a great first effort of 127 pages. It was still too long, but to our shock it was green lit. The producer's previous film had come in short he refused to go shorter. It still makes me smile that my directors cut was 127 minutes long.
Jon Scott, the composer, said it was a masterpiece and could not wait to start work. He did start work, he had to. However, there was an instance to cut the film, then again, and again. It was being hacked in post and I was far from pleased. I did not know this until years later, but the budget to take the 35mm print through post was based on 90 minutes of everything from sound mix to celluloid. The film simply did not cut further than 107 minutes. Twenty minutes had been hacked by each and every producer and their life partners.
Jon Scott was also greatly annoyed as his music score was being affected because that had been recorded to the rough cut by a live orchestra in Lithuania. Our anger at production over scenes that were being targeted, caused sleepless nights.
I woke one morning with an epiphany. I stormed into the cutting room and demanded they cat the first seventeen minutes, even if it were mid scene, and give it back to producer. It could have been mid scene, such was my anger. Editors are there to save you and he did the cut, but started it well. The film worked. The character my late friend actor John Sessions played was almost completely cut and his anger never wained. The film caused much anger. However it was selected at Cannes for both Carbourg and Verona, sold all over the world and was a hit. Zygi Kamasa, the producer, went on to run Lionsgate, and is now Chief Executive Officer at Marv studios.
However, the air has left this story. Your story is the elevator pitch. If there is a scene or a chapter that does not address the pitch, then why is it in the book? More importantly, where does the book really start and end? That is not your choice, just your invention. But, when the wind blows take heed. Stuart St Paul, writer of a Cruise Ship Heist

[Sameeha Ismail]

You seem to have had quite the adventure with screenplays.

About the difference between a novel and screenplay, I once read a screenplay converted into a novel. I found that had very choppy descriptions. Other than that the screenplay turned novel was good.

[Stuart St Paul]

Yes. When I did it first the same. It was choppy, or missing information that novels tell in description. My second round of trying went the other way. I described too much. As someone who works in film I dislike description. I had put in far too much, tried to be too arty / novelly and was over writing. It took an editor to say no, too much. It is the difference between the first edition of CRuise Ship Heist at 102k words to the 2nd edition at around 72k words. The book now, using tools learned in years of screenplays, is shorter and sharper. The balance is how far to go. I write like a movie should be around the corner, after all these years it is hard not to. But I think it took eleven books. The first was a conversion of Freight which won best director in Brechenridge and other awards. The film did well for ICON but the book was just an exercise and I don't push it. Shades of Bad was an exorcise in making myself write something I know nothing about. The next three books were the same, pick an extreme subject I know little about and I should not be writing and do it. Those four books have all been removed from publication. I then wrote Heist not expecting it to be a series. I have now written 6 CSCI books and they are a series of stand alone books. But I have a team of investigators and as much as I like them, I let them disappointment, do wrong, and be killed. In that respect I think I produce a fresher series of books and some might say they are noir. Hiest has already been awarded at the Los Angeles Noir Novel, and is in the last 50 for the bigger award. The novels thrown away were me getting into a woman's head and writing her with a challenged mental state. They ended up being a new challenge in book 5 of the series which was poorly titled Dangerous Covid 19 Cruise Romance. Although still available the rewrite is with the edit team now, and I have challenged them for a Nov 24th release date. The books were used and she is the backbone of a reverse engineered CSCI book. The new challenge was to follow her, and know a crime is to happen. As opposed to knowing there is a crime and solving it. I was a great challenge. I think when I write, just as I did in movies, I know I can go from A to B as if an assignment and in a short time. However, as a writer in his twilight zone I only wish to write if I can bring something to the table. In that, I also say something. So, the books have characters with opinions and knowledge, they are characters that will challenge or annoy the reader. My book Cruise Ship Art Theft swings a punch at the art industry. The current book, Murder Reunion is squaring up on child trafficking. The third book in the series used cruise ships to smuggle women in the sex trade in a very clever way - obviously made up.Cruise Ship Traffic is a disturbing book, but it is a page turner. They are different as I don't have a team and the actors are all me. The novelist is far more god-like than the film director and I thought we were a strange selfish bunch!