Screenwriter in Residence

The Best Way to Learn How to Write a Screenplay

Read screenplays.

The problem many writers have when they try to write a screenplay is that they only know what a screenplay is from seeing a movie.  But the movie isn't the script.  In fact, it's quite difficult to "see" the script when you see the film.  It's like looking at a building and seeing the blueprints.  I suppose it can be done, but I think it's easier to learn how to make something by studying the thing you're trying to make.  Hopefully, you're trying to make a screenplay.  Once that's done, then you can think about whether you want to make a movie from that screenplay.

I began to teach myself how to write screenplays before I had the chance to go to film school or to learn on the job.  How did I do it?  (And the job of learning how to write screenplays is far from finished for me!  I suspect it's a career-long task.)

I did it by reading the first two screenplays I found.  This was the late seventies and published screenplays were NOT the norm in bookstores.  But I found two:  "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" in paperback and "Citizen Kane" which was included in "The Citizen Kane Book", also in paperback.  In retrospect, I'm so grateful to the whoever guides us through life that I was given those two screenplays to begin my autodidactic lessons.  I couldn't have asked for two better examples because they're both classics and they're both not "written" correctly!  In fact, the Butch screenplay is totally in the wrong format!  (Doesn't stop it from being brilliant.)

What both those screenplays DID teach me was how vital it was for the story to be told in pictures.  Yes, there was dialogue but fundamentally, those screenplays are Moving Pictures.

The third book I read is also a classic: Eugene Vale's "Technique of Screenplay Writing".  Vale's book was one of the first "how to's"--published long before the likes of Syd Field et al came up with their formulas.

I hate formula.  I love structure.  Vale understands the difference and I'm grateful that I read that book before someone ever shoved Syd Field in my face--which in my view is more formula than structure--especially for someone new to screenwriting.  Screenplays are not fill-in-the-blank documents, though you could easily believe that from reading Syd Field.  Field's books like "Screenplay" aren't wrong.  But his approach schematizes screenwriting.

I suggest starting with screenplays first.  Lots of screenplays.  After you've read at least ten, then, maybe, find a screenwriting handbook to read with a grain of salt.  It's important that you learn from the master writers, rather than shoehorn your nascent story into a formula that you may not understand fully.

If you really want to understand structure, go to the master of them all, Aristotle and read his Poetics.  It's actually all there.  But a tough slog if you don't know your way around ancient Greek theater.

Learn to write screenplays by reading screenplays.  Makes sense, doesn't it?  Give it a shot.  (And the great advantage of the Library is that their screenplay collection is extensive, and in stock!  Try doing that at your local bookstore or on Amazon.  That's why I purchase published screenplays for my own library as soon as I can because they invariably go out of print quickly.)  But if you trot down to your local branch, you won't have that trouble.

I'll post a list of suggested screenplays and screenwriting handbooks soon.

What is a screenplay?

I'm thrilled to be appointed the first screenwriter-in-residence for the Toronto Public Library.  I'll be blogging here throughout my term over the next couple of months. 

As a first post, I wanted to start with a fundamental.  If you're interested in film and TV, then you should know that the first person on the job is the one who writes the script or screenplay.  No one else--producers, directors, actors, gaffers, grips, editors--has a job until the screenwriter completes theirs.

But what exactly is a screenplay?

Some people may know what a screenplay looks like--a bunch of pages of writing in a funny, not especially reader-friendly format. But how do we define this thing?

The great screenwriter Frank Pierson, (Dog Day Afternoon) once called it a "passionate letter to the cast and crew." That's probably what it is in it's highest form. But on the most prosaic, fundamental level, a screenplay is really a set of instructions to the cast and crew.

It describes in a very trackable way--breaking it down scene by scene--what the reader should see and hear if they were watching the finished product.

It's a blue print or a rendering of what the final product--a film or TV show--would look like.

A set of instructions written in practical language that explains explicitly or implicitly what's required to film.  Based on the screenplay, the props master will know if a gun is required for a scene.  The casting director will know how many principal actors, day players and extras the production will call for.  The production designer will be able to start choosing locations or designing sets based on what's described in the screenplay.  All their jobs start with the screenplay.  No one can afford to wait for filming to start to be told what to do.  The screenplay tells them what to do.  (Though it does NOT tell them how to do it!)

Drop into your favourite library and check out some of the published screenplays of films you may have seen to see how the screenplay evokes everything the movie embodied.  That's the best way to learn how a writer like Frank Pierson could transform a set of instructions into a work of art.