What Screenwriters Can Teach Novelists
Movies and novels have a lot in common, right? Both tell stories. And some of the best movies come from novels, don’t they? (Though not so much vice versa!) Which means novelists have the upper hand and are the real storytellers.
Except for one thing. Screenwriters, the better ones, actually make a living at their writing. While novelists, even pretty successful ones, mostly teach and edit and do other things to support their writing habits. Only a tiny percent (the big bestsellers we hear about all the time) support themselves with their writing.
So why are these two careers for storytellers so different?
I started to ask myself this question more seriously a few years ago, when I realized that after reading a hundred books on crafting fiction, I still didn’t know enough to write a single tight story. So I began to look around for somewhere else to learn storytelling, and I discovered the world of screenwriters. These folks live and die by story. There’s no indulgent thread of “Oh, if only there were more people enlightened enough to see what I’m doing with my gorgeous prose.”
In the world of film andt elevision, you either sell scripts or you get out, there’s little languishing along for years as an underappreciated writer. Which means film schools teach the craft of writing in a different manner altogether from the way that fiction is taught in creative writing programs.
Novelists, to my (admittedly biased) way of thinking, choose between delicate salons of learning, in which gentlefolk discuss the means by which the alternative placement of a single comma can irrevocably change the fabric of the text. Let’s call those MFA programs, just for something to call them.
How many MFA holders publish successful books? I don't have an actual answer, but I’d posit that this percent might be smaller than the percent of published novelists who actually earn enough to live on.
Aspiring screenwriters, in contrast, pick among boot camps for where to learn. No gentle salons, these. For screenwriters, it’s face-in-the-mud, do it now, do it fast. Get good or get a different job.
Of course, I’m talking from a place of total ignorance because I’ve never attended either of these kinds of schools, but I’ve read voraciously about screenwriting and novel-writing and these are clearly two very different beasts. MFA programs teach “literary fiction,” which in the publishing world translates into “beautiful prose with minimal story and a limited audience. For those who just want to read a good story, these books can feel like too much work.
It’s a fact that very few of the books written on “how to write a successful novel” are by MFA graduates. Which isn’t to say that MFA graduates don’t write remarkable and beautiful books, but the ones who manage to tell compelling stories have usually had to learn to do so on their own—as they’re rarely taught this in writing programs. Certainly, there’s a great deal of lip service about story—you hear it all the time, how story has to be the driving force. But no one actually teaches how to do this. It’s almost as if teaching the actual mechanics of storytelling is a bit too “commercial,” not “literary" enough. Issues of "plot" are things those genre-fiction writers have to fuss over, whereas "real" writers will figure it out along the way. Because, after all, how hard can it be? Except no one in these programs seems to have mastered it.
And I take issue with this mainly because we don’t have enough good storytellers!
To my mind, we should be teaching novelists how to write stories FIRST, then how to pretty up the language LATER. Because it doesn’t matter what the language is like when there’s no story you care about. And it’s easy enough to gussy up the language when you’ve got the solid bones of a strong story on the page.
Further, it seems not right to me that MFA programs charge lots of money but don’t teach the skills that will actually make their students successful. In part, it’s the age-old conundrum that the curriculum is set by academic faculty, some of whom are invested in keeping it removed from the real world. But the programs themselves should be pushing to teach storytelling—that is, if they want their students to then go out and sell books. Otherwise, the students they’re graduating are more future teachers of creative writing. We need these, certainly, but we don't need whole graduating classes of them.
In contrast, film schools understand that storytelling can be taught and must be taught. Students entering programs in writing for film and television almost can’t help coming out with a strong working knowledge of sellable scripts.
Rather than try to argue aboutthis distinction, I’ll offer a vivid illustration in the form of degree and/orcourse requirements.
Degree requirements for theWarren Wilson MFA Program for writers
· Full participation in 5 residency sessions
· Successful completion of 4 semester projects, with a minimum accumulation of 60 graduate hours
· Work with at least four different faculty supervisors
· Broad reading in literature and contemporary letters, as demonstrated by a bibliography of usually at least 50-60 entries
· The ability to write clear prose, and to articulate cogent response to work by other writers, as demonstrated every semester in brief bibliographical annotations or their approved equivalent
· A substantial analytical essay of intelligence and insight
· A Thesis Manuscript of poetry or fiction of high quality
· An objective assessment of that manuscript by faculty and peers in Thesis Interview
· A graduate class taught to peers during a residency period
· A public reading of his/her work duringresidency
As compared to:
The USC John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television (consistently top-ranked film school)
YearOne
· CNTV101 Reality Starts Here Units: 2
· CTCS190g Introduction to Cinema Units: 4
· CTPR409 Practicum in Television Production Units: 2, 4
· CTCS201 History of the International Cinema II Units: 4
· CTWR250 Breaking the Story Units: 2
· CTWR321 Introduction to Hour-Long Television Writing Units: 2
Year Two
· CTPR290 Cinematic Communication Units: 4, 6 (6 units only)
· CTWR206a Writing the Screenplay Units: 4
· CTWR416 Motion Picture Script Analysis Units: 2
· CTWR206b Writing the Screenplay Units: 4
· CTWR411 Television Script Analysis Units: 2
· CTWR421 Writing the Hour-Long Dramatic Series Units: 2
· or
· CTWR434 Writing the Half-Hour Comedy Series Units: 2
Year Three
· CTCS464 Film and/or Television Genres Units: 4
· CTCS469 Film and/or Television Style Analysis Units: 4
· CTWR305 Advanced Screenwriting: The Relationship Screenplay Units: 4
· CTWR437 Writing the Original Situation Comedy Pilot Units: 4
· or
· CTWR439 Writing the Original Dramatic Series Pilot Units: 4
· CTWR449 Rewriting the Original Dramatic Series Pilot Units: 4
· or
· CTWR453 Advanced Feature Rewriting Units: 4
Year Four
· CTWR 418a Senior Thesis Units:4 or
· CTWR419a Senior Thesis in Dramatic Television Units: 4
· or
· CTWR420a Senior Thesis in Half-Hour Television Comedy Units: 4
· CTWR418b Senior Thesis Units: 4 or
· CTWR419b Senior Thesis in Dramatic Television Units: 4
· or
· CTWR420b Senior Thesis in Half-Hour Television Comedy Units: 4
· CTWR459a Entertainment Industry Seminar Units: 2
Granted, I’m not really comparing apples to apples here, but the difference in specificity between the two is pretty striking. One talks more about writing, the other forces you to write and fail over and over. It’s the only real way to learn.
For myself, my regret in not attending an MFA program is that I don’t have that core of writer friends who all got to know one another when they were young and unpublished. However, I tell myself I’m a stronger writer for not having been indoctrinated into the elitism of literary fiction.
Instead, I’ve been kiln fired by the hard oven of rejection into learning story structure that I can depend upon, that provides a solid skeleton to everything I would want to write. Much of this, I learned from books written by screenwriters—people understand story in a nuts-and-bolts way. And can teach it.
Story should never be optional!