Incorrectly written scripts are the key to selling your screenplay
I had a conversation with a writer who'd cut his teeth in development. While we were chatting about the strike and sharing the rumors we'd both squirreled away, the conversation turned toward the Taylor Sheridan article. You know, the one where he sneered at the poor "story coordinator" (actually his script coordinator) who does the clearly unappreciated job of turning his vomit drafts into legible material for the rest of production.
Nobody knows what anyone else does in this industry, this writer explained to me. Actors don't understand what a showrunner is, showrunners (clearly) don't know what script coordinators do - most people are blissfully unaware of how the larger gears of the entertainment industry spin.
Like the writers who are hired to write their novellas that get scripts through development, but never get greenlit. "They're prose people."
For many a script coordinator, prose is a four-letter word. But clearly, it was making writers money.
I begged him to continue.
The Prose People
There are some writers whose job is to write purple prose. They eschew the accepted conventions of writing producible scripts—don't tell the reader something that can't be seen on screen, don't use anything other than DAY or NIGHT in your screen heading—and write an initial draft of a script that reads like a novella.
These novella scripts are easy on the eyes. They draw in the people whose support is needed to get a script packaged, like actors and co-financiers, and then another writer would eventually be brought in to turn the script into something producible.
In other words, the prose person comes in to create (or develop) IP, and another writer develops it into the script that does get greenlit and becomes the show (or the movie).
It's the adaptation pipeline writ small.
The Reason Why Novellas Win
So why is the novella the form that attracts people to a project and gets it funded? Because the novella is entertaining. And ultimately, that's what people want in a script.
"Who wants to read a screenplay when you can read a novel?"
People don't care if a script is properly formatted. They don't care when apostrophes are used liberally and erroneously. All they care about is being entertained.
In fact, for people whose specialty is not in the writing of producible scripts, a correctly-formatted script can get in the way of a smooth, breezy read. "Who wants to read a screenplay when you can read a novel?"
Actors, producers, executives, reps (and their assistants) financiers who work in day-to-day telecommunication - many don't know how to read a screenplay. But they all want to be entertained. And if they're entertained, they can sell the idea to the people they need to sell it to, who then sell it to the people they need to sell it to.
You sell novellas. You produce screenplays.
The Outsiders
The writers' room has long fetishized the non-screenwriter. Bring them a playwright, an attorney, a TikToker with a million+ followers and the room will accept them with open arms. The irony, of course, is that these non-screenwriters don't know how to write a screenplay. That is their secret sauce. They write samples and specs and first drafts without knowing the rules they're otherwise ignoring. These scripts suggest the writer is an original thinker, a fresh voice, and brings a narrative that'll resonate with men 18-25 and women 35-49.
The badly written novella screenplay, it could be argued, is the sign of an auteur. The contrapositive is that a correctly written screenplay, with all the hallmarks of someone who's studied a show and probably worked inside its offices, is tired. Predictable. Unentertaining.
Flaws are how you know you're getting someone unvarnished and wild. It's how a script that's missing scene headings and misspells "its" multiple times before page 2 can finance a $350 million horse ranch. It's why so many pilots and features on your favorite script-compiling website don't do things "correctly", and why so many assistants' scripts never win competitions.
But There's No Excuse For Bad Storytelling
The novella approach may keep a screenwriter from getting in their own way. But a novella that doesn't entertain is just as unprofitable as a screenplay that doesn't entertain, either. At its heart, either form (or whatever hybrid you choose to adopt) needs all the basics of a good story, like characters the reader roots for (or at least is curious about). It needs conflict. It needs stakes. And unless you're Richard Linklater, it probably needs structure. So the next time you're worrying about how to format that slugline in your script—does the specific room come before the name of the general building or the other way around?—don't even bother. Go ahead and set your scene at twilight or sunrise or the moment before the full moon wrests free of the cloud enshrouding it. Add that note about the soundtrack even if you'll never get the rights to it. Even suggest some shots, if you'd be so bold. Just, for fuck's sake, keep everyone entertained.
Comments