Q: How does writing scripts differ to novels?

Ask me anything

This is a good question!

I’m going to heavily caveat this with - I am in no way an expert! Just someone that wants to keep learning.

I started my TV journey a long time ago. Fresh out of uni at twenty one years old. I first did a production trainee scheme with Channel 4. Then I worked at Lion TV and the BBC, focusing on factual before moving into a commissioner role at BBC Digital.

After gal-dem, I really wanted to write and also get back into TV. I was lucky enough to do a traineeship under John Yorke who wrote the iconic Into The Woods. It’s a screenwriting guide which people rightly recommend again and again. On the traineeship I worked on a pilot for a queer conspiracy thriller and learnt so much from John and the amazing producer Mia Pinto. Shout out both of them!

I’m very much at the early stages of writing for TV. I have a few projects in development, and I’m scripting two of them at the moment. One being a feature film, and one a TV show. I also recently wrote an hour long script of a rom-com.

It is different from novels, but I do think there are big similarities. Particularly when it comes to characterisation.  Also having written a novel before helps with the editing process. With novel writing you have to remove your ego and be so open to edits and receiving dense and thorough feedback on your 80,000 words. What you learn from receiving that level of feedback really helps when you move into writing for TV. There’s also a difference between scripting for TV and scripting for film.

Film feels more fluid and arts driven, whereas TV feels a bit more methodical. With my novel writing, I didn’t plan a huge amount. I let a lot of it come to me. But with TV, that’s not how it has worked. I have spent a lot of time outlining my project. Although I know a lot of people do this with novels as well, maybe I am an anomaly!

With novels, I have a very loose outlining and go off that. I allow a lot of space in between to see what comes up. However with a TV show, I map it more methodically. That doesn’t mean when you come to scripting you can’t be creative, because you absolutely can. It’s just a little different. And for me, I have to plan a lot more when writing scripts than books.

With both scripts and novels you want to create a rich visual picture. I think the difference with scripting is that it all comes through the action in the script and in the directions for the actors. You want to cultivate a world, and limit the amount of dialogue you have. For me anyway, the strongest performances are the ones in which things are not over explained.

With a novel you get to allow people’s imagination to do the talking. Whereas with writing a script, you’re having to build the world, the landscape, what things look like, and also the motions to move the actors forward.

I have an aspiration to eventually get into directing. I think it’s really interesting to hear the ways in which different directors work. Some give very rigid parameters - in terms of how the movements are supposed to take place or the tone in which they want things to work. Others work in a more collaborative way. They set parameters, but they trust their actors so much and give them a lot of freedom. The film Passages directed by Ira Sachs is a really good example of this freedom.

Also with scripting, it depends on the length of the project that you are doing. I wrote a short film that the BBC made a year ago, and through that I learnt the importance of narrowing down what you want to say. Not try to overachieve. With a short film you want to do something really impactful and direct. All the questions are not going to be answered. However with novel writing, you have more time and space for threads to be tied up.

But the fundamental principles of both are the same. Believable characters who you can really understand and track their intentions. In the scripts I’m most drawn to that is always what they’re focusing on. Every decision the character makes is telling you something about their psyche and their state of mind. Similarly with books - you want to get inside the head and the world.

Although in TV you do need a little more action than in books. My novel is a slightly drawn out will-they-won’t-they sort of romance. If I was to translate that to TV, there might be other plot beats I would need so there is more action taking place. You need your TV through lines that are going to draw people in and keep them watching for a long period of time. One thing I find really interesting and exciting about making the jump between working between screen and books -  is you can think about how you might like to reimagine specific projects. In a different world, a different space, and for different mediums.

I have specific ideas that I can really imagine in specific forms, but that doesn’t mean I can’t also imagine them in different ways. I certainly feel like I can imagine Rosewater in TV form. I know sometimes people are really upset when screen adaptations don’t exactly match up to the book, but I think that’s one of the beauties of moving through different mediums.

Something which has gone from book to screen, which I did really love, is Mr & Mrs Smith.  They reiminaged the story for a contemporary audience. The dynamic was different but it still had that energetic and crazy action going on. It felt fresh and not like I was just watching a remake. I feel like we’re all getting bored of seeing the same remakes a million times.

One final thing - recently I can see how much my writing has evolved from my pilot that I wrote two and half years ago. You learn as you go and it’s a process, just like anything else. For scripts, John Yorke’s book Into The Woods is a really good place to start. Focus on world-building, characterisation and plotting. These skills are very transferable. Lots of people make the jump.