This is Exactly How I Am Using a Screenwriting Book to Plot My Short Novel
I went from premise to chapter list in two days
What I’m doing probably sounds like using a book written in French to help me write a book written in Italian (especially when you consider that I neither speak Italian fluently nor have ever written a short novel.) But bear with me and my craziness.
Screenwriting is a very precise form of writing. The document itself is formatted in a rigid, industry-specific jumble of stage directions and dialogue, all appropriately tabbed, spaced and capitalized. The good news is that the book I am using is not about how the words appear on the page. It’s about the creation of the story.
In most cases, someone writing a movie script has a mere 120 pages of script to weave even the most complicated stories. Think for a moment about your favorite movie. Let the movie play out in super fast speed for a second in your mind. How the heck did the writer or writers put all of that into 120 pages?
Those guys have got storytelling superpowers!
And that, my friends, is why I am turning to the best damn screenwriting book ever written to help me get through this project I am embarking upon.
What’s the book?
Save the Cat! The Last Book On Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need by the late, Blake Snyder. I have actually been using the book for my non-fiction writing for years. It has basic reminders like making sure your writing is primal and that knowing what your story’s about helps make it easier to write and easier to sell.
Step one of your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read the entire book. I had already read it (more than once) so my two-day task was to refer back to it over and over as I proceeded.
Here’s what I did to start plotting my novel on day one
Page 70 has the gold: The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet. That’s where I began. The plan includes fifteen beats, all with very specific purposes in a story. They are all designed to capture and hold a moviegoer’s attention as you craft a story that moves from point A to point B.
I listed the fifteen beats and began taking notes for each one. How does the story I think I want to write fit into this puzzle? When you have a clearly defined path from opening image to final image and you know exactly when to start the B story and exactly when the bad guys start to close in, the overall story becomes pretty easy to build, like stacking building blocks.
Converting beats to chapters on day two
The challenging part at first seemed to be the conversion from beats to chapters. Even though my novel is short, novels contain a great deal more information than a screenplay. How will I take my building blocks and actually write my chapters?