Anyone else testing out how their novel would look as a movie?

I'm having tons of fun and find it relatively easy to write since everything is pretty much already laid out for me. The only bad part is that I'm not exactly done with the novel yet (about 2/3 through, lol), but I am seeing it in a new way and am able to visualize what is going on.

One thing that I found challenging was trying to tell something that I stated in the book using the characters actions or dialog. Anyone have tips for that?

It's a challenge to me since I haven't written scripts since I was in junior high. and that was 6 or more (less than ten) years ago. Some things can be added into the action paragraphs, but those are more actiony than descriptive. You can add some details about how someone/something looks, but as to a full, three paragraph description I don't know.

I'm actually adapting a novellette (about 10k) I wrote way back when that happens to involve some characters from my Nano novel. It's the perfect venue for me as there's enough of a structure for me to get across the bulk of the material and the thematic back-and-forth while expanding on stuff I didn't get to do in the novellette.

I'm turning my unfinished NaNo novel into a screenplay. I knew what the ending was going to be while writing it, but once I hit my 50,000 words I stopped. It felt so forced to me that I thought it was all just crap.

Then last night I decided to scrap my serial killer story that I had started. I was about 10 pages in and decided that it was turning out to be more gruesome than I had planned and more serious. It was going to require much more research to be anywhere near believable. That's when I opened up my NaNo file and reread it. After setting it down for a while I could remember what I originally loved about the story. It wasn't crap at all. Oh sure, it has some really convoluted spots in it, but overall it was really pretty good.

My trick that I use when I start getting bogged down with descriptions is I remind myself that "that's not my job." If I find myself telling too much description about the setting, "wait, stop, that's the Property Masters job." If I start trying to provide motivation for my characters, "wait, stop, that's the Actors job." Getting too caught up in which angles I'm viewing the action from, "wait, stop, that's the Directors job."

I'm finding it very freeing. Unless it is essential to the plot that I am telling, I don't describe it. I'm doing a time travel novel and so I've devoted some space to describing the pocket watch that is the time travel device. Other than that though I just skim over with very generic and vague descriptions. Just enough to give the idea and set the tone.

I did this last year except I was adapting for TV. Had a wonderful time with it. Got to 100 pages but didn't finish it. Still planning on going back to it, still love the idea.

Have fun!

I'm trying that as well. Though I need to work on keeping in mind the different flow of screenplays--my script was keeping even in page count with the novel for the scenes which I'd adapted ^_^;; Needless to say I've scrapped that draft and am working on redoing it in a more cinematic fashion......

If you're trying to describe something, keep it to a minimum. If it's the character's action, keep it simple--just give it enough to give the actor and director an idea of how to stage it, no more than three words beyond the action itself. If it's something the characters describe verbally, that's something which can be cut out and replaced with a simple action paragraph, e.g. "The characters stare at a bizarre blue statue, which emits a faint glow and A BARELY-AUDIBLE HUM.", rather than taking the time to have them tell each other about the strange shape, the glow, or the hum.

Yes, I'm adapting my novel, mostly for the fun of trying out a different writing form.

I am. I was still editing, and couldn't get away from the story in my head, so I went with it.

I'm not sure its a film, really, but it's been pretty awesome writing it in screenplay format.

It's helping me make some hard decisions about the plot that I wasn't sure of before.

Carolyn- busy typing with one hand, drawing with the other- and best case scenario, there's a microphone to be singing into...

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That was my original plan for this, my first-ever Screnzy.
But then, turning 80K of prose into a 100-page screenplay suddenly looked so complicated. I would have had to worry about which scenes to delete, also about the relative length of the scenes in script format.
So I just dropped the whole idea and went with a completely new story.

Yes, I'm adapting my '07 NaNo novel. And then I'm adapting the screenplay into a graphic novel, and the graphic novel back into a novel. That's because the novel remains unfinished, and I'm best at writing screenplays. I script really fast, so I should finish both scripts this month. And next month, I'm finishing the first complete draft of Bad Company once and for all.

The "bad company" of the title is the world's largest military corporation, and it invades America after the Obama election. (Alas, in the sequel, Black Science, Dictel and the new administration reconcile...) The opening sequence is a propaganda video for the company -- and in the first scene of the plot, a corporate assassin murders an investigative reporter.

My style is cinematic, so I'll have no problem writing my script. The hard part is translating it back into prose.

That's what I'm doing, mostly out of necessity. I got a late start, so I figured transpiring something to a different format would be easier than writing something brand new. So far that's definitely proving true.

The way that I'm dealing with all the non-dialogue is to turn a lot of it into dialogue. I write a lot of feelings and emotions and thoughts into my prose, so I've just been transferring that into dialogue and sometimes actions.

NaNo08 - Darkside - Won Screnzy09 - Darkside - Won

I was going to do that, but... I got 5 pages into the script, and I was still on the first page of my novel. So I realized that wasn't going to work out. :\
eh, maybe next year. xD

I'm 56 pages into Screnzy and just over the quarter mark in my NaNo. Hopefully it won't go tooooooooo long.

NaNo08 - Darkside - Won Screnzy09 - Darkside - Won

I'm doing my Nano too! I know have more sympathy for the people who adapt my favorite books into movies! lol...

I am using the characters from this years NaNo novel. I haven't finished the novel, but it seems to fit into a screen play easier. I am really enjoying writing a script. I love not having to figure out the details. It makes it so much more fun.

I like these characters and I hope to get their story out of my head. It would be nice, there are other characters in there that want to get out too. I should get back to the script, it sure is funny how the forums become much more intersting when I want to write.

Pam

I have a Nano novel that I very well might turn into a screenplay next year. :) I've been editing the novel for months now so I'm very involved in the characters, but I love creating new stories and chracters, etc, so we'll see what's going on this time next year. :)

My Nano novel is currently in the works; I'm about 350 pages into it. I should be done it by mid September 2009. Ironically, it's being adapted from a screenplay.

Actually, I'm doing that too. Kind of thought, because the storyline of the novel I'm adapting was veeery different and focuses on other things. (That NaNo Novel was more about character developement I guess, my script other hand has a normal storyline. :D)

Also the characters turned out a little different but that's okay. :D I'm quite happy about the fact that they now look like... well, normal characters. (I always had trouble staying in-character most times in the past. D: It's still hard for me.)

I adapted my NaNo which I completely rewrote and rethought, except I hadn't nearly finished it, so this is my first go at the story at all. Screenplays are really really tough, I'm not used to it! Nothing's going very cinematic, really, and it's taking me absolutely ages to get anywhere. On the rewrite I'm going to really have to butcher this.

Post-mortem: I adapted the beginning and end of Bad Company, the most cinematic parts. Those were no problem.

However, the trouble is -- it's a NaNo novel. NaNo novel adaptations jinx my Script Frenzy without fail. In '06, it was 2,000 words of my '06 novel, then called The Jennifer Theory (I still have plans for that title), now called Black Science. This year, it was my '07 NaNo novel. Interestingly, Black Science is the sequel to Bad Company.

I'm going to have to make sure the novels are finished before I adapt them.