To Write A Novel Or A Screenplay

As I type this, the film and TV industry in America is currently paralyzed by the 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. The industry of A-list actors and actresses strutting the red carpet at glamorous premiers clad in bizarre clothes in the name of fashion, has been gridlocked by a bunch of obscure scribes we never even know.

Writers, myself included craft our alluring phrases mostly in depressing anonymity and obscurity. From a crammed smoky café serving cheap dark, addictive coffee or in a stuffy and crammed room that has never seen direct sunlight or had a hint of fresh air. There is no glamour there.

Some of the most memorable words uttered in film or TV history were penned by nondescript screenwriters in at times gloomy and creative solace. In a box office movie premier, a screenwriter can walk the red carpet or among the crowds without anyone recognizing them. No tabloid interviewer walks to them to ask what you are wearing Armani or Versace.

Even security can deny them entry to a premiere since they don’t know them. An unknown writer’s plight is worse since they write while jobless, or stuck on a dull low paying job they have to do to pay bills. This craft is challenging, but writers soldier on out of loving a creative passion that at times is treacherous and never reciprocates the love back to the creator.

From my experience I’m convinced that new writers dying for a big break have to make creative decisions that will bring income quickly. If you are a struggling screenwriter that has tried for years to interest film or TV studios with your scripts without success, change strategy. Turn your screenplays into fiction novels or theatrical stage plays. And here is why:

The Great Book Publishing Conspiracy🤥

Historically a fiction manuscript has higher chances of being published, than a screenplay has of being made into a motion picture. There are also many publishers seeking unpublished theatrical play manuscripts from authors that later become stage productions.

But you will never hear book publishers calling for feature screenplays to publish them. That has bothered me for years and makes me wear a tin foil hat and think it is a great book publishing conspiracy.

You can have a theater play manuscript published but not feature screenplays. Hmm I smell a rat that I cannot find!!!

Book Publishing Costs Versus Film Production Costs

Publishing a book is far less costly and easier, than a studio funding a script that even if produced doesn’t guarantee a film will be a box office success. But a publisher can test the market with a few book copies and if they sell out, he can mass publish the novel.

That allows the author to start making money faster than a scriptwriter who waits on multiple studio hierarchies to approve their script before getting paid. There are instances where scriptwriters wait for the film to be released before they are paid. That is even riskier financially to the scriptwriter.

If the movie does poorly after release, a screenwriter may not get fully paid or paid at all. To make matters worse, at each stage of the film production, there are countless gatekeepers arguing among themselves on the film’s creative direction. That can result in countless rewrites that can make the screenplay stale.

Publishers And Publishing Costs

There are publishers whose policy is to cover the entire manuscript’s publishing costs much to the writer’s benefit. But some require writers to contribute a certain fee to have their fiction manuscript published.

Writers who can afford that fee to have their fiction novel published can go for that cost sharing model. That allows for the fiction manuscript to be published faster. The merit in either option is that manuscript editing services are covered to ensure the final novel is book market quality.

Take The Self Publishing Route

The internet allows for new writers to self publish their fiction manuscripts for free. Among the online self publishing platforms available for writers to self publish for free are:

• Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
• Kobo Writing Life
• Wattpad
• Inkitt (Galatea Immersive Fiction)
• Lulu Press Inc
• Smashwords Inc
• Radish Fiction
• Readict Novel
• Dreame Stories

The platforms above allow new writers to publish their manuscripts in any form. Taking the self publishing route guarantees higher income royalties, versus taking the traditional publishing route where the publisher does everything including marketing.

Self publishing data shows authors can make between 70 to 100 percent in royalties but the downside is, the author does everything. That includes editing and formatting the manuscript and marketing the novel after it’s published.

My opinion on self publishing is that you need to hire an exceptional editor for the manuscript and a skilled book cover designer. Then do aggressive marketing and use all the means possible including internet adverts to publicize your book to masses.

Though traditional publishers’ royalties are lower and can be below 10 percent even for experienced authors, they do everything for you short of book signing and giving speeches to fans of your book.

Self-published fiction novels by first time authors that get rave reviews in the literary market can have their story rights bought by film studios. So the author earns twice, he gets money from the novel sales and by selling the novel’s story rights to a film studio.

Compare that situation to that of an unknown screenwriter. Chances are lower for a screenplay to get discovered and optioned by studios because in the competitive film making value chain, a screenplay is not a finished product unlike a book.

Quicker Financial Freedom

The case for converting feature screenplays to fiction novels is to ensure struggling writers get to the literary promised land of best sellers, financial freedom and eating seafood while on holiday in Zanzibar faster. Because life is too short to be frustrated creatively.

In some cases screenplays get optioned and the writer gets paid well, but it can sit on a pile of dust of non-produced scripts for many years, before a producer peeks through it. At times, screenplays are never made into movies which is more discouraging to the writer.

So to ensure your imaginative creativity is not buried but is enjoyed sooner by the world, adapt that feature screenplay gathering dust on the shelf into a fiction manuscript or theater play.

The Last Word

This article is not to discourage budding screenwriters but to help you see the issue from another perspective. Screenwriters are the soul of films and here is why. Jason Alexander, who played George Costanza in Seinfeld, narrated this funny anecdote.

Once director Steven Spielberg was arguing that directors like him should get the “film by” credits. But screenwriter William Goldman who penned film classics like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men screenplays walked up to Spielberg on a dais and threw him 120 blank pages and told Spielberg derisively, direct that!

If not for screenwriters your screen would be blank. Pay writers well!