The Cassutt Files
Page to Stage

"In the beginning was the Word—"

So saith Gospel of John, Chapter 1, Verse 1, and so also say scriptwriters of any religious persuasion, or none at all. Words, the images they cause to be formed in the reader's mind, the flow of events, the wit, whining or brutal violence of a character—these are what we have to offer.

The tools? Black marks on a white surface, arranged in a certain format.

Whenever I talk about scripts with aspiring writers, the questions always seem aimed at the apparently mystical nature of script format. (This happens less frequently now that you can buy the same script formatting software used by the professionals.)

It is actually rather simple, and designed for efficiency: SLUG LINES indicate scenes or distinctive shots.

"Action" is written like narrative prose, from one margin to the other.

"CHARACTER NAMES" are in bold, with "Dialogue" in a column beneath. ... These columns are rarely more than 3 inches in width. (Why? For readability, for the same reason newspaper columns are narrow. [Hint to online publishers: Consider narrower columns of text.])

Sitcom scripts differ slightly in that dialogue is double-spaced in the column—presumably as an aid to memorization.

Play scripts are different, with action, character names and dialogue all flush left on the page ... the action differentiated by being printed in italics—and I don't know who or why the change was made.

One sees more eccentric script formats from time to time. I recall seeing one of Kubrick's pages that resembled a wiring diagram. (Snide comments from those of you who feel that Kubrick's scenes had all the warmth of wiring diagrams will be ignored.)

Like Kipling's tribal lays ("There are nine-and-ninety ways ..."), they all work.

Or, rather, they all used to.

The novelty of graphics

The journey from page to stage has never been easy. For that matter, the very terms "page" and "stage" are effectively obsolete, since the journey is now from (writer's) screen to (storyboarder/production designer/post-production CGI) screen.

The first challenge is making your script stand out from the dozens or hundreds of others being read at the same venue.

One incredibly creative friend—a successful story and series salesman—proposed to submit a script for a movie about giants that would, in fact, use LARGE PAGES.

Another plans to submit her next script with a DVD staged reading of same.

A third always creates a soundtrack of tunes by various artists designed to, er, illuminate scenes in the script, and includes that with the pages.

These are tricks, of course.

More practical is adding artwork to those nicely formatted script pages, either on the pages themselves or as a bonus portfolio.

For many years it has been an article of faith among traditional writers that the best way to get a script read, and thus bought and eventually produced, is to base it on a graphic novel.

Look at V for Vendetta, 300, Sin City, The Dark Knight Returns. For that matter, American Splendor, Road to Perdition and A History of Violence. These are just the most famous projects to reach the screen—my reading of SCIFI.com's news log suggests that some graphic novel is bought every other week.

And no wonder; graphic novels already look like movies.

That said, mere graphics aren't likely to be sufficient.

Words are not enough

It's tough enough for a writer of a procedural set in the real world, like The Closer, or a comedy-drama like Monk or even a modern vampire series like the forthcoming Moonlight to communicate her vision to readers, to that widening circle of human beings that starts with studio and network executives and moves to director and cast, then to a production team numbering a hundred or more.

They will be the ones who design the sets, rent the cars, sew the costumes, light the scenes. ... To add the music and sound effects ...

To realize your vision, whether it's set in Los Angeles (and possibly filmed in Vancouver) or in ancient Egypt (filmed in Tunisia) or some dangerous part of Middle America (shot in Slovakia).

Now, suppose your characters are alien beings. Suppose your setting is a planet around a star not our sun. Suppose that your office scene takes place in a starship, or in a building on Earth—2207 A.D.

Yeah. Trickier.

When I write, "The giant spaceship settles on the colony's lonely port, watched by the natives of Deneb VI," I'm not remotely conveying the image in my head.

It this a needle-nosed spaceship, like Rocketship XM, or a giant sphere?

What color is the sky? Are there hills around the port? What the heck does a spaceport look like, anyway? A big flat slab of concrete? Or is there some kind of service gantry?

What do the natives look like? Even if I add a descriptive such as "spiderlike" or "giant rock being," I'm forcing the reader to do the work. (And I'm making the job of reading the script more challenging than necessary.)

How do I record this vision so that it can be shared?

For example, book agents used to send around a sample chapter and an outline of a nonfiction book. If necessary, they would include photographs and illustrations.

Now they create a Web site with text (sample chapter and outline) and illustrations, but might also add a video of the author, especially if the author is an expert on a subject that is likely to lead to media appearances, video endorsements (what used to be called quotes or blurbs) from other authorities, links to supporting sites.

Television and film writers working on sci-fi and fantasy projects need to do the same.

Yes, soon enough—a decade?—it will be possible for me to simply create the dang movie. ... In the meantime, however, sci-fi writers will have to go beyond the traditional page in order to reach the stage. We will have to create "documents"—multi-platform story packages—that are one part script, one part graphics (showing our structures and beings), one part music, one part Web site and YouTube promotional bit.

Oh, yes: Be make sure to tell a riveting tale with plot twists and a love story.

Simple? Well, the technology makes it simpler than it used to be. (Although all of this costs money. You can no longer set yourself up as a writer by buying a typewriter, reams of paper and postage.)

The traditional script is dead.

Long live the ... multi-platform story package!