How did you start writing screenplays?
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It came about by chance. Soon after my first novel had been published, I was approached by a
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young independent film director who said he wanted to film the story. Naturally, I was extremely
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excited by this, especially since it was all happening very fast on the heels of the novel's
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publication. He also wanted me to write the screenplay for the film, which was something I'd never
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tried to do before, but which I jumped at.
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I've always loved cinema (though by contrast I really don't have any strong feelings for the theare,
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which I know probably makes me the worst English teacher ever in that respect) but the world of
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screenplays was a new one to me. I knew nothing and there was no time to learn, so I just wrote
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what I thought a screenplay should be.
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Not surprisingly, I got it wrong. My attempt was way too long and far too detailed. (I'd really written a
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novel with the dialogue set out differently.) It was difficult and frustrating because much of the time I
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couldn't work out how differently to approach it in order to make it work. In the end, I had to drop the
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project: this was all happening while I was at university, and Finals were looming. I had the choice of
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continuing on the script or actually doing some revision. For better or worse, I chose to revise.
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But again, rather as with my first novel-length story (the fantasy one which never got published), it
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felt like there was something here that maybe I could do if I kept working at it. So over the next few
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years, while holding down a teaching job, I wrote some more screenplay material, and read some
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books on how to do it, and generally worked at getting better. It took a long time, again, but a couple
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of years ago my first TV drama was aired. Rather like having a first book published, that has opened
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the floodgates rather, and now screenplay work for cinema and television takes up a lot of my writing
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time. (Top)
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What's the difference between a screenplay and a novel?
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More than I thought at first!
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Because a screenplay is the first step in getting a film made, whereas a novel is a finished product in
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its own right, they have to do very different jobs. A novel is communicating with an audience of
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readers, but a screenplay is really only communicating with a handful of people: the people who will
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make the film (which in turn will communicate with the audience). So in a screenplay, your job as a
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writer is to ensure that the film-making team has all the information they need in order to generate
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something like your vision of the story, while leaving them enough breathing space to include their
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own creative input and influence. It's a balancing act between too much and not enough.
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Screenplays are also, by their nature, collaborative. Once a novel is written, it gets scrutinised by
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several people: my editor, some good friends who are also good critics, and so on. These people's
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comments help polish the novel, but usually it's towards the end of the writing process that their
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comments are most useful. Screenplays, on the other hand, generate huge numbers of meetings,
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script notes, phone calls and deadlines. They are much more team-worky than you're used to as a
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novelist (where you have the luxury of approaching things in your own way and in your own time).
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With a novel, all your time is spent in front of the word-processor (or wherever) until it's finished,
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whereas with a screenplay, half your time may be spent with other members of the team,
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developing a shared vision of the project.
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Finally, screenplays look and feel very different to novels. They're governed by different rules and
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there is really no room for what you might call stylistic innovation - style isn't really an important factor
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of screenplay writing because, if it's literary style we're talking about, it doesn't translate onto
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screen. (Cinematic style is a different case, of course.) Screenplays have a set structure (three acts
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of certain relative lengths and certain important constituent ingredients) that you ignore at your
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peril. They are, in fact, a much more stylised medium than are novels, which invite far more
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experimentation in form and content.
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This isn't really a criticism, though. In fact, having the structure determined for you, as it were, can be
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very liberating. It leaves you as writer free to concentrate solely on those factors within your control:
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pace, setting, character, dialogue. You don't have to concentrate on the impact of your prose nearly
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so much, which means you generally write faster.
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The more I think about this, the more I realise the list of differences may be endless, so I'll leave it
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there... (Top)
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Which do you prefer writing?
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Both formats have their attractions, and strangely, their weaknesses are also often their strengths.
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For example, you might think that the collaborative aspect of screenplay writing is something that
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would upset a novelist used to working in isolation. In fact, though, this is one of the great
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attractions of screenplay work - for me, anyway. It is very stimulating to see your seed of an idea
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approached by other creative minds, each with their own particular point of view, each bringing their
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own strengths to it. That's the main advantage of screenplay writing, I think.
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The main advantage of novel writing is the degree of control you have over the finished product.
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Novels are a medium in which every phrase does count, where there are more factors to juggle and
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interleave if the end result is to be effective. Novels take longer and are harder to write (again, for
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me) but that's what I love about them: the challenge of pushing yourself to communicate your
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feelings to someone you've never met, just through the words on the page. And to do it largely
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alone.
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For me, then - and I know this wouldn't hold true for a lot of writers of either novels or screenplays -
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the two formats compliment each other very well. In my heart, I suspect I'm a novelist. It's what I'd be
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doing if I was shipwrecked on a desert island. But given that I'm not, I love screenplay work as well.
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It's challenging and exciting and fun in different ways to novel writing, and perhaps the greatest of
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these ways is the sense in which, from conception all the way through to the local multiplex, it's a
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shared experience rather than a solitary one. (Top)
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When your script is filmed, it can't match what you've imagined. Isn't that weird?
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This can be very true.
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Everyone knows the shock (usually negative) of going to see a film of a book they love, and finding
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that all the scenes and characters who have lived and breathed in their imaginations have been
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replaced by impostors. Films never match the books on which they're based. (Brief sideline: I have
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an exception to this, which is the film of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, starring Gary Sinese
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and John Malkovich. For some reason, this film matches almost perfectly what I had in my head from
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reading the novel. At least one part of the reason for this has to be that Steinbeck's novel - or
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novella - is extremely short, so that Sinese, as director, is able to keep nearly every scene from the
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original. The dialogue, too, is as close to the book as possible. End of sideline.)
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When I'm writing a screenplay, then, I steel myself for this right from the start. I try not to get as
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closely attached to how things are going to look, how people are going to sound and act, as I would
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do in a novel. And, I think inevitably, I fail, because if you're writing with any involvement or
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committment at all, you can't help becoming attached to your work.
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However, by reminding myself that it will change once it's out of my hands, I try to keep the
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shock-damage to a minimum. In all fairness, The Visitor - which was my first TV script, and the first
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screenplay of mine which I saw completed - was pretty much exactly the way I'd imagined it in my
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head.
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One advantage I have here, I suppose, is that although I imagine places very vividly, I don't tend to
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imagine the faces of my characters all that specifically. (I'm generally bad with faces, actually.) So
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seeing actors I haven't imagined playing the roles isn't that hard to deal with, because they're rarely
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replacing a fully-realised face that I've grown attached to. (Top)
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How close is The Hole (the film) to After the Hole (the novel)?
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Filming After the Hole was always going to be tricky - I realised this myself when I was working on a
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script for it all those years ago at university. There have to be compromises. (Why? Well, the ending
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of the book is - it's generally agreed - unfilmable, and two thirds of the novel take place in pitch
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darkness, which the cinema audience might just feel was a rip-off.)
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So in adapting After the Hole, the only way to manage it is to try to stay true to the spirit of the
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original, while deviating from that original in certain details. I think that's a fair compromise. Until I see
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the finished film, I won't know exactly how the compromise has been achieved, but I have read the
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shooting script and I think it's got it where it counts. In fact, some aspects of the film are even more
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unsettling than the novel! (Top)
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Do you write original scripts or just adapt your own novels?
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Although I started out by adapting - or trying to adapt - my own stuff, I now write original screenplays.
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It seems now that when I get an idea for a story, I know immediately whether it's a film idea or a book
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idea: they just announce themselves in that way. And because, as I've said above, the two kinds of
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writing compliment each other so well, it works well for me to split my writing time between them in
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this way. (Top)
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