What I Learned by… Screenwriting

I wrote my first script in college. It was a short 1-act play called “Unintended” that started out as the idea for a story, but seemed more natural somehow as a play. Since that time I’ve been a lot more involved in writing scripts, involving several (unperformed and largely unread) movie and TV scripts and graphic novel scripts. I’ve studied scripts from writers like Neil Gaiman and Russel T. Davies, and even copied some selections by hand to see just how good screenwriting is supposed to go. Here’s what I learned as it relates to fiction:

Writing scripts has taught me just how to pace my writing and keep from being too distant or too detailed for my readers. It is a unique exercise in learning how to connect with your story in a different way, and so helpful that once in a while I’ll even re-write a scene from my fiction in the form of a screenplay to look at it from a different angle. Come back next week for another look at things that can influence your fiction.

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