or reasons that often escape me, I have usually divided my writing time almost equally between prose and scripts. (My bafflement stems from the realization that any half year writing scripts is more lucrative than my entire prose career. But I digress.)
For six months I'll be writing paragraphs that go all the way across the page, using quote marks for dialogue. Then, mysteriously, my paragraphs get shorter and consist only of description, and the dialogue finds itself in a little box that runs down the middle of a page. Otherwise it's all the same, right? Same writer. Same ability (or lack thereof) with characters, plot, dialogue?
No. Not remotely.
The differences between writing for page and screen are so great, the mental adjustment so taxing, that most writers don't try to cross over.
Some do, of course, with great success. In the mainstream world, you find Larry McMurtry and William Goldman, for example. Closer to home, both Alan Brennert and J. Michael Straczynski have proven they can work both sides of this creative street. Brennert has contributed scripts to such series as The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and Odyssey 5 while also publishing novels like Time and Chance and the Nebula-award-winning short story "Ma Qui."
Straczynski is not only the creator of Babylon 5 and writer-producer for Showtime's Jeremiah, he has published novels like Demon Night, short stories and articles.
The truth is, it's difficult enough to write a successful novel or an acclaimed script. Being able to write both—well, that takes a rare talent.
Here's why. Look at this sample of script:
INT. STARCRAFT - FABRIK MODULE - DAY
MAL, an awkward 16-year-old boy, tries to finish repairs on a space probe that is shaped like a headlight from a terrestrial automobile of five centuries past. The probe is bigger than Mal and, to judge from the look on his face, is winning the battle of wills.
MAL
(angrily)
All right, be like that! See if I care if you get crushed!
He SLAMS SHUT an open panel just as SIRI, a girl his age, pretty and not remotely awkward, watches, unseen by Mal.
SIRI
(amused)
It's not sentient, you know. The probe.
Etc. What we have here is a document that actually raises more questions than it answers. What the hell is a "starcraft," a production designer will ask. Anything like a starship? And a fabrik module—is that a machine shop? And what are the characters wearing, uniforms or what?
Dreamers build blueprints to build SF dreams
Scripts are blueprints. Guidelines. Blank spaces that must be filled in by other creative talents.
Even the form of a script on the page is utilitarian: the slug lines, in ALL CAPS, exist to tell a producer whether she's on a set or at a location. The prose describes action, and the dialogue is in its narrow box because narrow lines of type are easier to read and memorize. (Look at your newspaper.)
If you write prose, you can make this scene do all kinds of different things:
"All right, be like that" Mal snapped, slamming the panel shut. "Get crushed. See if I care!"
For most of his four years assigned to Fabrik, Mal had happily worked in isolation. Few of the starcraft population wanted to be bothered with the routine work of manufacture or construction, not with an Encounter approaching. That was a job for other machines, or juniors like Mal, who thought it was fun to put their hands on hardware and make it New.
But this damned Zond vehicle was resisting. Originally designed to penetrate the atmosphere of an Earth-type planet, it had been reconfigured for a ride to the slushy, high-pressure surface of a gas giant. Reconfigured in theory: The inner pressure hull continued to leak. And Mal was about to give up.
"It's not sentient, you know. The probe."
Siri appeared from behind the bell-shaped vehicle.
See the difference?
In prose you can suggest a character's attitude and history. The dialogue is for the eye, not the ear. Prose is meant to be read by an individual, usually in private. You can color that reader's view toward people, places, things.
When you write prose, you are not only the writer, you are also the director, the actor, the lights and the music.
An illustrated man makes the best role model
Which isn't to say that scripts are somehow a lesser form.
A script is designed to be performed. Once it is put on its feet (to use the theatrical term) with the right actor in the right set ... a banal little scene like mine comes alive. You hear tone of voice. You see gestures. You are charmed by a glance, a raised eyebrow, a laugh that never quite becomes a word.
These things are incredibly difficult to write in prose.
For me, anyway. Perhaps I lack that poetic touch. I have enough trouble just putting the right characters in the right place, and making sure something actually happens.
Fortunately, I have a model, the one sci-fi writer who has always moved effortlessly between the worlds of prose and script.
Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 as well as scripts for Twilight Zone, Ray Bradbury Theatre and John Huston's feature Moby Dick.
Bradbury grew up loving, in equal measure, radio dramas, comic strips, movies, plays and pulp stories. (You can see the breadth of Bradbury's interests and accomplishments in a book titled The Illustrated Bradbury.)
While I would agree with the critics who have said for years that Bradbury's prose is more successful than his screen work, I don't think it's for the usual reasons, which are that he is overly poetic and that his dialogue is too artificial.
Here's what I mean. Take a look at this:
"Ready?"
"Ready!"
"Now?"
"Soon."
"Do the scientists really know? Will it happen today, will it?"
"Look, look; see for yourself!"
The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun.
It rained.
This is the opening of Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day," and is very typical of classic Bradbury prose that looks like poetry—or even a script—on the page, and reads so vividly that you can't help but see it, feel it, yes, put it on its feet.
It is the best of both worlds, prose that has the excitement of a script.
And a challenge for any writer trying to bridge those worlds.
Michael Cassutt's most recent prose project is this column, or the 500-page manuscript for his new novel, Tango Midnight (forthcoming from Forge).
