Screenwriting : The Screllice by Neil Geisler

a script is a technical document. it can be compared to selling device instructions. people don't read instructions. I think it's a bad idea to sell scripts as books.

They are not simply instructions; this is what you don't get. They are a narrative form which also happen to be instructions, like song lyrics. Have you heard of Faust by Goethe? A "play script" that was never intended to be staged, known as a "closet drama".

Device instructions are a bad comparison, because that is prose written for the sake of instructing. They would read prose on its own; they call it a novel (or short story). What scripts are, and have always been, are a combination of poetry and prose (prosetry) that is written for something else. Sony lyrics are poetry written for music. Like that.

I think it's a great idea, Neil!

Great Michael! Just added you to my network!

I like the idea, Neil Geisler. If I did it, I'd probably add fun notes, pictures, etc. I'd be like a script book/pitch deck.

Cool Maurice! Just added you to my network!

Neil Geisler , I think it’s an interesting idea, and as a screenwriter, I’d love it if there was a market for publishing scripts as literature. I know that “shooting scripts” from famous movies have a niche; a brick and mortar store called The Writer’s Store on Westwood Blvd. in west L.A. used to sell them, mainly to other screenwriters. your term, SCRELLICE, is intriguing too!

We need to create the market. Then the people picked to write films could actually be scrillers (my term for the writers of screllices). Would be a much better route than the one now, which is totally random, and the anxiety of how to get scripts sold etc. would be far lesser. At least far more random

Maybe reading Syd Field could ACTUALLY get you in the door that way

I don’t quite agree.

First, if scripts are published, then why watch the film if everyone has already read the script?

Second, I believe the main difference between a book and a screenplay is that a book is intended for the end consumer. In a book, you write about what’s happening, what’s going on in the characters’ heads, you can use allegories, comparisons, metaphors — and the reader understands them.

A screenplay, in my view, is an instruction manual — for the cinematographer, for the actor, for the director. It only states what can be shown on screen. No comparisons, no allegories, no metaphors, and so on.

That’s why reading a screenplay is quite difficult for someone without professional experience.

Well, that’s what I think.

The only scripts that sell well are scripts to movies that have already been finished, like Oppenheimer or Hereditary. Far fewer people are interested in reading unproduced screenplays. You can post your own here, but people have enough trouble getting others to read them for free. Now making a novel out of an unproduced screenplay is a path that people have had success with, but that's because there's still a large market for books that producers can use to estimate a paying audience. It's not currently impossible to sell scripts, but it's rightfully always going to be an uphill battle, because there will always be more scripts than active film productions. You have to be able to compete.

Well Aleksandr, it's not a matter of agreement or disagreement. They either are literature or they aren't. Why do they need to explore what is going on in the character's heads? Plenty of novels are more external and some are more internal. Plenty of scripts explore, either through dialogue or description (and through dialogue makes it subtler) what is going on in the characters' heads. There is Faust by Goethe, not intended to be staged, The Dynasties by Thomas Hardy, same thing. You have an objectively wrong understanding of what literature is. And that is plaguing the industry; do you realize how much easier it would be to select writers if they simply adopted this model? How much less random it would be? All you have to do is admit that scripts are literature, and always have been, going back to Prometheus Bound. Otherwise, no one would even bring this topic up, ever. They are a combination of poetry and prose. Always have been. They just happen to be for another medium, but they can clearly exist on themselves, as a very unique way of telling a story. No debates to be had. Sony lyrics are poetry. Are you gonna say poetry is not literature? Why would they read long, tedious novels, with a bunch of words they don't understand, but they wouldn't read a script? Makes no sense; I figured it out when I was 8. Plenty of people read scripts for pleasure, but it's not a mainstream market, because of this illogical mentality

Also, the writers are picked BASED ON their success in writing screllices, not necessarily that the screllices they write are filmed. Though, they can be. The script, in film particularly, is simply the foundation for the film; very seldom does exactly what's on the page happen on the screen.

David Michael Kelly, if this model were adopted, the competition would be more reasonable. Writers would be picked based on their success in the literary market, because scripts are inherently literature, always have been, but also, it is the same kind of writing, just for a film. This has never been done before, that's why it's so hard to sell. It is not literally impossible, of course (otherwise, nothing would ever get made, literally) but incredibly random; that's my point.

Also, prosetry (scripts/screllices) and prose are two different mediums, and writing a screllice as a novel just reinforces the idea that scripts are not literature, and misunderstands what they are.

"If the model were adopted" is doing a lot of heavy lifting for this theory. People already can read almost any screenplay they want for free, and don't, because it's as much a dry instruction manual as it is a piece of narrative art. Assuming that a large, consistent market will pop up, where people will start paying to do something, that they can already do for free, and choose not to, is very wishful thinking. I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm saying that all of our efforts are better spent refining our writing and networking for job opportunities, rather than marketing and selling digital copies of our unproduced work. Best of luck if that's the route you wish to take.

In the Soviet Union, there was a model called the "Kinopovist" (film novella), where screenplays were published like novels. However, this approach was abandoned because everything printed was written in a way that made the cinematographer wonder how to film it.

For example, when the script says things like "The clouds were thick like cotton," or "The room was filled with fog like dust," or "There was an ocean in her eyes," these are very hard to convey on camera, so such descriptions are not written in a screenplay.

But when a regular reader reads it, they understand what the language means. However, for the cinematographer, filming that is extremely difficult. That’s why the "Kinopovist" was discontinued—it was almost impossible to shoot.

I understand your position that for you a screenplay is literature, but I have a slightly different view.

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Like I said, Aleksandr, not a matter of agreement or disagreement. Plenty of screenplays are more descriptive than others, and your idea that this can be a position or not is particularly what disqualifies your view, as you are neglecting objective reality, or the notion of it. You simply are being illogical. Many screenplays in AMERICA, or anywhere, write things like that. Often, many things in scripts are not filmed; they are a foundation

So you are simply wrong. It is as simple as that.

David Michael Kelly, you are missing the point. Screenplays are LITERATURE, and they can read almost any novel for free, as a pdf. You are convoluting the subject. You are calling them "unproduced screenplays" but they are not necessarily; they are works of literature that, if they don't get produced, can be read. Why is Shakespeare read? Why is Faust, the CLOSET DRAMA, NOT MEANT TO BE STAGED, a thing at all? If people don't start putting effort into this kind of thing, we are never going to have my common sense model, and if people don't want to read it, they are not being marketed it properly. It's a movie on the page, sell it like that. There is always a way to sell something, unless it's illogical, like maybe a script outline

You can sell your scripts on Amazon. Some screenwriters do this. I don't know if it's helped them get rich or have a successful career. In my opinion, it's better to write a book or create a comic. No one reads scripts.

https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Century-Labor-Hurricane-1935-ebook/dp/B0D92...

Wouldn't exactly say that. Several people read Stephen King's Storm of the Century. I get it; he's Stephen King. My point is: people DO read scripts. Also, this is a format unlike what people have read, a kickstart for a dying book industry & impenetrable film industry. Most people watch movies now anyway, and a script is a way to merge movies and books. It is not simply a guide; never has been, never will be. If we create the market, plenty of scrillers (the writers of screllices, another term I coined) can get rich. Right now, it is not a good idea to write a novel (by the way, a screllice is a book in script format) because you're probably not gonna be successful. The novel market ain't great. Time for a new medium. The screllice.

Not to mention, my screllice: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6L7DQHV

Sorry, but writing and screenwriting cannot really be compared. While an author tends to focus on conveying deeper emotions — even if they do it in a cinematic way — a screenwriter is essentially writing the blueprint for the visuals. For a good film, both are needed. But that’s just my opinion.

Lmao dude, you asked people what we thought. Did you really just want to argue with everyone who doesn't support this? Implying it's everyone else's lack of "common sense" that buying and reading screenplays isn't as popular as reading novels? I guess you're the genius who is going to crack Hollywood wide open. We've all been fools leaving money on the table not becoming "Scrillers" and marketing our "Screllices" until you showed us that another world is possible. I'm going to remember this moment of brilliance when you're accepting your Oscar for Best Original Screllice a few years down the road. We'll have the DOJ take down those crooks at IMSDB, and people will start paying to read scripts!

Wow, David Michael Kelly, you bounced back with an even more deficient sarcastic remark which misunderstands my idea, based off a complete misunderstanding of literature, even when I cited examples. It is not an argument whether something is literature or not; it either is or isn't. Maybe the style or approach of certain scripts can be debated, but they idea that they are not literature makes no sense, and you don't seem to understand that, you fundamentally misunderstand art/even logic, and act smug about it, which makes you even more deficient than you are. With many deficient things like you, I will admit this may or may not work (ya never know) but it is only because of deficient things like you, not because your path is the more logical one. The fact that you think it is; hell, I created this post so things like you could crawl out of the woodwork and prove my point. Good luck not being successful because it's your own fault, just like the (sadly) thousands of people as basically illogical as you...then you're gonna whine: "AWWWWW MY SCRIPTS DON'T SELL"...like the countless others like you, because they can't move in the direction of common sense.

The Oscar for Best Original Screllice? IT'S A WORK OF LITERATURE; WHY WOULD I WIN A FILM AWARD???? OR ANYONE ELSE????

Sanna Peth, it's not a matter of opinion whether scripts are literature or not. They are; it is fact. But, yes, they are different; the intentionality of many screenwriters has been to simply put forth a blueprint, but result and intentionality are two different things. Plenty of scripts, like novels, both theatrical & filmic, are great works of literature and plenty are not. And plenty of scripts convey emotion, plenty don't; some are more psychological etc...just like novels. But novels are prose, poems are poetry, and scripts are PROSETRY; they combine those two. Stories in that format, like Faust or Prometheus Unbound, or even The Gardener's Son (a script for an obscure TV movie, but published later as a "closet screenplay", essentially a screllice) should be published & the method of writer evaluation of who gets to write actual film/theater scripts should be based on what scrillers are successful. Not to say those are the scripts that get made, but those are the writers that are chosen.