Scott Perlov is an attorney and aspiring screenwriter based in Boulder, Colorado. His legal work focuses on criminal defense and environmental law. He is also the president of Perlov and Associates, LLC, where he composes screenplays for television and the big screen.
Writing is writing, right? It isn’t, as any novelist, poet, essayist, or screenwriter knows. Each genre has its own strengths and attracts writers and readers for different reasons. For new screenwriters who want to avoid time-wasting mistakes, take a look below:
1. Screenwriting language takes after poetic language in that economy is key. A screenplay is a guide to how filmmakers will render a film. Viewed this way, a screenplay should contain only stripped-down visual and aural language, and paragraphs should be no more than three lines.
2. If it’s not seen or heard, it’s not going to end up on the screen. Whereas novelists are often concerned with the internal lives of characters, a screenwriter must achieve the same outcome using only dialog and action.
3. Successful screenwriters often compose snappy back-and-forth exchanges between two or more characters in their scenes. Long, dramatic monologues or speeches are certainly fair game but are typically successful if they reflect or are a climactic product of earlier dialog.
Writing is writing, right? It isn’t, as any novelist, poet, essayist, or screenwriter knows. Each genre has its own strengths and attracts writers and readers for different reasons. For new screenwriters who want to avoid time-wasting mistakes, take a look below:
1. Screenwriting language takes after poetic language in that economy is key. A screenplay is a guide to how filmmakers will render a film. Viewed this way, a screenplay should contain only stripped-down visual and aural language, and paragraphs should be no more than three lines.
2. If it’s not seen or heard, it’s not going to end up on the screen. Whereas novelists are often concerned with the internal lives of characters, a screenwriter must achieve the same outcome using only dialog and action.
3. Successful screenwriters often compose snappy back-and-forth exchanges between two or more characters in their scenes. Long, dramatic monologues or speeches are certainly fair game but are typically successful if they reflect or are a climactic product of earlier dialog.
