Novels to screenplays and screenplays to novels...sometimes a work shines in both forms.
I know because I've written seventeen screenplays and converted three of them to novels. I've also worked in the other direction, ghost writing a screenplay into a novel.
Since most of you are novelists, I'll look at the process from that side. The biggest difference between a novel and a screenplay is that in a screenplay
1. All action has to be immediate - even if it is in the past (a flashback)
2. The entire story has to be told visually. Your characters in a screenplay cannot feel, think, or remember. You have to SHOW them feeling, thinking, and remembering. And what you show has to happen in present time.
Here's an example.
In a novel, you may write:
John stood in the hotel room with Lisa that morning, studying the old photograph they had found. He remembered his mother - her beautiful face, her haunted eyes. But he would not have known his father. Perhaps he did not want to know him.
In a screenplay:
INT. JOHN'S HOTEL ROOM - DAY
John studies a faded photograph of a beautiful young woman with haunted eyes, and a smiling man, with features similar to his own.
Lisa steps up behind him.
LISA
Do you remember them?
JOHN
My mother, yes. My father -
He hesitates. His face hardens.
JOHN
Not at all.
###
As you can see - present tense, and visualization all the way. As you can also tell, writing a screenplay employs a completely different format than a novel. There are many books and software programs that will show you these basics.
In a nutshell, you have capped headers or SLUG LINES that indicate location, time, and interior/exterior; followed by simply written text that describes the location or action. Character names are capped, and beneath them follows your centered dialogue.
Screenplay structure is more than just format, however. A novel gives you experimental freedom, not just to explore what a character is thinking and feeling, but to vary the length and time of your exploration. A screenplay is more rigid.
Certainly there are variables, but basically your story must have strong action. A novel that is all internals, all thought and no action would be difficult to translate to screen (note, not impossible, it's been done.)
The action needs to be broken into three acts - the first begins with an inciting incident, something that sets the plot in motion (pages 2-10). Plot point one (page 25-30) leads the reader/viewer into escalating stakes, a twist or turn in the story. The midpoint (about half way through your script) again offers a twist in the story, or a revelation. Something which significantly changes or reveals something about your protagonist (s). And the second plot point (page 90) will again increase the odds, up the risk, change the direction, and lead directly into the conclusion. And remember to conclude at about 120 pages, although current fashion is about 115 for a spec project.
If you do start turning your novels to screenplays you may want to begin by breaking your story down into the three act structure.
Unlike writing a screenplay (or a novel)from scratch, moving to another form allows you to keep your story. It is a map in either direction - taking a screenplay to a novel there are emotional and intellectual blanks to fill in. Taking a novel to a screenplay you need to carefully prune only the most essential elements - it's a shorter, more tightly structured form. And you must show the internal workings of character only through action and visually depicted emotion.
There's your start!
Genie Davis' romantic suspense novel THE MODEL MAN is her first with Kensington/Zebra. The noir DREAMTOWN was published by a small press in 2001. And now available through Amazon Shorts, the short fiction of THE GIRL AND THE GUN.
Coming July 2006: erotica written as Nikki Alton from Kensington Aphrodisia's The Cowboy Collection - RODEO RIDER; January 2007 more suspense with FIVE O'CLOCK SHADOW, also with Kensington/Zebra.
A produced screen and television writer, her work spans a variety of genres from supernatural thriller to romantic drama, action, family, teen, and comedy.
She's written on staff for ABC-TV's Port Charles; written, produced, and directed reality programming and documentaries for The Learning Channel, PBS, and HGTV, as well as numerous television commercials and corporate videos, and the independent film, Losing Hope.