Writing screenplays is excellent practice in building discipline in one’s writing. Movie characters talk far less than real people – a logical constraint given film’s 120-minute window on a world.
Every word counts and they must count on different levels: plot progression, back story, foreshadow, etc. It’s vital to use the right words and as few of them as possible to have them do what you want them to do.
Writing screenplays forces you into brevity and smart choices; it forces you to edit, edit, edit.
The adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, is a brilliant example of wonderfully concise writing. The Return of the King screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson remains true to Tolkien’s descriptive and romantic language. And it does so with remarkable clarity.
Just one of many examples is the phrase the character Gandalf utters upon witnessing the distant lighting of beacons, which indicates to all that men will again unite to fight the evil of the day.
“Hope is kindled.†A powerful, concise statement that works beautifully with the images the viewer sees on screen. Hope is kindled, soon to flare into a raging firestorm to consume the forces of evil and save the race of men.
Hope is kindled. Three little words. Words that inspire and foreshadow.
In fact, hope is one of the unifying elements of Tolkien’s trilogy. It permeates the storyline so effectively that it really is a character in and of itself. In The Return of the King, for instance, the word “hope†is used some 10 times in the dialogue.
The old cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words†has stood the test of time. Yet if the writer has made it worthwhile, the pleasure of traveling through these thousand words is a wonderful journey in itself!
Write a screenplay. It’s good practice in choosing your words wisely!
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