Wattpad Rants

20. Screenplays

"Jane: Listen, June, I know that it's only been a few days, but I feel like we aren't close enough yet! Ooh, we could do an icebreaker! That's what they do in the movies! Oh, my fav—

(Jane waves her arms around. June folds her arms.)

June: Uhh, the only reason why I'm even talking to you is because everyone else is insane and you won't get off my back!

Jane: Aw... So, I'm not insane? I knew you—

June: Shut the hell up."

Come on, you can write screenplays, but at least warn me, ok? Just a little "This is a script!" Or "Jane and June: A screenplay." This part's sort of unnecessary, but I have accidentally clicked on some of these and blinked profusely trying to figure out what I pressed on.

So, sometimes it's alright (al-write, haha! Okay, I'll leave...) to write in a script format. It's completely fine if that's your writing style and you don't want to conform to how most people do it. Writing is a craft, whether a report, a blog, a novel, a poem, a comic, or—yes—a script.

But, sadly, more often than not, I see this format used by—whom I believe to be—lazy writers. Why do I jump to this seemingly absurd conclusion? Because half the time the writing looks less like the example I made above and more like this—
↓

"Jane: June I think we shpuld talk more together!

June: No. Your weird and everyone else is weird too

Jane: I'm not weird!

June: ...ok i guess so whatcha wanna do now 💅✨"

Maybe that's a bit extreme, but you get the idea.

Looking past the random errors (there's no comma after saying June's name, should is spelled wrong, it's you're not your, why doesn't June get any punctuation?, the i should be capitalized, emojis are reserved for the comments and author notes, thank you. *bows), there is an odd lack of personality in the characters.

I honestly tried to convey the message as well as I could in this format in the first example. I don't think it's the greatest, but you can tell that Jane is a bubbly, optimistic, chatterbox, and June is hostile (and probably needs a hug or two, but moving on). Well, I mean, I'd hope it's easy to tell, you know, as long as you don't get their names mixed up.

In the second version, you can't exactly tell what each person wants or what their motives are. Here, try your best to forget my description of the two and reread the second conversation. Now, while the grammar mistakes stick out like a sore thumb, think really, really, really hard and attempt to describe the characters.

Did you give them personalities? A backstory maybe? The first thing I thought of was that they were friends who just happened to like being sarcastic and spelling their words wrong.

If you get what I'm saying, it's difficult to convey the correct emotions or reactions from your dialogue if it isn't absolutely perfect. The reason why that is is because there's only dialogue. You can't lean on the narrator describing events or actions. So, if you're planning on making a book in this style, do some research.

As someone who's doing theater (I know, theater kid, you can laugh now), there's a reason why there are so many stage directions (those little actions in the parentheses) and a LITERAL DIRECTOR making sure we don't make the audience confused. Because we're acting it out, the feeling behind each phrase is a lot easier to read. Meanwhile, if you were to just pick up the script, reading it could give you a whole slew of different first impressions.

Anyway, I would like to add that while it is perfectly acceptable to write in this format, it isn't exactly recommended for novel-style writing because it isn't a novel-style format (obvious reasons are obvious). If you genuinely want to write something that is detailed and descriptive and you don't care what the actual writing looks like, I wouldn't suggest writing like this. After all, we wouldn't want to end up like Jane and June.

~•~

693 words

"Have you guys seen this type of writing? It's sort of rare, but I definitely have. What do you think of it? Also, did I do Jane and June justice? (Why in the name of choc-chip cookies did I name them that, you guys are going to get them mixed up). Anyways, I love you all, vote, comment your thoughts, and I'll see you next chapter!"

- Coffee