One of the more pervasive mistakes that aspiring screenwriters tend to make in the actual writing and execution of their script is to think of their screenplay as a movie.

I know, I know, that doesn’t sound right at all. A screenplay is a movie, right?

Well sorry, but no, it’s not. For non-established spec writers a screenplay is a written story that if enough industry folk love, can then lead to being set up at a studio and hopefully produced into a movie.

It’s an extremely valuable distinction to make for aspiring screenwriters who write on spec.

Yes, writers should be envisioning their screenplay as a movie, which means writing visually, externalizing actions, applying form and function, etc. However, the story has to be executed on the page first.

And that means the narrative intentions of the writer have to be clear in the writing. The ideas associated with the story, individual beat, moments, the story’s emotional nuance, and the story itself has to be transparent to the reader. Most reading this article would think that’s a complete given, yet lack of clarity is a trap that far too many beginning screenwriters fall into and never even realize it.

How It Happens

Screenwriters can get so locked into the movie they’re envisioning in their head — one that’s filled with amazing images, and cast with brilliant actors, and has amazing cinematography and sound. They get so caught up in seeing it, that they lose sight of the fact that it has to be read first.

In other words, they’re so engrossed in envisioning the finished product as a movie that they fail to fully articulate the story on the page. And as any studio reader will tell you, that’s a knife in the belly of any screenplay. It instantly cuts the life of your read short.

Simply put, instead of writing a story for a reader, they’re writing a movie for a producer. Instead of telling a story, they’re explaining a movie.

The Repercussions of It

Writing a movie for a producer instead of writing a story for a reader is a mistake as it can directly lead to the story being ambiguous in the writing. Meaning parts of the story are on the page, yet other parts are vague and still in the writer’s head, attached to that awesome three-dimensional finished movie that one has to actually see in order to fully comprehend its story.

In my years of screenplay consulting I’ve seen it happen far too often. I would read a writer’s spec only to be constantly stopping because of lack of clarity. I’m constantly being “taken out of the read” because the writer’s narrative intentions aren’t clear on the page. Instead of being engaged, I’m confused.

However, when I sit down with the writer and he or she explains it to me, it all makes perfect sense.

As an example of this, let’s take an excerpt from a spec script I consulted on that illustrates this notion of envisioning it but failing to articulate it. The following is a before and after look at the scene. Here’s the before version…

__________________________________________________________

EXT. THE GRAVE - SECONDS LATER

Sean slowly climbs out of his grave. He notices...

a Mexican girl laying on her back. She’s clutching her bleeding wound to the stomach. Gasping for breath. It’s bad.

The girl gazes up at Sean.

Sean grabs the toy doll. Gives it to her. She hugs it.

The girl then takes her last breath and dies.

________________________________________________________________

Now when I sat down with the screenwriter, I explained that the scene confused me on many levels, and that I sensed there was supposed to be much more here that wasn’t being articulated.

Upon hearing this, the writer eagerly launched into an emotional explanation of the scene and its narrative intention as related to the story as a whole. It was both compelling and moving, yet none of it was on the page. It was still in the writer’s imagination in movie form.

After rewriting the scene to per our discussion, here’s what the “after” version looked like...

______________________________________________________________

EXT. THE GRAVE - SECONDS LATER

Sean slowly climbs out of the freshly dug grave he was supposed to be dead in.

He stands there in the hot desert heat. Dazed. In a total state of shock. He’s covered in dirt, blood, and white lime powder. He checks his gunshot wound, the one that should have killed him but amazingly didn’t. He then notices...

a young Mexican girl laying nearby on her back. She’s clutching her bleeding stomach. A shotgun blast to the gut. She’s gasping for breath. A tiny toy doll lies near her in the dirt.

Sean steps over to her in a daze. He looks down at her. She’s still alive. Barely. She’s fading fast.

The girl looks over to the toy doll lying in the dirt and then stares up at Sean.

Sean realizes she wants it. He grabs the doll. Gives it to her. She hugs it gently. Almost motherly.

Sean stares down at her. Sees a sadness in her eyes.

The girl then takes her last breath and dies.

_______________________________________________________________

As you can see, the scene took on a whole new life by clarifying beats. And therein lies the rub, because your screenplay isn’t going to come with a person to explain it. When your screenplay goes out into the world, it doesn’t go with a person attached who can clarify or explain scene intentions if need be.

For non-established screenwriters a screenplay has to be a literary piece of material that stands on its own merit. It has to engage and move the reader just like a great movie does an audience.

How to Overcome It

Ambiguity is the enemy of your screenplay. Curiosity is its hero. Meaning, truly engaging writing generates narrative curiosity, causing the reader to want to read more in order to know more. Ambiguous writing just causes confusion. Or as I like to put it, curiosity is “good confusion” whereas ambiguity is not.

One exercise I would have my former MFA screenwriting students do was to read their finished first draft scene-by-scene as if they were a lit agent reading it for the first time. In other words, step outside yourself and be an objective reader. What would the agent’s informational and emotional takeaway be from each scene? Does it match what your intention was for the scene was?

Doing this forces you to articulate the intuitive in the rewriting stage. Meaning, it causes you to take the intuitive ideas you wrote and articulate them into specific choices.

Why It's Important

The bottom line is that a spec writer’s audience are the people who will be reading their screenplay — agents, managers, development execs, readers doing coverage on it, etc.

Executing the story on the page is everything. It’s the difference between the reader understanding the moments and nuance of your story or not. Between them being engaged in the read or not engaged. Between them continuing to read it or tossing it.

So always remember, in order for your screenplay to ever be a movie, people have to love it as a story first. And that story has to be on the page.

Tim Long is a screenwriter who has sold, optioned, and pitched feature film projects at the studio level, and has had original screenplays in development with Academy Award ® winning and nominated producers. Mr. Long is also a nationally recognized screenplay consultant and taught screenwriting at the MFA level in a top ranked University film program. He’s currently Founder and C.E.O of PARABLE, an online, interactive, screenwriting course. Follow Tim on Twitter!