Writing a Screenplay Is Creating a Recipe, Not Cooking The Meal
Your job is to guide the cook step by step
“How do you think the director will shoot this?” my friends from my screenwriting group would ask me.
I was a novice screenwriter. I had tons of creative ideas, and a passion for telling stories, but my words on the page were “unshootable.”
Not all words, obviously. But I got frequent little shocks when they said something was unshootable. For example, one time, I had used the word “mischievously” in action. My friends funnily looked at me (try to visualize that!) and asked me what the actor would be doing at that point of the scene.
No. Unless we aren’t working with Charlie Chaplin, we can’t just say a character acts mischievously and get away with it. We are supposed to find exactly what they are doing on the screen and write it step by step.
At first, I found these interventions frustrating and resisted them. Why should writing a screenplay be different than writing fiction? When you write a short story or novel, you are free to tell your story however you like. You don’t have to constantly think, “what is this person exactly doing at this moment” and your story is still readable and understandable. Or is it? More on that later.
One day, I was trying to cook a rare recipe in the kitchen. The recipe glossed over some of the steps, and I found it hard to understand what I was supposed to do. When I was struggling, I realized how much writing a screenplay was like writing a recipe.
Yes, storytelling is an art form, like cooking. But a screenplay is not for devouring by the audience. The film is. Thus, the script has to be clearly written and easily understandable so that the other filmmakers who read it can do their jobs as competently as possible.
No matter how delicious the outcome is supposed to be, you can’t confuse your readers.
Both screenplays and recipes are functional texts
It’s a rare activity to read screenplays or recipes for fun or artistic appreciation. A script is not poetry. The words in a screenplay are not meant to entertain the readers.
These texts serve one purpose: to guide the actors and film crews (the cooks) to make the film (cook the meal). A screenplay paints pictures in other creators’ minds to create the actual work of art.
You have to pay attention to the ingredients
Sometimes a recipe lists carrots in the ingredients but forgets to tell you when to add them. You improvise and end up with raw carrot pieces in your soup. Or, while following the instructions, you suddenly come across an ingredient that wasn’t mentioned before.
In the same way, the film crews get annoyed when a character disappears in a scene or a prop appears out of nowhere.
If you are writing a recipe for stuffed peppers, you should know that rice swells when boiled. In the same way, you should know the physical characteristics of your story elements. You should be acquainted with the layout of the set. Does the main character have to pass a corridor to go to the kitchen from their bedroom? These details sometimes don’t matter, but sometimes they make your scene unshootable.
You have to pay attention to measurements and timing
A recipe has to tell you how many grams of chickpeas you have to boil and how long. If the recipe tells you to simmer them just for ten minutes, either you will end up with rock-hard chickpeas, or your other ingredients will disintegrate once the chickpeas are cooked.
Measurements and timing are significant for screenplays too. Many plot holes come from timing mistakes. For example, if a character gets pregnant and has a baby, nine months must pass in all the other storylines as well.
The steps must be clear
Just like in a cooking recipe, you can’t gloss over the steps in a screenplay. You can’t write something like “as (the character) talks on the phone, he looks for the keys in the room. He looks everywhere and finally finds it.”
Instead, you have to write each action and each dialogue step by step. For example, you say, “(The character)holds the phone between his neck and shoulder. He opens the top drawer and moves the objects around.”
After a dialogue line, you continue, “He listens to the woman on the line lifting the papers on the desk,” etc.
You still have to leave room for creativity
Both a recipe and a screenplay should explain the steps clearly, but there should be some room for flexibility as well.
Experienced cooks know which ingredients they can replace or omit; or which extra seasoning they can add.
In a screenplay, you need to avoid writing unnecessary instructions such as camera angles or other restricting instructions unless they are significant for your story. For example, you should refrain from specifying the physical attributes of characters such as “blond hair, green eyes,” etc., unless they have a special meaning in the story because this will limit the options for casting.
Final thoughts
Is fiction writing too different than writing a screenplay? We can’t say writing fiction is the same as screenwriting, because contrary to a script, the novel is the final work. It is not a set of instructions for other creators, and it directly targets us, the readers.
However, as long as they tell a story, novels and short stories paint pictures like movies. Each reader is a film director who shoots a different film in their mind based on your story. Thus, it is still vital to plot explicit scenes, walk the reader beat by beat in your scenes, and pay attention to timing just like in a screenplay.
And this is the reason why writing teachers keep advising “Show, don’t tell.”
I originally published this article on The Writing Cooperative back in 2021.