The Write Stuff

The Screenplay's the Thing

"The play's the thing."  So said Will Shakespeare through his character, Prince Hamlet.  That line has been cited countless times by writers, philosophers, social media pundits – even scientists and economists.  The context varies, of course, depending on the purpose and perspective of the user.  I recently conceived of a new – for me – context and use for the line, i.e., to highlight the ultimate purpose of fiction writing, and by inference, the role of the writer with respect to the reader.

The novelist's goal, as well as the short story writer's and poet's goal, is to use words to transfix and transport a reader's mind to a scene, to action, to dialogue.  More importantly, the goal is also to keep the reader's mind in place – bonded to the scene – and pursue the journey that the writer has laid out.

I recently reread a short story, Proof of the Pudding, by William Sydney Porter, also known as O. Henry.  A Mr. Westbrook, editor of Minerva Magazine, chances upon one Shackleford Dawe, a once successful but now failing writer for Westbrook's magazine, among others.  We learn that Westbrook's main objection to Dawe's writing lies in the author's use of common, ordinary dialogue in response to a dramatic event.  Dawe argues that his writing is consistent with human behavior whereas Westbrook argues for more dramatic responses, reminding me of Shakespeare's works.  Dawe responds to Westbrook's argument, claiming, "Not in a six hundred night's run anywhere but on the stage." Interestingly, they both seem to view a work of fiction like a script for a play. 

To be expected of O. Henry, Westbrook and Dawe, discovering in the same letter that their wives left them to pursue better lives, respond in manners exactly contrary to their staunchly held positions.  My intent is not to argue for either position.  Rather, the story pointed out to me that a novel or short story can be much like a screenplay, wherein the writer can evoke, in the reader, all the senses employed in film through skillful – and practiced – word choice.  A film or a novel can embody captivating action or poignant stillness, vivid sound or momentous silence, and the illusions of hideous or appetizing tastes, tactile sensations of luxurious suede or asphalt, and the strength of a pleasant perfume or revolting stench.

For me, what is new, if not news, is the concept of a novel played out on a soundstage inside the reader's mind.  By viewing a novel  as a movie, the writer, similar to a film's screenwriter, producer, and director, can bind the reader's mind to the moment, like the effect of a good movie on a viewer.  Choosing a film as a writer's perspective instead of a stage play has the advantages of grander special effects, and breadth of scenery selection and dialogue, relative to a play.  In any event, like Westbrook and Dawe intimate, the screenplay's the thing, in the form of a novel, that will hopefully fill a reader's mind with the story that is in the writer's mind.