Conversations in the Book Trade: Books, art, art-books, and ... authorial movies.
These are sample pages of a novel (entitled The Business Army) written in two forms: as a conventional novel and as a screenplay-novel that includes both illustrations (storyboard roughs) and archival photos.
The idea of the latter version of the novel is to create a cinematic experience in the mind of the reader.
This was originally published in 2006, and things have changed since then; for example, I bought Michael Turner’s screenplay cum novel and read it, and consider it an interesting evolution in the novel form. However, I would like to emphasize two things: first, the importance of making any hybrid novel/screenplay project a visually inviting work; the second, the degree to which book people are fond of the traditional novel form needs to be acknowledged by a writer wishing to reach a significant audience. That is, a hybrid novel/ screenplay also needs the belletristic sophistication of a well written conventional novel.
From earlier:
What is a screenplay-novel?
It's a novel. But it's written in the form of a screenplay.
How did you get the idea of writing a screenplay-novel?
Over time, it dawned on me that I treated movies the way I treated novels: I would appreciate their stories in a similar way, and talk about them afterwards the way a person might talk about a novel. In fact, I do this more often with movies ... mainly, I think, because nowadays movie-watchers vastly outnumber novel readers. There are many people you can have a conversation with about a particular movie, even a very serious movie. It's a lot harder to do that about a particular book, especially if it's literary.
One "aha" moment for me was
And then there's the creative process involved: Unless writing autobiographically, I like imagining scenes as if they were in a movie. My imagination seems to naturally work that way.
Has this idea been done before?
There's a long tradition of writing satire in the form of a screenplay -- you know, some imagined scene, for example, some inane conversation in the White House. And there is a tradition of teleromans in some countries. These are basically comics made of photographs, not drawings.
But there are no examples of a literary novel written in screenplay form that I've seen. At least, this was true when the idea first came to me. Since then, people have given me examples. One was a script by Michael Turner entitled "American Whisky Bar". I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on it. But some time after it was published, it was produced by CITY-TV and Bruce McDonald as a live television drama. I saw that broadcast. The broadcast was really more like a 1950s-style televised play than anything else. So I don't know if it qualifies.
Personally, I think people will come up with other examples and this will turn into a long-running debate over who was first. And I doubt it will ever be satisfactorily resolved. Instead, what I'd like to emphasize is I'm calling for the screenplay-novel to exist as a distinct form of novel. In other words, I'm hoping that many serious writers will adopt this way of writing novels -- at least, for some of their work.
https://youtube.com/shorts/0-sm41C-5HY?feature=share
Happy that my VideoPoemSong « Why Some? » was just selected by AltFF Alternative Film Festival via FilmFreeway.com! YouTube link to video: Why Some?
https://youtu.be/1-5L60wK5zc
If curious, YouTube link: A moviepoem about rural roots: Your World
https://youtu.be/kaI1ZtdRVPA
If curious, more at YouTube: https://youtu.be/jAsC7ZP5S3U?si=0LlK2uBwJ8NxdtbH
