Film Courage: What are your thoughts on someone writing a novel before they write the screenplay?
Anna David, Publisher, author, speaker, podcast host, and television personality: I
think Hollywood is obsessed with IP [intellectual property] and I think
that it makes it a lot easier if you can have a book and also
have a screenplay that's going to put you so far ahead of the game.
Film Courage: Do you think someone who's a novelist can actually write their own screenplay?
Anna: I don't think every novelist should write their own screenplay. My experience when Party
Girl first came out one of the first people who wanted it was the actress Melanie Griffith and
she contacted me and said I want to make this and she was then married to Antonio Banderas and she
said will you come meet with us? I went to their house and I met with them and it was so magical
and I sat there with them and I remember somebody who worked in the house came in and said it's Mr.
Katzenberg on the line and so he left and Melanie goes tell Jeffrey about Party Girl and I'm like
I'm sure he doesn't care. Melanie wanted me to write the screenplay she said this is your story
let's have you write it and I sat down and I had no idea what to do many years passed and then the
pandemic hit my boyfriend happens to not just be a screenwriter but a structural genius and he said
to me you absolutely could write this screenplay you just need the structure I actually had tried
to write scripts in the past and I did actually even get paid to do one but I really didn't know
what I was doing once he mapped out the structure for me I just was able to write it I thought I
was just doing it for fun keep me busy during a pandemic I ended up having some friends read the
screenplay my friend Jeff Garlin from Curb Your Enthusiasm and then my friend Rebecca De Mornay
who's an actress we did a zoom reading and I heard that I mean again it was just kind of
for fun and I heard them and this was good and everybody was laughing and both of them said
to me afterwards this script works and that's actually the one that's getting made so it it
took me 15 years to to end the right structure to realize how to do it they're definitely different
skill sets but there are definitely people who are are able to write the book and the script
and what is your definition of IP that's a great question I I mean I think IP is a book a podcast
a YouTube show an article anything that is the property of somebody else that somebody could
option and then make into a movie or a TV show why is it important for a writer to own their own IP
it's important for a writer to own their own IP because don't have a lot of power the one thing
you've got is your idea and they can rewrite you and they can they can take your power away but if
you've got your idea and it's documented clearly that that's your idea no one can ever take that
away from you why didn't you originally want to write the screenplay for Party Girl I didn't want
to write this screenplay because I didn't think I knew how and I always felt like I was hearing
stories about that diva person who ruined the project because she was so like committed to
being the one who wrote the script or whatever I'm a very practical person which is why when
the original sort of bidding war over the book came out I said who's paying me the most which
is the most option because I know the chances of it actually getting made aren't that great
so who's going to pay me the most and somebody said well this is we want this to be a Lifetime
movie and someone else said I want this to be a Warner Brothers movie I'm like well Lifetime is
shooting lower that seems more realistic let's go with that so I just I just want I wanted it
to be made and if I was gonna stand in the way of it being made because I insisted on writing
the script that didn't make a lot of sense once I realized I could actually do a good job at it
that's when I was willing to do it I was writing a screenplay different than writing a novel
I think writing a screenplay if you have the structure it can really write itself once you've
got the structure down when you're writing a novel it obviously there are many more words on the page
but there are many more nuances descriptions character development I think it is possibly
I think more people believe they can write screenplays and try than people think they can
write novels and try I think if you're gonna try to write a novel you're probably going to succeed
and it's going to be pretty good there are a lot of really terrible scripts out there is it because
maybe there's so much thinking and different things that you're writing into the novel
where you can't really portray that within the sort of the screenplay format you've got a more
it's difficult yeah I think this is like if we're talking about the same thing I think with movies
people aspiring authors are probably going to be readers who read a lot of books as opposed
to aspiring screenwriters who are probably people who like movies who maybe don't have any history
or experience with writing so it's very easy to kind of be like oh Star Wars that's a great here's
my space movie idea whereas that wouldn't last very long if you were trying to do that as a book
you'd kind of it would fall apart pretty quickly I think what if a novelist doesn't have a skill set
to adapt their screenplay if a novelist does not have their skill set to adopt the screenplay stay
the hell out as out of respect for your own work hope that the best writer is the one who adapts it
that being said I know of stories where a writer is such a big writer that they are given that
opportunity and get somebody who really knows what they're doing to supervise I mean you're
after the best version of your book not getting in the Writer's Guild or having the glory of
your name as a screenwriter how does a writer know their novel actually should be written as a movie
I will say I'll talk from my experience I've written seven books and there's only one that
people always say should be a movie and I guess the difference is that there's a twist and there's
there's something about it that's cinematic I honestly do not know I didn't write that one
saying oh my God this is going to be a movie and these aren't going to be movies I think
it has to it I don't know science fiction genre in all these genres what I know are
sort of the movies that would be the books that would be made into romantic comedies
and they have to have they have to have vibrant characters they have to have surprising twists
they have to have do you see this couple in the beginning and you want them to be
together but they're going to be realistic obstacles that are going to keep them apart.