Can Writing Short Stories Help With Screenwriting?

A Filmmaker's Journal

In January I wrote a new short story. It kind of happened on a whim. I’d had the idea for a while, but then, in putting together the 10th Anniversary Edition of Dead Leaves (due later this year), I realised the idea would fit as a connecting story to the main novella. So I sat down and wrote it over two days. It’s called ‘Kim Basinger’ and I thought it turned out pretty well (hope you agree when it comes out in the new edition). I found the act of writing the story so fulfilling that I told myself that I’d like to do it again as soon as possible.

I’ve written several short stories over the years. The feature film I directed last autumn, The House on Lidderman Street, was originally a short story. It was collected in the pocket book Winter Freits. Plus, there was a story featured in the collection Pareidolia edited by James Everington and Dan Howarth, and a few other odds and sods here and there, but I don’t tend to write that many shorts. However, something about writing ‘Kim Basinger’ made me think I really should try and take the short story form a little more seriously. My reasoning: I think writing them makes me a better screenwriter. Let me explain -

(Miss Basinger. Just because.)

I’m currently co-writing a screenplay (the one I’ve mentioned before that may tip everything over) and in between back and forthing pages with my co-writer, I found I needed to keep writing in order to stay in the zone, so in February I wrote a second short story. This was from another idea I’ve had for a long time. I called it ‘The Library at the End of the World’ and it’s a very Rod Serling-type tale. I even reference a Twilight Zone episode in the story. It was a bit longer than ‘Kim Basinger’, clocking in at about 4,000 words, and had a different tone and style. It was more experimental and a lot stranger. But that was fine. I was just letting my imagination fly. Not thinking about it too much. I just allowed the story to arrive on the page.

That is, admittedly, a very different approach than screenwriting. Writing screenplays is all structure, and in the case of the one I’m currently co-writing, it means working from a very tight treatment. Writing ‘The Library at the End of the World’ was nothing like that. I had the premise, the basic set-up, and then just allowed it to lead me wherever it wanted to go, and it went to some strange places, but that was the fun of it. How successful the story turned out, I cannot say. I don’t think it’s as strong as ‘Kim Basinger’ and certainly not as accessible, but in writing it I had the idea that I should try and write one short story every month this year. A year of stories.

I have lots of ideas jotted down in notebooks and on my phone, some going back years, and I think it’ll be good for me to just get on and write them down. Shape them into tight, satisfying reads. If I can. Stories that can be consumed in one sitting.

This month - March - I wrote another short story. This one entitled ‘The Ferry Driver’ and I think it’s the best story yet. For one, it’s a comedy. A black comedy - very Magnus Mills - and it just seems to work. I mean, no one’s read it yet, but it works for me. It has a very satisfying structure and I love the characters and their dialogue. And there’s a lot of dialogue in this one. Plus, it’s the longest story yet, coming in at nearly 7,000 words, and has that satisfying sense of a world well lived in.

However, I want to try and write a really short one in April.

Writing these stories can and does feedback into the screenwriting. Not just in terms of characters and dialogue, but also in structure. There’s something about the form and structure of the short story that is very akin to the structure of a feature film. Both need to get to the point quick. You need to establish the world, the characters, the inciting incident, and so forth, as quickly and as smoothly as possible. Just like in a screenplay.

Novels are completely different beasts. Novels are wandering creatures, they like nibbling the foliage and admiring the view, the short story - and their screenplay cousins - zip through the forest in a straight line. They have a single purpose and they have to get to their destinations as quickly as possible, leaving the novel sauntering away behind.

It’s why I love novellas as well. They have a similar drive and purpose. (Francis Ford Coppola says that novellas and short stories make for the best source material to adapt into films.)

It’s not only the structure and form of the short story that helps with my screenwriting though. It is also the language. A lot of books I’ve read and talks I’ve watched on writing never really touch on this subject, but the language you use, the prose you compose, is a major factor in what makes a short story and a screenplay work. And the key in both forms is economy.

Economy economy economy. (That’s already too many words!)

In working on these short stories, I have tried to approach them with the same measure I use when writing screenplays: I want to tell my story in the clearest, most economical, yet cinematic way possible. I want to get across a striking image, or a scene, with the fewest, most precise words I can. That is the connection for me.

With these recent short stories, I have tried to build worlds and characters in clear but evocative sentences and short paragraphs. Then I use the tricks I learn with each story when I flip back to writing scripts. What I’ve found is that they really do feed into one another.

Clear lines, clear intent, clear destinations.

If writing really is a muscle that needs constant workouts and you’re struggling with your screenplay, give writing a short story or two a try. It might unlock everything for you.

Let me know how you get on.