Over the last few weeks at uni I’ve been studying script writing, with particular focus on screenplays. It’s a lot of fun, and very different from novel writing. Yet at the same time, there’s a lot of skills that can be applied and strengthen your novel writing ability. I’ve discussed before how writing short stories and poetry can help too, if you’re interested!

Show, don’t tell
We all now how vital it is to show not tell. Your readers don’t want to be spoon fed dull info. They want to see it in their mind, to imagine it. In screen writing, you don’t have the luxury of portraying a character’s inner thoughts (unless you’re using voice overs, and these need to be appropriate for the nature of your show), you can’t describe what people feel or how they behave. It all has to be done visually. Being forced to think…