Screenwriting : The Crossover from author to screenwriter by Puroney Dotson

Puroney:

It's difficult if you want to do it well because it takes time and experience to understand crafting an engaging script with lots of whitespaces, an economy of well-written narrative and dialogue, and the ability to master proper structure and formatting. Novels and screenplays are two different species.

I started writing screenplays and transitioned to novels which I found a publisher for. I found novel writing a lot easier to write and to find a publisher for.

Phillip E. Hardy, "The Real Deal" Well said

Michael: Thanks. I had to circle back and correct my typos. Haha!

Yes - it was very difficult to learn to wright 'tight'. Once mastered, I suppose it's just as difficult to go back.

I had the opposite experience. I transitioned from short stories to screenplays, and I find much screenplay writing far less of a hassle.

Though there is a grey area regarding scripts' economy of narrative. Some screenwriters (including well-established ones) will describe action and environment in considerable detail.

Elie: I do describe the action in considerable detail. However, I break it up into sections. That's how you create whitespace.

Philip, I'm curious, is there a rule for the description's prose? I haven't figured out whether the description is supposed to be purely informative, or if you can make it clever.

I got my start writing ad copy, then editorial copy at a fairly large newspaper. Even have a few awards. Then I freelanced for some major companies, wrote a couple of self-help books... and voila, here I am. Life has many twists and turns and I've found that every stop along the way has honed me and made me better at everything that follows.

I had four non-fiction books published at around the same time I’d started writing screenplays. The biggest transition for me, was to curb my enthusiasm for prose, when it came to writing scene descriptions and action sequences.

But over time I learnt that less is more and what has also helped me is to read screenplays in the same genre as I was wanting to write in. This helped me to get the pace and delivery (language) correct.

Elie de Rosen like Phillip mentioned, generally people try to make each graf correspond to roughly one camera setup. We may not technically direct the camera, but if the graf says "feet clomp along the tile hallway" the reader can infer a low tracking show in close-up.

Elie - no rules. You visualize your story, the Director will visualize your story his way. The action lines are how you guide him/her. Essentially this is where you (writer) lead the Director without and camera directions.