5 Novel-Writing Tricks That Will Make Your Screenplay Better

Novelists and screenwriters often fight the same battles, even though their end products differ.

Whatever you’re writing, you’ll want a premise that’s easy to pitch with a catchy hook, scenes with drive, and characters who feel lived-in and real, whether they appear for just a scene or two. The page count and format differ, but the fixes often carry over.

Andrew Hunter Murray is a British novelist and comedian. He co-hosts the podcast No Such Thing As a Fish, writes jokes and journalism for Private Eye, and spent 14 years writing for BBC2's QI. His debut novel, The Last Day, sold to the screen before it was even published. Stone Village Television picked up the film and TV rights in 2019 in a deal reported at high six figures (per Chortle).

He sat down earlier this year with David Perell to break down his process.

Here's how to build a premise you can say in one sentence, make every scene earn its spot, bring minor characters to life in a few strokes, find the drama inside a big set piece, and keep your research off the page.

Check out the full conversation below.

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Write a Premise You Can Say in One Sentence

When someone asks you about your new idea, you need to be able to pitch it quickly. So how can you distill a plot or premise for this purpose?

Perell opens by asking what makes a good premise.

"I think a good premise is one you can explain in a sentence. That's useful when you come to try and sell a book to an editor or a publisher or eventually a reader, and one that you can say so clearly because it not only helps the reader understand what they're getting, but it helps you understand what you're writing. And that's really important=. So just crispness, as many concrete nouns in your premises as you can possibly crowbar in."

This is logline advice in everything but name, and it argues that a clear premise helps the writer as much as the buyer. Can you find a way to tell your story in about 25 words while also conveying tone and genre?

His book The Last Day had a one-line hook. The Earth stopped turning, and half of it now sits in permanent light. His second book, The Sanctuary, was harder to sum up, and he says that made it harder to write.

Make Every Scene Earn Its Place

Perell asks about pacing. Murray says he tracks his novels in a spreadsheet, which surprises Perell (and me). But it makes sense at the novel level, which will have a lot of scenes—a typical screenplay has about 100 scenes, which are possible to put on notecards if that’s your jam.

He then explains what he checks for.

"Every single scene I'll say, ‘Right, have we learned enough here? Does this scene need to be here?’ You know, it can't just be, ‘Oh, let's have a great scene set in a fireworks factory, and we won't really learn anything.’ It has to move things along to be a reason to be in the fireworks factory, and there has to be something that comes out of it that pushes us into the next scene."

This method gives him a broad view of several chapters at a time, and he can spot problems early. This applies directly to scene lists and beat sheets, which you can find in a screenwriting program like Final Draft.

Perell asks what goes in the spreadsheet. Murray won't show it but lists the columns.

"It'll be, here's what scene we're on. Here's what day we're on. Here's what characters we need in each scene. Here's how they need to be interacting. Here's the main thing we're learning plotwise."

He also tracks the protagonist's personal arc alongside the plot, comparing it to braiding.

Draw Minor Characters in a Few Strokes

Perell asks what matters for secondary characters. Murray turns to Edith Wharton's 1925 craft book The Writing of Fiction.

"In both cases a far profounder effect is produced by the penetrating study of a few characters than by the multiplying of half-drawn figures. Neither novelist nor playwright should ever venture on creating a character without first following it out to the end of the projected tale and being sure that the latter will be the poorer for its absence. Characters whose tasks have not been provided for them in advance are likely to present as embarrassing problems as other types of the unemployed."

Wharton's point is that studying a few characters deeply beats sketching many, and that a writer shouldn't add a character, minor or otherwise, without first being sure the story would be worse without them.

"That I think is so important for secondary characters. You know that they need to feel as real as your main character, and they can be drawn in a few lines."

His father once met a traveling businessman who was obsessed with his own shirt-folding method, and that one fixation is a whole character. You might know someone with a quirk who would be fun to write, but you need to make sure that character matters to the story.

Real Drama Is Soul Drama

Murray quotes another line often attributed to Wharton, "Real drama is soul drama," and explains what he thinks she means.

"Well, I think what she's trying to guess at is the really exciting thing is not that there's a freight train thundering down the tracks to where the hero and heroine are tied up and they've got 30 seconds to escape. That is dramatic. But the much more important thing is what one of them is going to turn to the other and say when they think it's all up."

A set piece can be great for your script. But you can’t lose sight of your characters inside them. The spectacle is just the setting, and what counts is what the characters say and do inside it.

He points to the wristwatch at the end of Die Hard. The Rolex Holly got from her company is what McClane unclasps to drop Gruber, so the object carries their whole marriage.

"You know, the writers of that film could have could have had it on an even higher skyscraper, or they could have had the flames being even bigger. But they find a way of expressing character through, you know, a wristwatch."

Keep Your Research Off the Page

Murray paraphrases Philip Pullman's Daemon Voices. The gist is that you can admire the scenery from the path, but you shouldn't wander off for a picnic. When you’re writing, you’re probably going to be doing a lot of wandering. But you don’t want that on the page.

"I could absolutely throw in pages and pages of research about housing and it would make it an unreadably bad book. So that a core part of writing is to resist the urge to show your research. It's brilliant you've done the research. Don't tell it to us."

This is a warning against exposition dumps, which are especially costly in a 100-page script.

Go get writing!