Last week, I reviewed some of the advantages and disadvantages of different story forms. This time I’ll provide some rules of thumb to help you place your story. (I’ll save thoughts on adaptation for two weeks from now because this week’s post is extensive and naturally leads to another post.)
There are brilliant exceptions, but as a rules of thumb, here are my suggestions.
For a story with an excellent, simple plot:
Film is a good choice if you could convey the whole story in about two typed pages and get people to say “wow.” The Shawshank Redemption and The Postman Always Rings Twice are based on novellas that, for all the turns, have strong causal chains and lead to what feels inevitable.
TV and fiction podcasts, especially as limited series, can also do this if cliffhangers come equally spaced in time so the episodes encourage audiences to return.
Theater can make this work and certainly benefits from a strong plot, but you know it won’t be a long-running play because it’s not enough. Unless it’s a musical or very funny.
Poems like The Tale of the Ancient Mariner and storytelling songs can make this work. The former is rare. The latter is less rare and a treat when done well.
Novels are apt to feel bloated if this is all they have going for them. Something else, like humor or erotica, needs to be added to make it work.
For a story with a detailed puzzle, world building, or lots of complexity:
Novels are a sure bet. Many people who read novels love to participate by looking for clues or engaging their imaginations to fill in the details of unknown worlds.
Films adapted from such novels can work, but it’s difficult to get a standalone script produced with these elements. Puzzles that are complicated tend to feel too intellectual in a script and demand a lot effort from studio readers. Well-built worlds need a lot of description, making a script look dense. White space rules with scripts. The exception for this is when the writer has another role (e.g., producer or director). The Terminator and The Matrix are good examples of this.
Poetry already tends to be a puzzle, just in terms of the language and the allusions. It’s very rare that adding another level of complexity works well.
Fiction podcasts, with only sound to hold onto and no chance of reviewing clues, is not a great venue for complex puzzles. It can be good for world building, but the world needs to be built bit by bit. Too much too fast will overwhelm listeners.
Generally, this does not work well in theater. A play like A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one exception, though I’ve seen more mediocre and bad versions of that than of anything else by Shakespeare.
TV can make this work, but only in a long form like Breaking Bad or American Horror Story. Episodic TV struggles with complexity.
For a story that relies on spectacle and visuals for (emotional) payoff:
Film has thrived with these from the very beginning. The wows need to be bigger than trains coming into stations or fires being put out (two audience pleasers in the early days), but people still love rollercoaster stories with plenty of special effects. Camera games (creative editing, 3-D, split screens) can excite audiences, and the spectacle of ingenious sound effects can also enhance box office receipts.
Not all visuals are the result of special effects. A John Ford western takes advantage of exciting locations, composition, focus, and framing to thrill and audience. And, of course, any story that can be told almost entirely by images alone is great for film.
TV is likely to come up short when it comes to spectacle and visuals. How many times have you watched a film you loved at a movie theater, only to be disappointed when you saw it on TV? Leaning heavily on the songs, I think music videos did this from time to time. For my money, Jim Henson’s Storyteller took visuals to their highest point for a TV series. I haven’t seen anything else that comes close.
Fiction podcasts actually create wonderful visuals in audience imaginations. Think Orson Welles’s adaptation of War of the Worlds. Novels can do this, too. Both have lots of potential (and low costs) for big visual payoffs, but they depend on the craftsmanship of someone like Tolkien and the participation of audiences and readers.
Poetry can create fireworks and thrills. I think The Odyssey proves that. But this requires really holding reader attention with longer works and miraculous talent for shorter ones.
Theater does this at a smaller scale, with what are essentially magic tricks. And there can be tricky sets. The only thing I really liked about The Year of Magical Thinking when I saw it on Broadway was what they did with the floorboards. Often, attempts at spectacle, as with Spider-man Turn Off the Dark, feels off and distracting.
For a story where language and wordplay are an essential component:
Poetry leads here, if there is story going on. But poetry often eschews story.
Theater has audiences that look for this. They listen closely to enhanced language, giving it the attention it deserves and suspending enough disbelief to stay in the stories.
Film can do this. Think of Quint’s monologue in Jaws. Or Blake’s speech in Glengarry Glen Ross (which was from the play, but brilliantly performed in the movie by Alec Baldwin). Films usually don’t even attempt it because it (mostly) stops the camera. Long periods of listening are actively avoided in film (unless a play is being adapted).
TV actually loves language. It hangs onto its roots in radio. Golden Age shows like Rod Serling’s Patterns and Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty provide naturalistic dialogue that hits the sweet spot between what belongs on the stage and what belongs on the silver screen. You can get away with more in terms of characters conversing on TV than anywhere else. The West Wing is a great example (though, for Sorkin, I like Sports Night above everything else).
Fiction podcasts can do this well. Dialogues and monologues are built to engage the ear, after all.
For a story focused on one character or when the heart of the story is the relationships between characters:
So much to say! Too much for me to explore properly here, so it will be next week’s post.
In the meantime, even though I’ve asserted rather than prove points above, I hope my musing provide some guidance as to what to do with that story that’s in your head.
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