Nuts & Bolts: Interview With Screenplay Writer John Penney
By Tom Joyce
Even literary legends can make a bad call sometimes. John Penney discovered that when he disregarded some early career advice from famous author Ray Bradbury, to the effect that he should give screenwriting a pass if he wanted to be a serious author.
Fortunately, John proved Mr. Bradbury wrong, and has spent the past 30 years producing horror in one form or another as an award-winning screenwriter, director, novelist, and short-story writer. In this edition of “Nuts & Bolts,” John shares some of his insights on novel and screenplay writing.
Q: What are the main differences between writing a screenplay and writing a novel?
A: For me, the story mechanics are the same for any medium: Know your protagonist and what they want. Know what they are they doing to get what they want. Know what’s stopping them from getting it. Show how they change in the process. The big difference is that in film, you can only tell your story with anything you can see or hear. In a novel, I am able to use emotions, textures, thoughts, and memories; I can explore and digress. I can add emotional moments and backstory freely.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of each form?
A: Film has great impact and immediacy, but it requires a lot of gatekeepers between you and the audience. Directors, actors, cinematographers are all story tellers and interpreters of the story. Novels connect you directly with the reader. When I first came to L.A. to work in film, my mother (science fiction writer Raylyn Moore) set me up with a lunch with Ray Bradbury. He was a longtime friend of my stepfather (science fiction writer Ward Moore) and my mother, and had written an introduction to my mother’s book. He asked me what I wanted to do in film and I said write screenplays. He immediately told me film is not a writer’s medium. I was better off writing short stories and novels. It kind of threw me for a loop. In the years that followed, I continued to write screenplays as I was editing features. I eventually ended up transitioning into writing and producing full time. About 10 years after my first meeting with Ray, I ran into him when we both had movies shooting on soundstages next to each other. We talked for a while and then I reminded him that he told me if I want to be a writer, I should write novels or short stories, not film. At that point Ray smiled and said “but film is the most relevant art form now, isn’t it?” And he was right. At the time, he was giving me advice on how to become a good writer and build a career. He was a man who made his start writing short stories and that worked for him. I came up in an era when spec scripts were selling a lot and that’s how I moved into writing. Ever since, I always preface any advice I give aspiring writers by telling them what worked for me might be very different from what might work for them. Now, of course, the final irony here is that I started writing novels about ten years ago and I love it. Everything Ray said was true. There is nothing between you and the audience and that is very special and satisfying.
Q: How do you compensate for those differences when adapting a novel to screenplay, and vice versa?
A: I adapted “The Enemy” by Desmond Bagely into a feature that ended up staring Roger Moore, Luke Perry and Olivia D’Abo. The first thing I did was try to find the narrative spine of the story. That meant there was a lot that fell away. I looked for what the central conflict was and what the protagonist’s journey was. Feature films are all about the external narrative drive and the “A” story. The challenge is to make sure the external narrative is driven by the inner conflict of the characters in a way that can be revealed through action or dialogue. Once I found the narrative spine, I then had to update a lot of the details. It was written in the early ’60s when Ian Fleming was king of the spy novel. Along with that came a lot of cringe-worthy misogyny. To solve this, I gender swapped the two leads. I made the female the CIA agent and the male was the scientist.
My default setting as a storyteller is as a screenwriter. I find it very helpful to create a screenplay and then use it as an outline for the novel. It keeps me on track plotting-wise and frees me up to explore the world and characters in far more detail in the novel. I find writing novels very liberating. I get to play all the parts. I get to live in everyone’s heads. Hear their thoughts and emotions. I often go back and rewrite the script based on what I’ve learned by writing the novel.
Q: What advice would you give a novel writer who might be interested in screenplay-writing?
A: Starting in film as an editor was invaluable when it came to learning screenwriting. I was telling the final story using only what I had available: Picture and sound. My first produced screenplay was “The Kindred” with Rod Steiger, Kim Hunter and Talia Balsam. It was a unique experience because I was also an editor on the film. In the cutting room, I would be looking at the footage of a scene I had written and if there was some concept, character detail or idea that was missing, I could compare it to what I had put on the page. It really forced me to train my mind to tell stories with only what I could see and hear. It’s very different than writing novels. For a novelist wanting to write screenplays, I would recommend reading the screenplays of films they really like and then comparing them to the finished film. Scene by scene. It also helps to get earlier drafts of scripts and you can see how they were shaped into the final version on film. Also, I like to say that there’s one golden rule for screenplays: Keep your plot simple and your characters complex.
Q: Is there any writing advice you received that you could pass on to other members of the HWA?
A: My biological father, William Penney, was a newspaper journalist who also wrote fiction. He used to tell me all the time that “story was character and character was story.” For years I didn’t understand what he meant by that. It was like Mr. Miyagi telling the Karate Kid to “wax on, wax off.” It wasn’t until an opening Friday night screening of the first film I had a co-story credit on, that I found out. It was a film called “The Power” about a demonic Mexican clay idol that possessed people. The protagonist in the film was a woman who worked for a National Enquirer-type magazine. She was a non-believer in the supernatural. Her ex-boyfriend comes to visit and gets possessed by the idol and she doesn’t believe him. Imagine, the audience was witnessing all this supernatural chaos but the protagonist doesn’t believe it happened. She should have been a believer out to stop the evil force, instead she had her head in the sand. She wasn’t driving the story. After a few audience members started heckling the screen and a few others walked out, I realized what my dad had meant: Character is story and story is character. The decisions your character makes drive the direction of the story; those decisions are based on what the protagonist has to do to get past whatever hurdle the antagonist has put up. The antagonist should be in direct opposition to the protagonist. The push and pull of the narrative should have been between them. We had the wrong character trying to drive the movie.
Q: Do you have any projects in the works that you would like other HWA members to know about?
A: My new novel “It Comes Back” will be out in May from Encyclopocalypse Publications. One of my previous novels, “Killing Time,” was just released on Audible.
Q: Where can we follow you online?
A: On Facebook (really, I’ll definitely friend you!) or Instagram @johnpenneyfilmmaker. Of course, I am also often at the L.A. chapter meetings of the HWA.
Bio:
Award winning writer/director John Penney attended UCLA where he studied film and received a degree in English. In addition to his screenplays, John has written short stories that have won him an award from the Adelphi Academy in New York, and have been published in the “Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.” In 2011 John wrote and directed the supernatural thriller “Hellgate” starring William Hurt and Cary Elwes. The film was awarded Best Film at the Bram Stoker International Film Festival as well as the Best Horror Film from the Fantasy Horror Awards in Italy, sponsored by Syfy Europe Universal. Prior writer-director credits include the thriller “Zyzzyx Road,” the family film “Magic,” and a segment in the anthology film “Virus of the Dead.” In 2017 John formed the genre company Dark Arts Entertainment with Brian Yuzna, (“Re-Animator” “Honey I shrunk the Kids”). John is also currently prepping his next feature film, “Crossover,” based on his novel “Truck Stop” and co-writing the final sequel to the seminal genre film “Re-Animator” for The Wolper Company. In addition to his directing, John has written the screenplays for such films as “The Enemy,” “Contaminated Man,” “A Breed Apart,” “In Pursuit,” “Matter of Trust,” “The Kindred,” “Return of the Living Dead 3,” “Past Perfect,” and “Amphibious 3D.” He also served as a producer on his films “Zyzzyx Rd,” “A Breed Apart,” “Matter of Trust,” and “In Pursuit,” and executive producer on the feature “Reborn” (2019). John is also the author of the novels “Truck Stop” (2012) and “Killing Time” (2013). Time.” He has been an adjunct Instructor at The Los Angeles Film School since 2013 where he teaches writing and directing.
