On a recent edition of First Draft Friday, I talked with novelist Jane L. Rosen about her transition from screenwriting to novel writing, her latest release On Fire Island, and how screenwriting principles can be applied to novel writing.
Here are some key takeaways from my conversation with Jane:
Embrace the transition with passion and flexibility
Jane’s transition from screenwriting to novel writing wasn’t instantaneous. Despite initial setbacks and rejections in her early attempts at writing children’s books, her passion for storytelling drove her to persist. Her determination to see her stories shared widely, beyond the confines of Hollywood, inspired her to explore novel writing.
Adapt your screenplays into novels
On Fire Island was initially a screenplay that Jane deeply loved. The story’s transition to a novel allowed her to add depth and nuances, enriching the narrative with elements not typically explored in screenplays.
Leverage screenwriting techniques in novel writing
Screenwriting taught Jane the importance of tight dialogue, clear structure, and strong visual elements. She applies these principles to her novels, ensuring they are engaging and cinematic.
Balance description and dialogue
While screenplays focus heavily on dialogue and minimal action description, novels require a balance. Jane initially struggled with adding sufficient descriptive elements in her early novels. Over time, she learned to embrace detailed scene-setting and inner monologues, enriching her storytelling.
The importance of structure
Even though Jane doesn’t meticulously outline her novels, her ingrained understanding of the three-act structure from screenwriting naturally influences her storytelling. Each character in her novels often follows a structured arc.
Create cinematic novels
Jane’s novels often read like a film, with vivid settings and dynamic characters. On Fire Island captures the essence of its real-life inspiration through detailed descriptions and a strong sense of place.
Collaborative vs. individual creative process
Jane appreciates the autonomy of novel writing compared to the collaborative (and often restrictive) nature of screenwriting in Hollywood. Working closely with a single editor on her novels, she enjoys the creative freedom and personal connection to her work, which contrasts sharply with the multiple revisions and external influences in screenwriting.
Utilize personal experience
Personal experiences and settings can greatly enrich your writing. Jane’s deep connection to Fire Island, where she spends her summers, is evident in the authentic and heartfelt descriptions in On Fire Island. Writers can draw inspiration from their surroundings and experiences to create compelling and relatable narratives.
It was a great discussion, one you won’t want to miss! Click below to watch our 30-minute recording and hear the questions we answered from the live audience. Keep scrolling if you’d prefer to read the transcript.
More info:
Find out more about Jane Rosen at BingeBooks.com
Enjoy the show? Check out our past First Draft Friday episodes.
TRANSCRIPT:
Alessandra Torre: Hello everyone, and welcome to First Draft Friday, episode number 67. Today we are going to be talking with author Jane L Rosen about her journey from screenwriter to published author. I am so excited to talk about this topic. We’re also gonna be talking about ways that you can apply screenwriting ideas or principles in your own writing. And welcome, Jane, it’s so great to have you here. Do you want to introduce yourself to the audience?
Jane Rosen: Thank you, Alessandra. I am Jane L. Rosen. I am a screenwriter turned novelist. I’m about to turn in my fifth novel next week and I’m here to discuss the transition between screenwriting and novel writing and the similarities and differences and any questions that you have.
Alessandra Torre: And you have a new release, On Fire Island. And I have to say, I read the blurb and I love this. It’s a love story of sorts, about a book editor, Julia, who falls in love with and marries an author, Ben. But what makes the story different is that Julia is dead. And I immediately was like, well, I have to know more like, that’s it. That’s all I needed, all I needed to know. Can you tell us just a little bit about On Fire Island?
Jane Rosen: I can. It’s a story that was originally written as a screenplay. I literally wrote three books so that I could write this one, because the story means so much to me. And it sounds sad because Julia’s dead, but it’s not at all sad. It’s funny, it’s hopeful, it’s uplifting. It’s the story of her last summer on Fire Island after she passes away, watching her husband and her friends go on without her. And it just has really inspired people in many ways, and the reviews have been fantastic and I’m really proud of it.
Alessandra Torre: I love that. So this is so interesting to originally write this as a screenplay. How long ago did you write that screenplay?
Jane Rosen: So I wrote the screenplay probably ten years ago, and it was actually with Harvey Weinstein when everything imploded with him. And then I started writing novels. Now, the reason I started writing novels is really because I sold screenplays before, but I never had anything made, and I was tired of just having my family and whoever I sold the screenplay to read my work, and I just wanted to try something different. And I noticed that so many novels were being made into television shows or into movies. So I said, I’m going to try this a different way.
Alessandra Torre: I can’t imagine the I don’t want to say anguish, but the disappointment in creating a story, creating a screenplay, and then no one ever reading or seeing that. I mean, that’s to me, one of the joys of being an author is putting the work out there in the world and reading reviews and hearing from readers and that sort of thing. So yeah, I can understand how that would be. That would be hard. Have you thought about adapting other screenplays you’ve written to book form?
Jane Rosen: You know, that’s such a good question because I had one script that I had written and sold so many times that I really should one day do that, but I’m like, I mean, life is long, so I hope that one day, yeah, I do think about it, but I’m on this roll of different stories and it’s been great. And I really like the novel writing process, and I really love working with one editor as opposed to a zillion different people in Hollywood. So it’s been very satisfying.
Alessandra Torre: I would also imagine in Hollywood just the brief experience that I’ve had with it. It’s so many different opinions, right? So like one person reads a script and wants these changes, and then someone else wants these other changes. And it’s very. I always felt whenever I was dealing with a script in Hollywood, it never felt like it was mine. Like it was.
Jane Rosen: It’s not yours.
Alessandra Torre: Right? Yeah. Like they would like, maybe take my opinions into consideration, but for the most part, like. Yeah, it was.
Jane Rosen: Yeah. I mean, literally, you know, they say like they optioned it, right? So when you sell a book, you sell your book and it is yours. So yes, the editor will suggest this and that, but they always preface it with it’s yours. Yeah. You pick the cover with them. You pick the font, the title at so many things. Hollywood, if they say, we bought this from you, and now we’d like you to move it from Fire Island to Mars, you better move it to Mars, or they’re going to fire you the next day and find someone that’ll move it to Mars. So it’s a much different experience.
Alessandra Torre: It is. That is so interesting. So how did you get into screenwriting? Did you have a writing background or what was like, how did you get there to begin with?
Jane Rosen: My child started nursery school and it was the 92nd Street Y Nursery School, which is in Manhattan. And I was pretty young at the time. I was a young mom, and it was a real scene that I had never seen before. And I just thought, this is a movie. This is a movie. So I literally took a class, a Gotham Writers Workshop. They’re online now. Then I went in person for ten weeks and I learned how to write a script. I wrote the script, and believe it or not, I sold it to Miramax. I met a producer in my older daughter’s school. She’s like, let me read it. She read it. She sold it to Miramax. It was so simple that I really thought that this was easy, and then told very quickly the fact that it wasn’t. Especially the funniest thing that happened. I don’t want to put everyone down, but hopefully they’re not watching. Say things like, we love this script, but could you have them meet when they’re young? I’m like, okay, so I’d rewrite it and have the couple–It was a romantic comedy–meet when they’re young, and then I turned it in a couple of weeks later and they would say, we loved this script, but could you have them older? I’m like, okay, do that. And I turned in the old script. And it was like this for so long that I just. It was crazy. And then they eventually fired me. I wrote, I rewrote it like 30 times, and my lawyer called me one day and he said, I was just on the phone with the lawyer at Miramax. And he said, you’re the best screenwriter at the studio right now. And I said, oh, that’s ridiculous. How could I be? You know, whatever I said. Next day he called me. He’s like, Jane, I’m sorry. They fired you. I’m like, what? Yesterday I was the best screenwriter. That’s what happened.
Alessandra Torre: You were so good they had to let you go.
Jane Rosen: Because people don’t realize, like, if you look at the movie Tootsie and there’s like ten screenwriters in the credits, and you have this feeling like they’re all sitting around at the table writing the script together, all like Kumbaya. No. Like one was fired and replaced with the next 10 times. And that is what you’re seeing. And somehow Tootsie turned out to be an amazing movie, but usually messes things up pretty well.
Alessandra Torre: I could see that 100%. So when you decided to write your first novel. Now with screenwriting, you took a class, like you said, a 10-week course. So do you do anything similar to that when you transition to writing a novel, or did you just jump in?
Jane Rosen: I just jumped in. I mean, screenwriting is a very specific talent. You really kind of have to learn even how to set it up, you know.
Alessandra Torre: Like, right, how to introduce a yeah.
Jane Rosen: It’s really a learned structure. I think. It’s not your usual way of writing. I mean, you could get Final draft or something like that, which I did, of course, to help me structure my screenplays. But yeah, I needed to know how to do it. But writing a novel. I mean, I wish I went to an MFA program and did all that, but I didn’t, so I just wrote it.
Alessandra Torre: I think the majority of us didn’t. So it’s all good. But you had that background from screenwriting, so I’m sorry I interrupted you. You’re saying something.
Jane Rosen: That’s okay. I was just going to explain how I decided to write my first novel which kind of follows your last question. So I was at Kennedy Airport. I guess it was seven, eight years ago. 2015, maybe. And. You know, when people tell you ideas all the time, I have a great idea for a story. And usually I’m like, don’t tell me I’m going to take it. Whatever. And then this woman said to me, I have a great idea. I heard a great story that would make a great movie. She said, my friend worked at Bloomingdales in the 80s, and the dress was returned there with formaldehyde on it, covered in formaldehyde. And I was like, wow. Like, the minute that she told it to me, my mind just started turning, like, what happened to that dress? And I wrote Nine Women, One Dress, and it’s all from Bloomingdale’s. It’s about one dress at Bloomingdale’s. I went backward through nine different women that wore the same dress ending, of course, in the formaldehyde situation. And the reason I wrote it as a book was because I was tired of writing screenplays. I knew it was a movie because in my head it was a movie. But I’m like, I’m going to write this as a book and then make it into a movie. And I did, and I miraculously sold that first novel. I had agents. I kind of sold it before I got an agent, a publishing agent. But once that happened, I had so many agents that wanted to represent it, and I sold it, and it was very successful, and it was bought to make a film, and it was never made. But the point being, tons of people read it, and one day I think it will be a TV show or a film. I really do because it was just fantastic. I loved it. I mean, I hate to say that about my own work, but it really was.
Alessandra Torre: So when you say when you think about a book that would make a great movie, what are the elements of that book like what are you thinking about when you’re writing the book that would help it in the chance of it being optioned or it being made into a movie? Like, are you limiting the number of locations, or are you hitting specific beats at a specific pace, or are there any kind of rules that you’re trying to follow that would increase the chance of that book’s success on film?
Jane Rosen: That’s a great question. I think it’s a lot of dialogue, right? A lot of fun locations, a cinematic experience, like for example, nine women, one dress. I’m sure you saw Love Actually. Right. With all the different characters and stories all wound up into one or any of those movies. What was it, Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve?
Alessandra Torre: I know what you’re talking about. You’ve got four storylines or nine different storylines, and then they’re all connected at some point.
Jane Rosen: Exactly. So I knew that, like, this would be the perfect film. It was set in New York City. It was set, you know, going from like the fall through Christmas. It had the characters, it had actresses and actors who wouldn’t have to work that long because they were only in certain parts. It just had some great elements for a feel-good movie. It’s the cinematic way of seeing things. I think I see things as a film.
Alessandra Torre: And why nine women? That’s a lot of women. Was there a time when you’re thinking about six or …
Jane Rosen: You know it’s so weird how things work out. I named it first Nine Lives of a Little Black Dress. And that is really the truth. Why, there are nine women.
Alessandra Torre: You have a big traditional publisher. You’ve had traditional book deals. You didn’t have to query a bunch, in order to get those. So you’ve really found fast success. And I would assume that one of the reasons is because your books are so well grounded in the same things that make a. You know, we all love to watch movies. So I’m curious to know how much of what you learned in screenwriting translates over. So like when you wrote On Fire Island, and you look at the beginning of that book, I don’t know what the opening scene is in that book, but did you think of it from a screenwriting perspective of how this movie would begin? And that’s where you where you started out or how typically does a movie need to begin in order, you know?
Jane Rosen: Just so you know, I did not have instant success. I tried first to write children’s books, and I think I got like 50 rejections. And it also was so hard. Even when I sold my first script, I still didn’t land an agent and my lawyer had to do everything for me. So it was a long road. So if you’re on that long road right now, my advice is just keep trying.
Alessandra Torre: Okay.
Jane Rosen: The second question is the script versus the script. I wrote a script for Fire Island first. A script is like 90 pages. A book is 300 pages. I always like to open with the Big Bang. That would be cinematic or interesting to a reader either way. I try to keep my screenwriting philosophy of moving things along from one act and two acts and three acts. But the novel is just stretched out with more description and more inner thought. I love the inner thought part of writing a novel as a.
Alessandra Torre: Cause you don’t get that in a movie.
Jane Rosen: No, you don’t get… You have to really put it in there in a different way. It’s trickier.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah. So do you write in first person then in your novels or third person?
Jane Rosen: I mix it up. Depends on the novel. I keep going back to Nine Women, One Dress, but as my first novel, every chapter was. There were like 17 different narrators in that book.
Alessandra Torre: Wow. Yeah. What? Different voices? For a first-time novelist, that can be hard.
Jane Rosen: Think about a screenplay right in people’s voices. Right? Yeah. So in On Fire Island, which was really the story of three men. And one summer when it was a screenplay, I made it. My editor asked me to make it for a female audience, and I ended up narrating it from his dead wife’s voice. Julia. So Julia tells the story completely throughout the whole book, which is also tough because. It couldn’t really get into everyone else’s heads. You had to show it in a different way or you had to show her perspective as to what she thought they were feeling. It was very interesting.
Alessandra Torre: Okay, so she, when she is deceased, she can watch things, but she can’t hear inner thoughts.
Jane Rosen: She could hear thoughts. In the end, she could understand everything that her husband is feeling and thinking. But that’s about it. And not like a ghost kind of book at all. It’s basically Julia Gatz. She could go with her Nana to heaven, or she could take one last summer on Fire Island, although she doesn’t really know when she’s going to leave, and she sees her husband having such a hard time, so she goes with him.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah.
Jane Rosen: But as I said, it’s not sad. It’s. It’s funny. People. I mean, people said they needed a couple of tissues. I mean, she is dead, and he. It’s a beautiful love story, but there are a lot of laughs.
Alessandra Torre: So is there anything you struggled with when you made that transition in terms of like because you haven’t necessarily written descriptions and I mean, you write descriptions in your screenplay, but you’re not writing them to be read by the reader. You know, it’s written for a director or something else. Did you struggle with anything in your transition?
Jane Rosen: The reason I really didn’t struggle is because I love Fire Island so much that I found it really, heartwarming to be able to write the descriptions.
Alessandra Torre: Is Fire Island a real place?
Jane Rosen: Yes, it’s where I live. I live in New York City on Fire Island. I’m in the Catskills right now, but I live in New York City and on Fire Island, and it is a real place. It’s an hour from Manhattan by car and then a half an hour ferry ride. There are no cars on it. Get off the ferry and you get your little wagon that’s tied up at the ferry, and you bring your stuff to your house. And I’ve lived there for 30 years. I met my husband there. Some of my best friends in the world are there, and it’s a very unique place. And I was very excited to describe it in any way and every way. The people, the place and what it looks like, what it feels like, what it smells like, was a big thrill for me, so I was happy to do it.
Alessandra Torre: And you lived there full time on an island with cars or this is a vacation spot?
Jane Rosen: I’ve lived there mostly for the summers. July and August. Winter my house isn’t even–like there’s no water. We turn the water off in November. Yeah. Now, there are some people that live there full time, but very few.
Alessandra Torre: Oh, that’s so interesting. I always loved the idea of, like, I live in Florida. We have a couple of islands that you have to take a ferry to and there are no cars. And I always want to put like a murder mystery there because it is just such a different dynamic, you know, and when storms come and things like that, you know, there’s no communication. You’re really kind of isolated out there. And that community has to come together and you have to have good neighbors in, you know, because you all depend on each other. So I can see it being really interesting.
Jane Rosen: Plus, when hurricane Sandy came, anyone that stayed, the police, which is like two people, came to everyone’s house and made them Sharpie their social security numbers on their arms.
Alessandra Torre: In case they.
Jane Rosen: Yeah, like they wanted everyone to leave. I don’t know if it was a scare tactic or what, but when someone came to me with a Sharpie, I’d be like, I’m out of here. That is too scary. I left, obviously, but yeah.
Alessandra Torre: That is so funny because we have hurricanes all the time, and no one’s ever had us do that. It does sound like kind of a scare tactic there. Like, we’re going to get all these people out of here. That’s so interesting.
Jane Rosen: Well, the island was decimated, and then you couldn’t. You can’t get out. Like, it’s not like Florida. You really can’t. And once those ferries aren’t running, you’re there. That’s it. Yeah.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah. So all of your books so far, are they all women’s fiction?
Jane Rosen: Yes. I mean, men love On Fire Island, so, you know, that’s I mean, it’s filled with baseball games. And as I said, there are three male protagonists in it. There’s a young kid who’s 16 who has, like, a coming-of-age story. There’s Julia’s husband, Ben, the writer, who’s about 38. And then there’s an older man, Shep, who takes Ben under his wing for the summer, who is the funniest man. So men have been loving the story as well.
Alessandra Torre: You mentioned the act structure. So do you follow a three-act structure with screenwriting?
Jane Rosen: You know, I do more in my head. I do more because I’m trained that way. It’s not like I’m not one of those writers that like, maps everything out and, you know, outlines everything perfectly. And it just seems to always come out that way with me, though, like, each character ends up having some kind of three-act structure, even if they’re the smaller ones or the bigger ones. It is always just in my head, I think it’s just how I think. I think like a screenwriter.
Alessandra Torre: So every character has their own three-act structure.
Jane Rosen: You know, not everyone is the same.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah. Oh, I love that. We have some comments from the audience. Kit on YouTube says I’m stealing that Sharpie detail. You know, you’re going to see that.
Jane Rosen: You’re going to have to wrestle that Sharpie out of my hands.
Alessandra Torre: From Facebook, someone asked, are the scenes in the book On Fire Island the same as script form? So did you use the script as an outline or.
Jane Rosen: I did use the script as a giant outline, and even though there was so much added because it was coming from Julia’s perspective, it was very helpful. I worked so hard on that script, especially the dialogue. I would sit at the baseball games on Fire Island and listen to these old guys talk baseball, like, endlessly. So I got to use so much of the dialogue that I had worked on for years, you know, and put it in. So I did use it as a big outline was the biggest outline I’ve ever had in my life. It was a 90-page outline, but, yeah, it was great.
Alessandra Torre: Are you pretty much scene by scene or when you move to novel form, do you add additional scenes? Because you don’t have to worry so much about every minute of screen time, or does that help you keep the book tight?
Jane Rosen: I added some backstories, like my editor wanted me to add a very close female relationship to Julia, which wasn’t in the script. So there’s her best friend across the street. Rene has an entire storyline. She gets divorced. The husband. Her husband leaves her for his assistant. like, very, you know, standard nonsense stuff. That whole storyline was completely added in and it really added to the book. I happen to love that storyline. So there were things like that, you know.
Alessandra Torre: I love that. Elaine from YouTube says, coming from screenplay writing, do you think you’re more comfortable with showing visual action than most novelists?
Jane Rosen: No, that’s so funny. I wish I was, but OK, I am more comfortable showing but sometimes I tend to just tell so I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. You know, I read too many Amazon reviews, which have been like a 4.5 solid for this book, which I’m proud of. But then once in a while someone will say something about showing and telling, and I don’t know why I read the negative things, but I do.
Alessandra Torre: So I’ve read a lot of scripts and some screenwriters are very, they put a lot of action in there. I mean, there really is a pan in on this, you know, she picks up the coffee cup and whatever. And other scripts are much more barebones. I mean, they leave that up to the director. So I’m curious, as a screenwriter, where you kind of fell. Did you use a lot of visual action in your scripts, or did you focus more on dialogue or narrative?
Jane Rosen: I am a very short description person when I write a screenplay, I am like, just give it to the people that are setting up the room. Like if this was about us talking, I would say Alessandra and Jane are talking on zoom or whatever we’re talking on. You know, I wouldn’t say what we’re wearing. I wouldn’t say much of anything unless it was very important to the script. So I’m more basic. Because it’s like, you don’t want to waste your pages, you know, you have 90 pages. I’m not wasting it describing what your hair looks like. Let the director decide that.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah. So I could see because moving back to Elaine’s question, if you aren’t accustomed to doing that a lot, I would think that would also be a transition point into novels like how much? When I read my early novels, I had very little description of anything like, you know, I mean, I’d have characters carry on conversations and they could be in any room in the house, like, I mean, you just didn’t know. And I’ve noticed as time goes on, I put in more and more kind of trying to create more scene building. So I know you said the settings were so, so visual at Fire Island. So that seems like something you really embraced.
Jane Rosen: Well, yeah. And then but this is my fourth. Right. So my first Nine Women, One Dress, my editor at the time was like, please describe the room. Those were a lot of my notes.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah.
Jane Rosen: Because I didn’t think to say. Describe someone’s apartment briefly.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah, right.
Jane Rosen: I had to like, learn that, you know, learn to add that in. Yeah, right. I still don’t overly do it. Honestly, I don’t. I hate when you’re reading a book and it’s like three pages on what something looks like. I’m like, please get on to the dialogue and the action. So, you know, that’s my style and I’m sticking with it.
Alessandra Torre: And I love it, because you said dialogue is a big part and dialogue is a big carryover from screenwriting. And when you mentioned that you’re at the baseball field, do you have any tips for someone who struggles with dialogue? Do you have any tips? It was interesting what you said. You actually listen to conversations and would you write down little snippets that they would say or.
Jane Rosen: Yes, but this is a very specific thing. I mean, once in a while my husband would crack up, I’ll be on my bicycle on Fire Island, and we’ll be going one direction and I’ll hear someone talking about something really interesting, and I’ll, like, follow that person. He’d be like, where did you go? Oh, I had to hear what it was saying. But yeah, I really only did that for baseball. Like, I’m not an old man playing baseball, you know what I mean? There’s like, all these sixty-year-olds playing baseball at Fire Island, so I’m never going to say, oh, it’s a moonshot over the bush. Like, what is that? Even so, yeah, it’s for those things. I wrote it down. It was kind of like research. I mean, I do a lot of research for my books, but this is like an in-your-face kind of research.
Alessandra Torre: And in movies, every minute is so expensive. So did that teach you to kind of jump into dialogue? Do you jump into dialogue scenes right in any of the action, or how do you decide when to start and when to end those conversations?
Jane Rosen: Oh, I try to jump like. Someone taught me early on. If someone drives up to a house they lock, you know, they pull up, they get out of the car, they lock the car, they walk to the front door and they ring the bell. You don’t need to know any of that. You know, it starts when someone opens the door. So that’s kind of the way I do it. I’m not really going on internally in someone’s mind in a book, you know. That’s the difference. That’s that inner thought.
Alessandra Torre: Right? Absolutely. Well, we are already out of time. It’s been a fantastic chat. Thank you so much, Jane. Thank you so much to everyone who chimed in with your questions. We’re in our final minute. If you have something quick, now’s the time to say it otherwise. If you’re interested in reading On Fire Island or any of your other books, where can they find out more about you?
Jane Rosen: Follow me on Instagram Jane L Rosen and you can see everything there. I’m mostly on Instagram. I have a website and all that other stuff, but I have four books, Nine Women, One Dress. Eliza Starts a Rumor which is being made into a TV show as we speak. Well, not as we speak, because it’s a strike. A Shoe Story and On Fire Island. So please check it out. Any of them? All of them?
Alessandra Torre: All of them. Fantastic. And. And we’re getting a lot of really nice comments. Thank you so much. Thanks. Very interesting. And so thank you for your time and information and for everyone watching. We will be back in another two weeks with another First Draft Friday. And if you haven’t swung by AuthorsAI swing by and check out Marlowe. She’s our artificial intelligence that can critique your novel in just a few minutes. And, we’d love for you to give her a try. Thanks again. Jane. Thank you again to the audience. We’ll see you all in two weeks.
