What Are You Trying To Say?

INT. BRAIN – DAY

Unsure of how to approach the dense topic of Monster, SARAH, 24, English Major, turns to outside sources for input.

FRIEND 1 (V.O.)

Monster? Yeah, I’ve read it. I love that book, but…

FRIEND 2 (V.O.)

Oooh. That book was so good, but…

FRIEND 3 (V.O.)

For a kid’s book it was really thoughtful. I

loved reading it, but…

Friend after classmate after coworker,  I was shocked by the number of people who had read Monster, surprised to find that almost everyone loved it. Loved it, but…

But what? But I couldn’t understand the script stuff. But I read scripts all the time and I could barely get through this, it was so bad. But I don’t know if he did it! I could never figure it out! It sounds like two different issues, but they really amount to the same thing. What everyone was talking about are authorial choices of format. The issues presented to me by my audience are not really about the plot or the characters. They aren’t complaining about the dark themes in the novel. In fact, they greatly enjoyed and appreciated the social commentary that saturates Monster. The problems, instead, are about how Myers chose to package all of that information for consumption.

If ever there was a novel that begs for a discussion of format, it is Monster. Written in a strange mix of 1st and 3rd person, we are still only given one point of view. Steve’s. This is accomplished through the use of the screenplay format, with a majority of the story told as a script written by the main character. 

In the first section, on page 4, Steve says “I think to get used to this I will have to give up what I think is real and take up something else. I wish I could make sense of it.” (Myer 4) To do this, Steve begins writing down the events of his incarceration and trial as a screenplay.  That screenplay takes the place of the traditional narrative form and provides Steve, and subsequently the audience, with an emotional distance from the action. We are told what is happening and what people are feeling instead of being shown it, breaking the first rule of fiction writing. Yet, this is intentional and not the downfall of the script format. 

The problem has nothing to do with the choice of using a script as a literary tool, but rather the issues of translating a script onto a novel-sized page. The point of the script format, the way it works, is through the use of white space and sentence style. It is designed to allow the reader to read through it at a rapid pace, visualizing the scene as it progresses. Therefore, the first issue should be obvious. The amount of white space available on the pages of a novel is much less than the amount in a script, which is printed on standard 8.5” x 11” paper.  This cuts down on the readability. It takes the short paragraphs of action, description, and dialogue, and makes them narrower and longer, distorting the clear reading style of the screenplay. 

While this might not be irredeemable, Myers also chooses to include all kinds of camera shot information, which is not something normally placed in a Spec script. (A Spec script is the kind meant to be read by regular people and not professionals.) This adds additional blocks of text, packed with shorthand that is explained but isn’t necessarily something that is easy to read. Finally, Myers chooses to bold everything that isn’t dialogue, further thickening already dense blocks of text. 

These issues are especially present in the beginning and end of the book, during the set-up and the attorney speeches. Considering the feedback on the novel, these are not insurmountable issues. They don’t overpower the story itself, or the message. However, they do make the case that how you write, and the choices you make as an author will directly affect how the story is received.

Works Cited:

Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2004. Print.