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Topic : What Does A Person Mean That My Novel Reads Like A Screenplay? I have recently heard from some literary agents that my book, my opening chapters, reads like a screenplay. Now, this is a minority - selfpublishingguru.com

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I have recently heard from some literary agents that my book, my opening chapters, reads like a screenplay. Now, this is a minority view. Most agents just think my opening chapters are beautifully written but cannot personally represent it because they don't represent my genre. My genre being Christian fiction. Despite on their website, they said they do represent my genre but apparently it's on a limited basis. But regardless, when I gave my novels to beta-readers for the past two years. They never compared my work to a screenplay. They just said that it was a very clean read and they enjoyed my writing. When I asked one specifically about this, they said no. It doesn't read like a screenplay but by reading my chapters, they have a cinematic feel. This echoes from another beta-reader that my chapters have a cinematic feel but never reading like a screenplay. Should I ignore the feedback from that minority of agents?

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Generally a screenplay is all dialog and plot, and it's all external. So when a book is written like a screenplay, it means it has very little description, and that the internal life of the characters is not depicted. It also means you're doing all showing, no telling (which some people think is a good thing for a book and others don't).

The upside is that people these days tend to think cinematically already. The downside is that you're not taking advantage of any of the things that make books special and unique. So you should probably either write a screenplay instead of a book, or work on bringing more of a literary quality to your writing.

Your other question is whether these agents are right or wrong. That's not really a useful question. There's no set objective criteria that you can meet that will guarantee your book be published --everything is a matter of someone's opinion. It's rare to get any usable feedback from an agent or a publisher, so if they have specific things they ask you for, it's wise to take it seriously. If you can fit their advice into your vision, do it. If not, don't.

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