Re-crafting the screenplay: A fictocritical approach

Screenwriters are often bound by the rules of the craft, adhering to specific formatting and functions of an industrial model. As a Writer-Director who has followed a story into production, I have felt restricted by the conventional presentation of a screenplay. I propose that a new model of screenwriting can include many different narratives, reflections, images, video and audio recordings alongside the actions and dialogue of the scenes. This alternative approach to writing the screen story would involve more than words perfectly formatted on the page. I have defined this multimodal form as a 'fictocritical screenplay'. This paper focuses on the development and re-imagining of a feature film screenplay. I will explore my own screenwriting practice as a PhD candidate during the early stages of developing One in a Million Girl. I will highlight the multi-layered development and presentation of the fictocritical screenplay, which invites the reader to share the same development journey as the author. By demonstrating how my alternative approach differs from a more conventional development, I argue that a fictocritical screenplay offers the Writer-Director of a film further scope to experiment and discover a more visual presentation of the screen story.