Roderick Vincent | THE CAUSE – The First Scene of a Screenplay

How does your novel change when you put it in a screenplay? It’s a good exercise to not only tighten dialog, but also to make you think visually about how events should be ordered. As an example, I’m presenting the first scenes from the screenplay to my novel, THE CAUSE, published by Roundfire books a couple of months ago. The Cause is essentially a novel about the spark that sets off the second American Revolution. The novel is set in 2022 when America is on the verge of economic and social collapse. African American hacker Isse Corvus enters a black-ops training camp and discovers the leaders are revolutionaries seeking to return the U.S. back to its Constitutional roots. He learns that if he doesn’t join “The Cause” and help them hack the NSA’s servers, it could mean his life. The first thing to note in the screenplay is that I pushed time farther in the future. With the book, I wanted it to be more topical, but in the screenplay I wanted the reader to feel more as if it was in a futuristic fictional place. In Chapter 6 of the book, there is a backstory where the leader of black-ops training camp (Seee) is speaking with our protagonist, Isse Corvus, about his early asset days in Geneva. The men who enter this camp with Corvus have heard how Seee was a legendary assassin and posed as “The Conductor.” In Chapter 6 of the book, Seee tells Corvus the real story of what happened. I brought that scene immediately to the front in the screenplay because it works visually if you can imagine music blaring and the camera literally being the man’s eyes. After doing this, I won’t have to relay this information later in the screenplay, because it’s all done visually at the beginning. Let’s take a look at this wide departure from the book.

THE CAUSE (SCREENPLAY BY RODERICK VINCENT)

(Screenplay based on the novel, THE CAUSE by Roderick Vincent published November 28th, 2014 by Roundfire books)

EXT. GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, PLACE DU MOLARD -DAY

April 20th 2020: (music playing, Carmen Opera, intro) The camera is following a man's eyes. He is shabbily dressed and has a heavy raggedy beard like a bum. As he walks, he is conducting an invisible symphony. His hands are gyrating as he gesticulates to the music. The scene is long and drawn out as the music plays along while various glimpses of the city are shown. He passes by a café, and a well-built man who is a BODY GUARD watches him.

BODY GUARD

Qu'est-ce qu'il fait? (What is he doing?)

WAITRESS

Il a des troubles déficitaires de l' attention et il pense qu’il est un chef
d'orchestre. Vous ne l'avez jamais vu avant? Il joue la musique du monde. (He
has attention deficit disorder and he thinks he is a conductor. You haven't seen
him before? He plays the music of the world.)

EXT. GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, RUE DU RHONE -DAY

Two years later: (music continues to play) The same body guard is helping his BOSS (42, Russian oligarch) out of a limousine. A colleague spies this crazy conductor walking down the street. The two watch him pass close by as the DOORMAN to the building opens the door.

BODY GUARD

Ne t'inquiete pas. Il est un peu fou. C'est tout. (Don't worry. He's just a bit
crazy)

DOOR MAN

Salut, maestro. Comment vas-tu? (Hello, maestro. How are you?) To body guards:
Il passe frequemment. (He passes by often)

The Conductor fails to see any of them. His eyes are engrossed on the street as his hands fly around conducting the music.

EXT. GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, PLAINPALAIS APARTMENT -NIGHT

Inside an apartment, The Conductor (SEEE, 31) takes off his disguise in front of a mirror, slipping off his beard and wig, and meticulously taking off the makeup which is making him look older.

EXT. GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, RUE DU RHONE -DAY

Another two years later: The same scene as above, but this time, The Conductor is wearing a watch. As his hands twist in the air, a finger swipes the watch’s screen triggering a buried razor blade inside the sole of the doorman’s shoe. The doorman screams as The Conductor approaches. The diversion is enough for The Conductor to feign falling. As he does so, he slips between the body guards and latches onto the boss's ankle twisting it somewhat. With a small syringe hidden in his fingers, he injects the boss. In the mayhem, the boss tries to shake away without noticing anything but the twisted ankle. The body guards are quick to grab The Conductor and throw him in back in the street. He grunts but is on his way, his hands again flying in the air to the music in his head. After he turns the corner, he grabs the syringe from his mouth and lets it fall in a storm drain as he passes.

INT. GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, COLOGNE MANSION -DAY

One day later: In the boss's huge fortified mansion, the boss is deathly ill. Several doctors surround him, confused at the cause of his malady. The boss dies.

***

Up to this point I’ve taken a large chunk of dialog from Chapter 6 and created
something that is hopefully visually intriguing and tells the story of how CIA
asset Seee (The Conductor) goes about taking out a target through years of
patience. To summarize, screenwriting can be an interesting exercise in editing
as well as useful to show your work the way a director or actor would want to
see it.

About THE CAUSE

The second American Revolution will be a fire lit from an internal spark. The
year is 2022.

America is on the verge of economic and social collapse. The government has made
individual freedom its enemy. African American hacker Isse Corvus enters a
black-ops training camp. He discovers the leaders are revolutionaries seeking to
return the U.S. back to its Constitutional roots.

Soon the camp fractures. Who is traitor? Who is patriot? Corvus learns that if
he doesn't join The Cause and help them hack the NSA's servers, it could mean
his life. If he joins, he becomes part of a conspiracy to overthrow America's
financial oligarchy. NSA Director Titus Montgomery is building a system to
pacify America's instigators.

He is told by the President rule of law must be maintained at all costs. What
happens when martial law meets revolution? The Cause is a dystopian thriller
taking many topical issues to the next logical level. The dense web of the NSA's
previous generation's surveillance system has been supplanted by a new, more
ruthless one.

Robotic warfare, drones, quantum computers, Anonymous, the NSA, and a cast of
conniving characters, this novel takes you on a manifest journey on how a new
revolution could be born.