One of the biggest differences between script writing and prose is who controls the narrative flow.
In prose stories, skilled writers can invest even the mundane with meaning. A character can look out over a golden field and see connections to memories of a long-lost father or, conversely, the morbid site of a brutal murder.
In script writing, the author gives control to someone else. While a script can point out key stage directions, like where to place the kids furniture in the room, if it’s central to the plot, someone else is making most of the narrative flow decisions in nearly every script ever written.
In comic book writing, that power rests with the artist, who at least is only one person and usually in communication with the writer, checking on the writer’s intent for the scene before sketching out the layout of the page.
In movies, that power rests with the director, and depending on that person’s skill, a field might capture a bit of the tone a writer intends, but the difference is that, on screen… a golden field is still gonna look mostly like a golden field.
On stage, it’s usually a set designer who has a backdrop painted, which at least adds some emotional influence into the way a scene “feels.”
Ultimately, prose writers have the upper hand, though, since their work takes place almost entirely in the theater of the mind. Which is why script writers are expected to bang out their work in a week or less, while novelists can take years to tell one story.
