F. Scott Fitzgerald is a perfect example. One of the most gifted novelists of the twentieth century, Fitzgerald came to Hollywood to write screenplays. He failed miserably—he tried to “learn” camera angles and the intricate technology of film, and he let that get in the way of his screenwriting. Not one script he worked on was made without extensive rewriting. His only screenwriting achievement is unfinished, a script called Infidelity written for Joan Crawford in the 1930s. It’s a beautiful script, patterned like a visual fugue, but the third act is incomplete and it lies gathering dust in the studio vaults.

Most people who want to write screenplays have a little of F. Scott Fitzgerald in them. The screenwriter is not responsible for writing in the camera angles and detailed shot terminology. It’s not the writer’s job. The writer’s job is to tell the director what to shoot, not how to shoot it. If you specify how each scene should be shot, the director will probably throw it away. And justifiably so.