A Little Writing Housekeeping
Throughout my life as a writer I’ve alternated my focus between prose and screenwriting. Both share some similar precepts (structure, plotting, character arcs, etc.), but also have differences that delineate them as different beasts. Just because you have experience in one doesn’t mean you’ll be able to execute the other. I had this conversation with somebody on Twitter recently: books are a cerebral journey, while screenwriting is a visual journey. In a book, we can sit inside a character’s head and explore what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling, and things (such as circumstances, events, and memories) that shape their decision-making. In a film, you can’t sit inside somebody’s head (unless…
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I have only the vaguest recollection of my first submission – a (long) short story to some magazine (I can’t remember which exactly) way back in the late 1980s. The story was an action story. I remember the story specifically. I still have it (and wrote two sequels, as well as a prequel before prequels were fashionable). One day, I’d like to do something with it although, in retrospect, it’s probably better suited to a screenplay. The magazine was one of those women’s periodicals, like Woman’s Day – although I don’t think it was that particular one. It was one that did publish short stories, though. I wouldn’t have just…