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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When I work on a book, I’ll also work on something else simultaneously. It won’t be another new book – it’s hard enough keeping track of all the characters, threads, and ideas for one prospective novel, let alone two. I’m always surprised when people say they’re working on two (or more) novels simultaneously. (I don’t count swapping back and forth between projects but never finishing anything.) The closest I’ll get to working on more than one novel is if I also revise another, but only as long as it’s more so a copyedit revision, rather than a structural edit revision that might require some rewriting. As far as the copyedit…