Waiting and Potential Rewards

I'm eagerly awaiting September. That's when I'm supposed to get a yes or no on a novel submission, and I'll also be able to share some good news I've been sitting on for the last few months. Hopefully, I'll also learn how my screenplay did at a current film festival. Meantime, I'll share this from the Indie Gathering International Film Festival for my short screenplay "Cemetery."

Award Plaque

This year at Indie Gathering, I participated in table readings. Last year, actors read my script Final Curtain and gave feedback on the few pages we submitted. If you've never had that experience, it's quite interesting. This year, it was nice to just read a character part and help out.

Next year, I'm hoping to submit a couple of short films to festivals, as well as new screenplays. No guarantees they'll show or final, but that's a risk we take when we submit our work. Because we know it sometimes pays off.

Musings on Screenplay Contests

Screenplay writing contest season is upon us. From (hopefully) making the early bird deadline to (again, hopefully) being a finalist and even a winner, the months are filled with anticipation, excitement, and even a little dread.

This weekend, the quarter-finalists for the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards will be announced. My fingers are crossed. I recently received notification The Indie Gathering International Film Festival has awarded my short screenplay "Cemetery" an honorable mention. And my full-length crime drama Final Curtain is a finalist in Action on Film Festival (AOF). Winners will be announced in August.

Winning awards for my writing is great. I won't deny that. It's a validation for those times when I don't win. Like publishers, contests are subjective. Just because one contest didn't accept my screenplay, doesn't mean it's bad. Now, if all contests reject it, well, then, obviously something's wrong. :-) It also depends on the contest and the number of entries. Austin Film Festival? If I'm ever lucky enough to semi-final in that one, you can guess I'll be celebrating. However, I tend to be pragmatic.

One thing I've learned about submitting screenplays to contests is when I final or even win, I set the bar higher for myself, especially if I enter the film festival's competition a second or even third time. There's a level of consistency  they expect and I need to make sure I deliver. And because screenplays have a specific format and rely on what can be seen and heard, certain novel conventions can't be used, such as inner thoughts. That means when I adapt my books into screenplays, I have to change scenes that wouldn't translate well to the screen. If you're wondering why the book and movie can be so different, that's one of the reasons why. And writing a work of fiction (novel, short story, etc.) from a screenplay also comes with its challenges.

But it's worth it.

Using Screenwriting to Revise a Book

I write screenplays. Two are adaptations of my published novellas, and have won honorable mention. Currently, I'm waiting to hear back from three contests and also waiting for the laurels for another film festival that two of my screenplays were accepted in.

So while getting ready to work on revisions of my paranormal suspense novella, Hell on Earth, I decided to write the screenplay version. Why? After all, the novella hasn't been contracted for publication, and if the Hell on Earth screenplay managed to get an option, that would make the work previously published in a publisher's eyes. No, the screenplay will remain on my hard drive with fingers crossed a publisher will offer me a contract.

One thing I did notice was in writing the screenplay, I was also revising the story. For example, dialogue. I would start writing the dialogue for the screenplay, then realize that what the character said made no sense. And I would note this on the manuscript. Or I would be forced to look at a scene I'd written and realize I'd had the wrong location. (I've since remedied that by using Scrivener to keep track of scenes.)

It's not a full-proof plan, and obviously won't work for everyone or for every book. I think what happened was writing the screenplay adaptation put my mind in a different mode, gave me a similar but different perspective.

At least writing the screenplay was a lot more fun than going through the manuscript and finding those "garbage" words.

"Double Duty"

Sometimes, after I've finished a story or a screenplay, I wonder if it might not be better served in another format. For example, I have a couple of screenplays that I'm probably going to rework because even though I liked the stories in their current incarnation, I feel they'd work better as novels.

I've also taken two short novels - Death Sword and Exterminating Angel - and adapted them as screenplays, even though they've been published. So why adapt? Because I want my stories to do double duty. I have published short stories I plan to turn into screenplays as well. Not all of them, but ones I think are suited to the cinematic format.

Of course, this brings up the question of which is better, the movie or the book? Since I'm only writing spec scripts, I can't answer that question. What I can say, though, is there's a reason why adaptations may deviate from the original source. I've even had to make changes. (While I was writing the screenplays, I found myself asking why I hadn't originally written the story that way. Oh, well, hindsight and all that.)

One reason for changing a story is that screenplays are meant for the screen. Many novels feature detailed descriptions and while this is fine, the writer will not be choosing the film's settings, unless he or she is also directing the film, such as for an independent project. Selecting locations is the production designer's job, in collaboration with the director and producer. So going into vivid detail about that Queen Anne Revival is fine for a book, but the production designer, director, and producer may decide that a Romanesque Revival is better suited for the movie.

Length is another factor, although in my case not so much. Most screenplays run 80-120 pages, and think how long some novels are, many with multiple subplots. Obviously, one keeps the main plot but with time constraints, it's possible that not every single scene of the story can be used. I ended up combining some scenes, not because of length issues, but simply because the screenplay flowed better.

Will anything happen with these screenplays? Hard to tell. But that's another post.