Post 26

By Darrell J Banks

CR2014

Once upon a time Steven Spielberg wrote books and screenplays. Everybody did that, it was fashionable. Back in the sixties and seventies cult classics   like Star Trek spawned volumes of readers. Star Trek was based on teleplays, but that effort lead to other things Recently I found The Star Trek Reader II in hardcover published in 1967-1973.  Lately it appears we prefer screenplays by themselves, instead of the novelization of a screenplay. Life sure is strange.

Speaking of screenplays, I found a portion of my trilogy in a red folder- episode one. Over the years, I’ve thought of going old school and converting all of my screenplays into novellas or comic books. Not sure, which would sale?   But finding those old pages does remind me I really need to get back to writing screenplays before I lose my dialog skills.  I've been busy editing my short story and adding descriptive five senses words, adjectives and adverbs. A different style, yes short stories and fiction requires a different mindset.

Screenplays really don’t use exposition to describe too many scenes. Now a days the studios don’t want a lot of dialog.   But dialog and scenes establish a character and lead to a great structure.  That’s where short story and novella writing can really help you. While set designers and costume designers will set forth the tone of the movie, short story writing focuses you on the moment; you must be brief and precise to lead the reader in mid story to a great conclusion. Because screenplays are longer, about 120 pages long think of the novella when pacing your story.  Remember writing inter-laps and every tid bit will help you accomplish your goal to obtain an Oscar ™, Emmy ™ or a Pulitzer Prize.

Try writing a page of a screenplay and convert it into a page of fiction.