Thanksgiving

            When you are a writer, there are many things to be thankful for. While you may struggle to get your book into publishers or to finish it, you have the love and support of your family and friends. Those people who stand behind you are the ones that will be the first to give you praise. They will be the first ones to congratulate you when you sign the contract with a publisher. They may be the ones to hand you money when you are struggling to pay the bills. A writer’s life is not a guarantee, but your loved ones will always be there.

            Having that strong support system, allows a writer to feel accomplished over the littlest things. You may have some people in your life who do not support you as a writer. You should be thankful for those people, too. They are the ones that will give you the drive to complete a book and get it into the publisher. A writer should be thankful for the talent he or she posses to come up with the ideas for the things he or she writes.

          This holiday is important to remember those that we are thankful for. You should remember the ones that you lost. Those are the people you will find popping up in your memory as you write. Your characters may take on traits from past loves, family members, or friends. These people are the ones who have inspired you throughout the years to writer, though, at the time, you may have never known it.

So, be thankful for everyone and everything in your life this year.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

How to Turn a Book into a Screenplay

               Writing a screenplay based on a book will not be an easy task. You will have to make cuts and changes that will upset some of the people who love the book. The internal conflicts the characters in the book go through must now be externalized. The settings in the book will have to change to make it more cinematically friendly. You might even have to change some details about the characters, in order, for the script to become more visual. You must remember to stay true to the heart and soul of the text for the script to be creative and inspiring.

                The first thing you need to do is obtain the rights to use the material. If the book is not your own, it is necessary to contact the author or publisher of the book before you write the script. While you can make a great screenplay, no one will ever see it, if you do not have the rights. You can contact most authors through a website.

                Once you have secured the rights to create the script, you must read the novel twice. The first read through should be for fun. After reading the book, if you are not inspired or do not feel passionate about the story, then do not progress. If you feel passionate about the story being told, then read it a second time. While you are reading it, imagine the text as a screenplay. You should picture the scenes in your head. This will give you a clear ideal as to what scenes have a strong visual image and what scenes need to be dropped.

                Analyze the characters. Doing this allows you to combine, eliminate, and adapt the characters. Do not be scared of this step.  There may be two characters that are so alike you can combine them into one person to create a better script. There may be fringe characters that do not add to the story. If that is the case, then cut them out completely. You can even take the time to adapt the leading characters to create a theme. You should make the changes you need to make to develop the characters.

                You will need to make the story more visual. This is one of the most important aspects of developing a book into a script.  You will need to look at the internal conflicts the characters are going through and develop them to manifest in an external form. Take the time to examine each scene and setting. You should look to see if there is a lapse in visual content and make the changes necessary to create a more cinematic story.

                Writer the script based on what the story is telling you. Preserving the major scenes and important sub plots will help you keep the heart and soul of the book. You do not want to stray too far from the story, because this is what the audience has come to know and love.

                Finally, after the script is finished, then you should compare it with the book. You will need to make sure that there is a strong relation between the two texts. If you find that the script is complete different than the book, then you need revise the script.