I was born because a man came to kill my father. If he hadn’t showed up with a gun in his pocket and bad thoughts in his head, I wouldn’t exist, much less have a story to tell. This tragic footnote to my conception left me feeling as if I had three parents: a father, a mother, and a murderer.

My father suffered from strange and temporarily paralyzing attacks of catatonia that my family, with characteristic discretion, referred to as Dad’s “Sock Moments.” You would walk past my parents’ bedroom door on the way to breakfast or the bathroom and glimpse Dad sitting on his side of the bed, fully dressed, legs crossed, one shoe on, sock in hand, about to put on his other shoe. Perfectly normal, right? Trouble was, sometimes ten or twenty minutes would pass and you’d look in on him again and he’d still be sitting there, sock in hand, staring at the other shoe he’d yet to fill.

Once, my sister Lucy and I clocked him with the timer my mother used to make sure the roast beef was rare. Fifty-seven minutes passed before he got the other sock on. Frozen in time and space in his own thoughts, Dad would appear perfectly normal, except for the look he’d have in his eye. It wasn’t a faraway, glassy-eyed stare, it was a perplexed squint, as if he were trying to see something he wasn’t sure was there.

My father could have three episodes in a week, then there’d be a six month reprieve. Usually, but not always, these becalmed fits of melancholic introspection would come over him in the morning as he readied himself to set off for work. But sometimes, they’d ambush him in the evening, when he went upstairs just for a moment to put on a fresh shirt or wash his hands or bring my mother her purse. Occasionally, according to my mom, they’d even bushwhack him after midnight, when a dry mouth or a bad dream would wake him and he’d reach for his slippers with the thought of heading downstairs to make himself a cup of tea or a stiff drink. Only he’d never get there. Technically, those weren’t sock moments because my mother would wake up and find her husband cradling a slipper. But the question remained the same: what was going on in Dad’s head?

Once, when I was eight, and Dad was lost in his bedroom with nothing but a sock to show him the way home, I snuck into the room, tiptoed past him, and slipped into his big closet. He used it as a dressing room. It was the grandest thing about the house we lived in then; it was a long, narrow, wondrous little right-triangle of a room tucked under the stairs to the attic. It had a round window at one end that offered a view of nothing but sky and it smelled of cedar and shoe polish and dust from parts of his life that were none of a small boy’s business.

I knew I was trespassing. The closet was Dad’s private space, to be entered only at his personal invitation, and explored under his supervision. There were bone-handled pocket knives to be opened and closed, flyrods to be assembled, and a wooden crate that once held a dozen bottles of Chateau Y’quem but now was home to the collection of Indian arrowheads and stone tomahawks he’d found in freshly plowed fields and unearthed in serpentine burial mounds during what passed for boyhood in his hardscrabble, Midwestern youth. But his hospitality had its limits. Even when I was a baby, if I crawled too far back into his closet and tried to open the old steamer-trunk, latched, strapped closed, and too heavy to lift, visiting hour would be over. My father would pull me away from it as if it were radioactive and in the grownup voice he used with doctors who came to our house to talk to him, he’d announce, “Nothing in there pertains to you.”

I remember asking him once, “Then why can’t I look in it?”

“I’ve lost the key,” was what he said, but I didn’t believe it. I just figured that’s where Dad kept his real treasure and he didn’t want anyone to know because he was afraid they’d steal it.

Back when I was invading Dad’s private space at age eight I felt guilty on two counts; I was doing what I had been told not to do and worse, I was taking unfair advantage of what seemed to be, until several decades later, my father’s only weakness — his sock moments. Whether out of my own innate sense of fairness or fear of the great man, paralyzed on the edge of the bed, I did not go directly to the trunk that loomed so large in my imagination. Instead, I contented myself with taking out the Indian artifacts. A noisy child by nature, prone to talking to myself out loud, I retold the stories he had shared with me about the Indian tribes that lorded over the state of Illinois long before he was born — the Kaskaskia, the Cahokia, and the Peoria tribes, decimated by their brethren, the Iroquois, in the Beaver Wars. But it wasn’t the same. I wanted his voice, I wanted him to come back from wherever he was in his Sock Moment, I wanted him to hear me. Anything was preferable to the loneliness I felt knowing he could be so close and yet still so far away.

Suddenly desperate to break the spell that held him, I did the worst thing I could imagine, far more forbidden and dangerous and unforgivable than opening the trunk — I stood up on the overturned wine box, pulled out the squeaky top drawer of his head-high dresser, and took hold of the loaded.38 caliber long-barreled Smith & Wesson revolver he kept on top of his clean handkerchiefs.

He was so far gone even the sound of me opening the forbidden gun drawer did not wake him. Not even the click of me closing the cylinder snapped him out of whatever held him captive. What if Dad never woke up? What if he never came back from the Sock Moment? What if he stayed petrified like that forever?

Missing him, wanting him, needing him, and mad at him, I pulled back the hammer of the big pistol. My hands shook, my finger closed on the trigger. If I fired the gun, he’d have to wake up. No matter how severely I’d be punished, at least he’d be with me. An eighth of an ounce of trigger pressure away from bringing the hammer down on the moment — the thought occurred to me: what if I pulled the trigger and he still didn’t wake up?

Then I’d know there was no hope. I lowered the hammer and placed the handgun back onto tomorrow’s handkerchief and closed the squeaky drawer.

I went back out into his bedroom and got down on my knees the way you do in church. Taking the argyle sock from his hand, I gently began to pull it onto his long, narrow, white foot.

I watched as my father’s eyes focused down on me. They were grey, pearly and wet, like the inside of a shell pulled up from the sea with something alive inside it.

“Daddy?” He had a scar shaped like a crescent on his forehead. His hair was grey and cut so short you could see the shape of his skull and the veins feeding his brain like the Visible Man model he had helped me put together.

“Yes?” He still sounded far away.

“What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking about… ” The sock was on now. He was lacing up the shoe by himself. “… how I feel about things.”

No question, my mother would have sent him to a good psychologist if Dad wasn’t already a shrink himself, a semi-famous shrink, in fact, Dr. William T. Friedrich. I failed Psych 1A myself, but I’m told if you made it to the second semester, your professor probably mentioned his name. He was what they used to call a neuropsychopharmacologist. If there’s brain candy in your medicine cabinet, chances are my father’s messed with your head, too.

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from Pharmakon by Dirk Wittenborn. Copyright © 2008 by Dirk Wittenborn.

Author BioDirk Wittenborn is a novelist and screenwriter whose two previous novels, Zoe and Fierce People, have been published in more than a dozen countries. Fierce People was released as a feature film in 2007. He is the Emmy-nominated producer of the HBO documentary Born Rich and the cowriter and coproducer of The Lucky Ones, a feature film about American soldiers returning from Iraq. He lives in New York City. His latest book, Pharmakon, is available this July from Viking.

Screenwriting Tips

Incitement incident is the first major incident in the narrative. It is the cause of everything that follows, and if you want your readers to continue reading, it is essential that you start with one extraordinary event.

The documentary bestseller Blink by Malcolm Gladwell s ‘opens with the Conservatives at the J. Paul Getty Museum in the scam for $ 10 million while the purchase of a sixteenth century BC sculpture, known as kouros. The Tin Roof purge a novel by James Lee Burke, opens with a priest standing on a roof of a hut in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, trying to save people trapped in the attic, like any the force of Hurricane Katrina to door on him. Both books begin with a dramatic opening, or what screenwriters call the incident incentives. Inciting incident is the first major incident in the narrative. It is the cause of everything that follows, and if you want your readers to continue reading, it is essential that you start with one extraordinary event. In general, an event that happens in your character or is caused by the protagonist. I am not talking about contrived scenes of action or overexagerated promises. I am referring to the beginning of your book with a story, a story or an event that upsets the balance of forces within your story.

In the Blink of an EyeMalcolm Gladwell’s subtitle is Blink to The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. By opening with $ 10 million art scam, rather than to explain exactly what he means by thinking without thinking, we follow the story of Federico Zeri, an art historian and board member of Getty administration. Zeri departure is the statue of the nails. Even if a dozen experts has signed on the kouros-geologists took core samples of the statue and marble analyzed under an electron microscope, electron microbe, mass spectrometry, X-ray diffraction, Etc. according Zeri, something is not right Look. Then we meet Evelyn Harrison, an expert on Greek sculpture, who knew the statue was a fake when she saw it. In a sense, Blink is about why our intuitions usually turn to be true. Malcolm Gladwell might be the master of spectacle do not say. It does not begin his book by telling us how it is brilliant. There can wow us with facts. It does not seek to convince us he is right. What it does is to tell a story. A story of great power deceived people with experts fellows, and museum curators blinded by the glory and harebrained lawyers. In other words, it tells a story, we can not make.

Excite Me, Do It and FastWe’ve expect an excellent opening of mystery and suspense novels like James Lee Burke’s Tin Roof purge. Burke begins by putting us right in the middle of Hurricane Katrina. A storm, described Burke as “… with more impact than the bomb that hit Hiroshima and peeled off the south side of Louisiana. “Only after we were drawn into the book that focuses more on its characters “Inner life that the devastation around you write them.Whether documentary or fiction, it is important for you to create an incident that throws your characters in a balanced manner that raises your readers and your characters The desire to restore this balance. This done, and you just have your readers when you want. Play.

This article is written by Free Article Tool.

Screenwriting Tips

Publishing Guidelines: You are welcome to publish this article in its entirety, electronically, or in print freeof charge, as long as you include my full signature file for ezines, and my Web site address(http://www.schrift.com)in hyperlink for other sites. Please send a courtesy link or email where you publish to sandra@schrift.com. Thank you.

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TITLE: How to Create Sizzling Speech and Book Titles AUTHOR: Sandra SchriftCONTACT: sandra@schrift.comCOPYRIGHT:

GoArticles reader,Given for your enjoyment, a collection of takes on the breathtaking new “The Book of Eli” film…As post-apocalyptic movie fiction goes, “The Book of Eli” is not a crowd-pleaser like the “Mad Max” cycle nor mad like any of the “Planet of the Apes” films. This film, the to begin with from the Hughes Brothers in nearly nine years, instead is an intense, surprisingly honest study of a man making his way through a wilderness of catastrophic destruction and soul cruelty like a latter-day prophet. The story is couched in neo-Western conditions — a isolated gunman comes to a urban and confronts the dishonest sheriff and his maniacal deputies — so the film fits comfortably inside the confines of mainstream studio moviemaking. And Denzel Washington is solitary of the few Hollywood stars who can pull off a bigger -than-life character who can assassinate a gang of cutthroats with a horrible blade yet keep up an air of saintliness.Boxoffice should be above average for this Warner Bros. Don’t be shocked if the film is embraced by Christian filmgoers as the Holy Bible is seen as the place from which a new civilization can take shape.Allen and Albert Hughes situate their story in an atmosphere informed by realistic -novel metaphors. Landscapes are desolate, and characters hit poses. effective with cinematographer Don Burgess, they commonly drain the color from isolated stretches of desert (with New Mexico doing the honors). As in “Mad Max,” anarchy rules, with havoc, murder and rape seen as practice events. Washington’s Eli claims to have walked west for 30 days, but everything looks like the bomb dropped only last month. After a “diploma scene,” in which Eli demonstrates his lethal abilities when challenged, he wanders into a desert town where a tin-pot dictator named Carnegie (Gary Oldman by way of his patented theatrical sleaze) holds sway. There is no evident reason why he should rule a gang unless it’s because he’s the exclusion to the rule of near-universal illiteracy. When Carnegie learns that Eli possesses a Bible, he agency to win him over to his cause or kill him — whatever it takes to gain control of that book. Both men see the Bible as the key to community regeneration. Caught in the fight between two firm men are Carnegie’s adopted daughter, Solara (Mila Kunis), and mistress Claudia (Jennifer Beals) as perfectly as his henchman, Redridge (Ray Stevenson), who fancies Solara for himself. stuff play out in a straight-forward transform as screenwriter Gary Whitta gives little depth or complications to his characters or story. A viewer will possibly be grabbed less by the showdowns than by the elaborate cinematography, Gae Buckley’s eye-catching manufacture design of a ruined Southwest and an energetic, pulsating score from Atticus Ross (assisted by Claudia Sarne and Leopold Ross). What is it re Earth’s ruin that so inspires artists? I’m at a damage for words, so let me say these right away: “The Book of Eli” is very watchable. You won’t be forlorn you went. “How do you know you’re walking the right way?” he’s asked. After a calamity has wiped out most of the Earth’s population and left ruin and desolation behind, the remaining humans are victimized by roaming motorcycle gangs of hijackers and thieves. This wasteland Eli treks at an ruthless pace. Set upon in an ambush, he kills all his attackers. Washington and the Hughes brothers do a good job of establishing this man and his globe, and at first, “The Book of Eli” seems destined to be serious. But then Eli arrives at a Western town ruled by Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who, like all the citizen overloads in Westerns and gangster movies, sits in the wake of a big desk flanked by a tall bald guy and, of course, a short scruffy one. How are these guys recruited? Wanted: Tall bald guy to get up behind town boss and be willing to sacrifice life. All the water you can drink.We join Carnegie’s abused wife Claudia (Jennifer Beals) and her daughter Solara (Mila Kunis), named, for several reason, after the bring about of all the destruction. She’s a prostitute in Carnegie’s bar, having made the lapse of coming in on Take Your Child to Work Day. Carnegie hurts Claudia to check Solara. How he controls the terrifying bald guy is hard to say.So many other movies are referenced that we very nearly miss it when their hideout house is perforated by bullets in “L.A. That allows countless beams of sunlight to shine in and function as a metaphor.The Hughes brothers have a vivid way with metaphors here, as in their earlier films such as “Menace II Society” and the underrated “From Hell.” The film looks and feels good, and Washington’s piece is the more mysterious the more we think back over it. The fourth film from directors Allen and Albert Hughes, The Book of Eli centers on the Christianity that was at the margins of their previous films-hypocritically misused by Bokeem Woodbine’s bush-crazy marine turned pulpit-pounder turned stick-up man in Dead Presidents, and the sanctimonious grandparents in Menace II Society.”I don’t think God really cares too to a great extent about us, or he wouldn’t have put us here. In The Book of Eli, the whole world’s a blasted ghetto. As in The Road, The End has terminally desaturated the world’s palette. On the road since Year Zero, Denzel Washington’s Eli has become an expert at using his brutally quick axe arm to ward off nomadic bands of highwaymen from his precious consignment : the last copy of the Bible.The other copies have been destroyed as taboo, since pious conflict inspired the nuclear holocaust. That’s not impossible to believe, though it taxes na?vet? that a fragmented society that can’t dig freshwater wells has managed to do away with every other copy of the most everywhere book in the Western world, undoing all of the Gideons’ superior work. As does the adherent Eli attracting Solara-a badly miscast Mila Kunis, who looks like she’s spending a semester abroad in the post-Judgment Day from her vogue school’s co-op program. It’s water and a battery allege that lure Eli down the Main Street of a repopulated ghost town. Carnegie is one of the few survivors, like Eli, old enough to recall the lost world. It’s with cynical messianic intent that he’s been scouring the countryside for a Good Book, which sets up a fight with true believer Eli.The Hugheses once had a black-comic sense to bout their comic-book horror impulses (every line of Menace is a potential inside joke). Here, that feeling is evident only in a hard shoulder stop-off with some unhinged survivalists, an elderly American Gothic couple played by Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour. Nobody reads Pilgrim’s Progress any longer, so I guess you take it where you can get it, but The Book of Eli’s plastic parable isn’t much more complex than Insane Clown Posse theology. Eli himself resoundingly fails to tag on the Good Samaritan’s pattern when witnessing a roadside hijacking; the most that can be said is that he leftovers chaste without visible effort. Our hero is mostly an Old Testament smiter of the wicked, conclusively -but for I forget when Christ said, “You lay that hand on me again and you will not get it back” at the Garden of Gethsemane.And on that note, GoArticles reader, do be so kind as to visit and bookmark my blog http://the-final-film.blogspot.com, where you can watch “The Book Of Eli” free online the minute it becomes available!

Screenwriting Tips

Okay, you’ve finished your book, novel or true story, and you’d like to have it made into a movie.

Perhaps you’ve read some books on screenwriting or taken some classes and you’re thinking about writing the screenplay based on the book.

If so, there is something you must keep in mind. You will have to remove much of the content of your book that took you months, perhaps years to write. You may balk at the concept but you must do it.

A book can average 200 – 500 pages and contain 60,000 – 200,000 words. An average screenplay runs 90 – 120 pages, much of it white space, and has about 20,000 – 25,000 words. That’s quite a vast difference.

How do you manage to get all of your story into a screenplay? In most cases, you don’t. It’s a sad but true fact.

That said, what do you cut out?

One step is to keep most of the major scenes and cut those smaller, less important ones. Go through your book and look at it with an eye to what is critical and what is less important.

Do the same thing with dialogue. Keep only what moves the story forward.

Eliminate some or all of the subplots.

You can eliminate some of the characters or combine several of them into one person and let that person serve in the role of what those varying characters did in your book.

And while you’re at it, get rid of any lengthy character descriptions. In a screenplay they are not only unnecessary, they are counterproductive. In screenplays, character descriptions should be purposely vague to give more casting options.

Don’t describe someone’s height, unless it is critical to the story, hair color, eye color, flesh tones, etc. The more specific the description is in a screenplay, the harder it will be to find a leading acting to fit the role.

And finally, don’t mention the race of the character, unless it is an essential part of the story. For example, a police detective can be of any race, unless the detective’s race is an essential part of the story. For true stories, of course, casting directors need to know the race of each person to make it closer to reality.

If you do these things, the more successful you will be when you decide to turn a book into a move.

Screenwriting Tips

Whether it’s a true story or a novel, most authors dream of having their book become a Hollywood movie.

In fact, a high percentage of movies started out as books, comic books or graphic novels. According to Internet Movie Data Base, over 22,000 movies have been made from books. So far.

If this is your dream, read on. One way to increase your chances of having your book turned into a movie is to write the screenplay version of the book. Producers prefer reading script to reading books because they take less time to read. Most scripts are 90 – 120 pages, with a lot of white space.

If you’re thinking about writing your own screenplay, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. You must write the proper length (see above). Scripts that are too long or too short are immediately thrown away.

2. You must learn screenplay format. There are books that teach this. If your script does not follow proper format, it will be tossed without further consideration.

3. You must get the Hollywood reader’s attention in less than 10 pages. This may mean adapting the beginning of your story. If you don’t get their attention and interest soon, they move on to the next script.

4. A screenplay can only contain what can be shown on the screen — action and dialogue. Unlike a novel, you can’t write about what the character is thinking. But you can reveal their emotions and thoughts through action and dialogue.

5. Every scene must move the story forward in some way.

6. Don’t “direct” the script. Don’t put in camera angles or suggest particular songs to play in the background. That is the director’s prerogative.

7. Consider eliminating subplots and combining two or more characters into one, that is, create composite characters, if there a lot of people in your book.

8. Keep the dialogue short. Novels have more freedom in that regard.

9. Watch lots of movies with the intent of noticing what works and what doesn’t. It will help you become a better screenwriter.

10. Realize that a book is not a movie and a movie is not a book. They have different needs and different rules. Keep this in mind and you will be more successful at adapting your book into a movie.

Danek S. Kaus is a produced screenwriter of an award-winning film called “The Ante,” which will be out later this year. He was recently hired by a movie company to adapt a book for the big screen. Learn how you can turn your book into a movie at http://yourbookintoamovie.com/ Read his blog http://yourbookintoamovie.blogspot.com/

Screenwriting Tips

Your book cover is an essential marketing piece. Most readers decide to buy a book based on the cover and the table of contents. When it comes to creating the design of your book cover, there are numerous do-it-yourself software programs available. They consist of templates, which allow you to drop in an image and some sales copy and, voila, you have a book cover. Well, not quite.

CONSIDER HIRING A PROFESSIONAL BOOK-COVER DESIGNERYour cover is such an important element for the overall success of your book, unless you have a degree in graphic design from a prestigious art school, I don’t recommend designing your own book cover. Before hiring an artist, review their portfolio and make sure you understand everything that is included with their fee (will they work with your interior designer, do they provide several mock-ups to select from, how many revisions are included?) Expect to pay between 0-,000 for a professionally designed cover. The cost is well worth the investment. See the difference between using an unqualified artist and a professional book-cover designer on the “Before and After” page at George Foster’s website: fostercovers.com/before_after

Here are 12 Tips to help you create the best book cover possible:

THE FRONT COVER

1. KNOW WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE EXPECTS OF YOUR BOOK COVERBook covers for specific genres have certain similar qualities. Historical books use photographs on the cover. Medical books usually have a white background and modern lettering. Study other books in your category to get a feel for their design traits.

2. ATTRACT READERS WITH EMOTIONThe goal of the front cover is to grab a potential reader’s attention and make him want to learn more by reading the back copy and the table of contents. What attracts a reader to the cover is an emotional feeling they get from the visual elements (including the color, fonts, and images) and the title. The cover should be minimal, not chaotic, and evoke an emotional response from the reader. When the reader views your book cover do they feel comforted, peaceful, successful, motivated, inspired, hungry, secure, adventurous, interested, curious, concerned, empowered, intrigued?

3. MAKE THE FRONT COVER EASY TO READ

The front cover must stand out and be easy to read (think about what it will look like as a thumbnail on your website or Amazon.com). Place the title near the top of the cover on a clean background (NEVER place your title over a busy background). Don’t clutter the cover with several illustrations. Use one strong image that relates to the book’s content. Do not use the word “by” in front of the author’s name.

4. USE COLOR TO CONVEY THE RIGHT MESSAGEColor is a powerful tool. Choose your background color carefully to convey the right message. White conveys credibility, purity, and health. Red is warm, sexy, and exciting, and represents power, vitality, and action. Men relate blue to dependability, trustworthiness, and intelligence, while women often view it as sad and depressing. Black is authoritative, romantic, and mysterious. Yellow is joyous and energetic, often associated with home and happiness. Green conveys growth, prosperity, nature, and leisure.

5. USE FONTS TO CONVEY THE RIGHT FEELINGThe font you select for your title, subtitle and author name has a dramatic effect on the feeling of the book. Check out http://www.my-fonts.com or http://www.store.adobe.com/type where you can type in your book’s title and see how it ‘feels’ with the different fonts.

THE SPINE

6. CONSIDER USING A STACKED TITLE ON THE SPINEWhen your book is displayed in a bookstore, the first thing a potential reader will see is the book’s spine. Ensure it is attractive and legible by stacking the characters of the book title on the spine.

THE BACK COVER

7. USE BENEFITS AND PROMISES TO SELL THE BOOKYou’ve attracted a potential reader with your cover design, now you need to hook them with compelling benefits by telling the reader what’s in it for them if they buy the book. Will they become the best trout fisher they can be, learn how to navigate New York on a day, be inspired and motivated by a memoirist’s triumphant story, or discover how the founding fathers created the Declaration of Independence? Write a concise, brief (two to four sentences) statement describing the content of the book followed by several benefit bullet points and end with a ‘call to action’ that tells the potential reader why they need to buy the book. The back cover of Dara Mark’s book Inside Story concludes with: “It is a must-have book for any serious screenwriter, playwright, or novelist” – wow, if you identify yourself as any one of those, you’re going to want to purchase the book!

8. CREATE AN ARRESTING HEADLINE

Write a powerful headline addressed to the reader that helps him or her relate to, and identify with, the content. The back cover headline for Inside Story is: “What IS the secret to writing a great screenplay?” Most potential readers who pick up this book are searching for the answer to that question. The headline quickly and efficiently lets the reader know the answer is contained in the contents of the book.

9. USE ENDORSEMENTS AND QUOTESTestimonials, endorsements and quotes are a phenomenal selling tool. If someone else thinks a book is good, then it must have merit. The back cover testimonial for Inside Story reads: “Destined to become the gold standard for books on screenwriting!” That’s an impressive quote.

10. SHOW YOU ARE THE ULTIMATE EXPERT TO AUTHOR THIS BOOKAt the very bottom of the back cover (sometimes placed directly across from the ISBN), include a brief, one to two sentence only, biography highlighting why you are qualified to write this book and help the reader. This is not a full biography – you will include that in the ‘About the Author’ section inside the book. The goal here is to let the potential reader know you are an expert.

11. LIST THE BOOK CATEGORYBy listing your book’s category/subcategory (such as “true crime/current events” or “self-help/psychology”) on the upper left-hand corner of the back cover, your book will be properly categorized on the bookstore shelf (or virtual shelf, in the case of online booksellers).

12. INSERT AN ISBN & BAR CODEYou need an ISBN and Bar Code for your book to be sold through booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can purchase an ISBN at http://www.bowkerbarcode.com/barcode(you need to obtain your ISBN prior to getting your bar code.)

You may reprint this article as long as you include all of the following information:Laura Cross is a business strategist, author, and professional ghostwriter. She provides business, publishing, and platform strategies to help entrepreneurs get known as the go-to experts in their field, become published authors, attract high-paying clients, garner major media, and earn more money with less effort by packaging their expertise. Grab a copy of the Free Audio CD

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]]> http://screenwritingtips.com/1144/publish-12-tips-to-design-a-bestselling-book-cover/feed/ 0 http://screenwritingtips.com/1090/screenwriting-why-turning-a-book-into-a-movie-is-harder-than-the-other-way-around/ http://screenwritingtips.com/1090/screenwriting-why-turning-a-book-into-a-movie-is-harder-than-the-other-way-around/#comments Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:57:52 +0000 admin http://screenwritingtips.com/1090/screenwriting-why-turning-a-book-into-a-movie-is-harder-than-the-other-way-around/ Article by Danek S. Kaus

One of my screenwriting Twitter followers asked me the question: Which is harder-turning a book into a screenplay or turning a screenplay into a book? Without any hesitation, I responded that it’ s much more difficult to turn a book into a movie.

For one thing, you have much less space to tell your story when screenwriting. A novel can run 80,000 – 100,000 words and more, taking up hundreds of pages. A screenplay must, with very few exceptions, run 90 – 120 pages, with lots of white space on the pages. Average word count is somewhere around 20,000 – 25,000 words.

The reason for the strict page count when screenwriting is that the rule of thumb when making a movie is that one screenplay page equals one minute of screen time. It doesn’t always work out that way but you still need to watch your page count.

So you can see the problem from the outset. Books have much more room to develop their themes, stories and characters. They can spend a lot of time describing a scene or a character, and delve deeply into their backstory. Although it is important to be aware of page count because of production costs and marketing, novels have less exacting word counts.

Novels are much more flexible. They allow the writer to spend time on what interests them most. Novels also allow authors to have fun with the language, to show off their poetic flair, if so inclined. For many people, including me, part of the joy of reading a novel is the writing style of some of my favorite authors.

A novel can reveal to us what a character is thinking. In screenwriting, you can only write what can be seen and heard on the screen. Sure, there are voice overs, but most directors and producers prefer not to have them unless absolutely necessary.

Screenwriting must be minimalist. Character descriptions tend to be very general, in order to allow for more casting options. Also, movie dialogue must be much shorter. Every sentence and every word must move the story forward in some way.

Novels can have multiple subplots. Most films only have one or two, if any. There’s simply not enough time for them to develop in about 90 minutes.

Another reason that screenwriting is so much more difficult is that the audience only has a brief moment to absorb all they can form each scene. When people read a book, they can go back a few pages if something is not clear. You can’t do that in a movie theater.

In books, words tell the story. In movies, images, along with dialogue, tell the story, but images are preeminent.

On the other hand, for the reasons listed above, and others, turning a screenplay into a novel is a much easier process. The writer can use all those ideas, characters and subplots they had to discard because of space and time limitations. They can have fun with the language and more easily reveal the thoughts, emotions and motivations of their characters. If your novel is a few thousand words above what your editor asked for, you can probably get away with it. But if a screenplay is too short or too long, it gets tossed without even being considered.

One difficulty that a screenwriter may have when turning a screenplay into a book is that they now have to be more specific with details of locations and the visual appearance of their characters. So, although writing a novel is not easy, it is easier that writing a screenplay.

Danek S. Kaus is a produced screenwriter of an award-winning feature film. He has two movies in development and three more of his scripts have been optioned. Visit his screenwriting site for more article on screenwriting. You can also request his Free Ebook screenwriting for authors

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]]> http://screenwritingtips.com/1090/screenwriting-why-turning-a-book-into-a-movie-is-harder-than-the-other-way-around/feed/ 0 http://screenwritingtips.com/1030/marc-norman-on-his-book-what-happens-next/ http://screenwritingtips.com/1030/marc-norman-on-his-book-what-happens-next/#comments Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:47:31 +0000 admin http://screenwritingtips.com/1030/marc-norman-on-his-book-what-happens-next/
Marc Norman, Writers Guild of America Negotiating Committee member and Oscar-winning writer of “Shakespeare in Love,” speaks with Written By’s Richard Stayton about “What Happens Next,” his new book on the history of screenwriting.

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]]> http://screenwritingtips.com/1030/marc-norman-on-his-book-what-happens-next/feed/ 2 http://screenwritingtips.com/952/save-the-cat-the-last-book-on-screenwriting-youll-ever-need/ http://screenwritingtips.com/952/save-the-cat-the-last-book-on-screenwriting-youll-ever-need/#comments Mon, 04 Oct 2010 01:07:47 +0000 admin http://screenwritingtips.com/952/save-the-cat-the-last-book-on-screenwriting-youll-ever-need/ > Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need Share and Enjoy:]]>
Product Description
This ultimate insider’s guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz veteran who’s proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat!… More >>
Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need

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