I’ve made a very important decision. I’ve decided to switch from writing my story for a screenplay to writing it for a novel. I realized that my verbose and literary style of thought is more suitedfor a novel. I made this revelation when reading “The Fuck-Up“.
After a long hiatus from writing, I realized that the screenplay wasn’t happening. It certainly wasn’t going to write itself. I felt that I had to artificially cut out parts of the story that was happening in my head. And then today, on the train, I was reading The Fuck-Up. As I followed the slacker’s journey through various parts of Manhattan and through gay porno theaters, it slowly dawned on me that the densely packed pages of the paperback that I held in my hands had a certain sense of liberation from the concisely written screenplay.
Switching to a novel means more of a commitment on my part. A screenplay can be written in a week if one were so inclined. But a novel must be more finely crafted. There is no room for a director’s vision, no room for an actor’s interpretation of the character. As the author of a novel, the reader is handing over the responsibility of the characters to you, and only you. You must paint the the world for their minds to imagine. You must make the reader see, hear, and feel, all with the written word. And I find that to be a much greater challenge.With more responsibility comes greater freedom. A film is much harder to produce, but a novel can be self-published. And thusly, the commercial viability of writing a novel is much more attainable. I’m not sure just how many people nowadays will pick up a novel and read it…I imagine more and more people enjoy the easily accessible format of television shows and motion picture.I am now free to craft my story as I see fit. I no longer have to break things down into scenes that fit neatly within the 120 page limit. However, filling up 120 pages with 10-point Times New Roman is a far greater task than filling up the same space with huge margins and 12-point Courier.
I’ll write about my attraction to the slacker lifestyle tomorrow…