For someone who spent the better half of his career working as a screenwriter, that’s the question a lot of people have asked me when they learned I had decided to write a novel. I was often asked, “Why aren’t you writing another screenplay?” Or, “Why aren’t you developing another TV pilot?” Or, my personal favorite, “What is wrong with you?”
To understand why I chose to write a novel, I have to take you back to the beginning. Not to the beginning of my career, not to film school where I studied screenwriting, and not to my youth when I decided to become a screenwriter.
No. I need to take you back to the beginning of every script I ever wrote, when I said, “I have an idea.”
That is the point when I had been most excited for a story. When I could envision how the character, plot and theme were going to unite for a narrative with tremendous potential. I could see who the story would be about. I could imagine what tremendous obstacles were in their way. The spectacle was clear. The challenges were daunting. I could visualize what this was all going to look like.
But despite the enthusiasm and vision I had for each of these scripts, the farther along in the development process I would go, the less the control I had over the story until, ultimately, it became something I no longer recognized.
Every single script.
Why?
The thing is, when you finish writing a screenplay that’s only the first step in a very long process. The goal, of course, is to create a movie or TV show that everyone will hopefully see. And every step towards that goal is filled with compromises that change the story in small, but significant ways.
Depending on how far down the development track your story goes, you could be writing and rewriting a screenplay for years. And each time you rewrite and revise and polish down the script you start to lose sight of that original story you were trying to protect. You just want it to get to that next level—you want someone to buy it, you want the screenplay greenlit, you want actors and a director to come on board. You just want to make everyone happy.
So you write to appease development executives. You incorporate notes from financiers and producers. You make changes because the director sees something differently. You rewrite for actors as they take ownership of what a character will say and do. You make changes because of changes to a schedule, a budget or a location.
And suddenly you take a step back, look at what the final screenplay, movie or TV show and say, “What is this?”
This isn’t the story I came up with years ago. This isn’t my vision. It is something else, entirely.
Then, a few years ago I came up with another idea that excited me. A story that would combine elements of fantasy, horror, mystery and action. I had an idea, and I was excited by it.
But this time I decided this story would not be a screenplay, but a novel. I wanted to control the telling of this story from beginning to end. My story, told the way I wanted to tell it. My vision, without having to compromise. My voice, without being drowned out by others.
Maybe it’s selfish and egotistical of me to say such things. But I’ve made a career of catering to others’ whims about how I should tell my story. I would cut back, cut down and cut out the elements I had loved.
So this one time I want to deliver a finished story that holds true to my original vision.
Now, when this book is finally done and out in the world in a few short months, I can’t promise it’s going to be any good. I hope it will. I hope others will like it. I hope those that do like it share it with others and that it will find success.
But not matter what, this time the story will finally reflect that vision I had years ago when I said to myself, “I have an idea…”