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In many ways, it's easier to write a book. You have more latitude with structure, and you have the freedom to luxuriate within the internal lives and musings of your characters. But where a screenplay does not always demand great prose, a novel lives or dies by it.

Books are a little better movies than just screenplays because there's more fat on the bone. There's more character development. There's more stuff to pick from.

A novel, of course, is a fully self-contained work of art. You pick it up off the shelf, open it, and there it is - a whole universe waiting for you to enter. A screenplay is just a blueprint for making a movie. Until the movie is actually filmed, the script really means nothing.

A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

If you're writing a novel, you can afford to see where the spirit takes you, but in terms of structure and engineering with a screenplay, you have to be quite pragmatic; otherwise, it will run away from you.

The only difference between a good writer who publishes a book and a good writer who doesn't is that the writer who publishes actually finished her book.

Writing has certain advantages; film is another way to tell a story. An experienced filmmaker will take what she needs from the book and leave out other things. With adaptations, you never get the texture of the writing: it's a different mode.

A screenplay is really a blueprint for something that will be filmed. Therefore you must always keep in mind that whatever you write is going to be staged, for real.

I always say when you write a book, you're a 'one-man band.' Whereas, when you finish a screenplay, it's just a sketch.

Generally, screenplays suck.