When authors who write literary fiction begin to write screenplays, everybody assumes that's the end. Here's another who's never going to write well again.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay.
Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.
But the longer I'm in the business, you see a lot of times these screenplays have been rewritten 5 times and you're not really offending an author.
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.
Writers are so used to books being optioned and then the movie never happens.
If I really considered myself a writer, I wouldn't be writing screenplays. I'd be writing novels.
I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.
All writers of fiction will at some point find themselves abandoning a piece of work - or find themselves putting it aside, as we gently say.
Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they're doing and why they're doing it.
The simple idiot's advice I give to screenwriters who say they want to sell a screenplay is, 'Write good.'