A couple of weeks ago I received an e-mail from one of the publishers that I had contacted earlier this year. I had inquired whether there was any chance that they could adapt my animated movie screenplay into a children's book.
After all, my script - at least in my opinion - was pretty well written and had universal appeal as a story. I thought that the story as a whole was good enough and that it deserved to be published in print form too.
So when it comes to the publisher's response, the representative of the company told me that I had some work to do. In their answer they told me that the screenplay would have to be written in Finnish, before they would read it.
Naturally, I thought that this policy that they had didn't make much sense. Why on earth would I have to translate a story from English to Finnish, considering that they all understood English and could evaluate the story based on that?
Besides, the screenplay that I wrote wouldn't be published in its current form anyway. In case they wanted to get the story adapted and published, the original screenplay would merely be used as a blueprint for the novel.
Not surprisingly, I didn't feel like spending time translating the script. Even though I certainly could have translated the story, I thought it would probably be better if I'd manage to come up with a better solution myself.
So when it comes to thinking about what to do with my script, it didn't take that long before I managed to come up with an idea. I thought that perhaps it could be me who could write the book adaptation of the screenplay.
The biggest reason for this is that since I had written the original 'film' version, I likely had the talent to write book version too. Since I had already done the hardest part of the project, I might as well do the rest of the things too.
After all, in the adaptation one would more or less only have to follow the script and write based on that. It wouldn't require the writer to come up with any new themes, characters, storylines or anything else that mattered.
In that sense, now that I'm going to do the writing myself, I shouldn't be that worried about the process. I shouldn't be worried just because I lack experience in writing novels and just because I have to learn some basics about the craft.
After all, considering that screenwriting is universally considered to be harder than writing novels, things don't look that bad here. The fact that I've written scripts that are tight makes writing novels a lot easier when it comes to quality storytelling.
After all, my script - at least in my opinion - was pretty well written and had universal appeal as a story. I thought that the story as a whole was good enough and that it deserved to be published in print form too.
So when it comes to the publisher's response, the representative of the company told me that I had some work to do. In their answer they told me that the screenplay would have to be written in Finnish, before they would read it.
Naturally, I thought that this policy that they had didn't make much sense. Why on earth would I have to translate a story from English to Finnish, considering that they all understood English and could evaluate the story based on that?
Besides, the screenplay that I wrote wouldn't be published in its current form anyway. In case they wanted to get the story adapted and published, the original screenplay would merely be used as a blueprint for the novel.
Not surprisingly, I didn't feel like spending time translating the script. Even though I certainly could have translated the story, I thought it would probably be better if I'd manage to come up with a better solution myself.
So when it comes to thinking about what to do with my script, it didn't take that long before I managed to come up with an idea. I thought that perhaps it could be me who could write the book adaptation of the screenplay.
The biggest reason for this is that since I had written the original 'film' version, I likely had the talent to write book version too. Since I had already done the hardest part of the project, I might as well do the rest of the things too.
After all, in the adaptation one would more or less only have to follow the script and write based on that. It wouldn't require the writer to come up with any new themes, characters, storylines or anything else that mattered.
In that sense, now that I'm going to do the writing myself, I shouldn't be that worried about the process. I shouldn't be worried just because I lack experience in writing novels and just because I have to learn some basics about the craft.
After all, considering that screenwriting is universally considered to be harder than writing novels, things don't look that bad here. The fact that I've written scripts that are tight makes writing novels a lot easier when it comes to quality storytelling.
In the end, even though I'm not necessarily that excited about the upcoming project, writing a novel is a really good challenge for me. It's certainly going to challenge me and make me better as an all-around writer.
Especially considering that I don't have that many bigger projects going on at the moment, I finally have something to look forward to. I get to learn something new about writing and I'll also get out of my comfort zone.
In that sense, I can only hope that things will go well with this task. I can only hope that I'll be able to come up with a solid adaptation, because if I'm able to do that, there's a good chance that the book is going to be published and that it's going to be a hit.
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