Manifestations of My Mind » Writing

The Beasty Movie 2 – Adapting a Book to a Script

admin — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 13:54:34 +0000

The biggest pet peeve of fans of any book-turned-movie is that the movie is never as good as the book, nor is it always accurate. There are reasons for this, but first let me say that I understand. More than I think readers do. I know how much it sucks to go into the movie expecting greatness only to leave feeling jilted. I get it. I totally get it. But there are things that have to be understood.

Number ONE:

I’m going to use Twilight as my example, since it’s one of the most controversial. In my opinion. Twilight, the book, is 115,362 words long. To non-writers, this might not sound like much, but the accepted average novel length is 50,000 words. This is how you know that you’ve written a novel, not a novella or a short. 50k words is a novel.

The average movie script is anywhere from 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours. This is just my opinion once again. 90 minutes (an hour and a half) is a feature length movie, the kind that make it to the theaters.

Twilight is a 122 minute movie. That is 2 hours and 2 minutes approx.

A movie’s length can be judged, approx, but how many pages the script is. If I have a ninety page script, I have a ninety minute movie. See how that works? Now, for the fun part.

In the 122 pages it takes to write the script, you have approx. 20,000 words. Give or take. So, we’ve knocked 115,362 down to 20,000 to have a movie length that won’t have people walking out of the movie. Beast Within, my novel, is only 75k. I’m still loosing over half of my novel by turning it into a movie.

Number TWO:

Screenplays are nothing but dialogue and action. There’s no inner dialogue, there’s no emotion, there’s only what they say and what they do condensed to simple stage/set motion. If you can’t see it on the set or in the actor, don’t put it in the script.

I don’t care how awesome you are, or what your capable of, showing inner turmoil in a screenplay is next to impossible. I’m not saying the actors can’t show it, I’m saying your black words on the white paper cannot show that Luna is torn between wanting to love Gabriel and wanting to be true to her father’s memory. I can say it, but I can’t show it.

As I adapt my own novel, I’m finding scenes and secondary plots that don’t make sense in a screenplay and have to come out. It’s frustrating and a little discouraging and I have to think to myself, do I want this screenplay written this badly? The answer, of course, is yes. I do want this. I’ve always wanted this. I am going to make it happen.

The Story of Bassy Told With Gratuitous Gandy Gifs…And Puppies!

admin — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 03:03:04 +0000

So, Sebastian sees Mariss and he’s all

And then he’s all

“I want her…”
So, she has a photoshoot and he’s all

And

But Mariss is married and she tells him no, and she’s kind of mean, so he’s all

And

And

But he gets over it and he’s all

“Hmmm…How can I get her??? Oh I know!”

Then Mariss is all…

And

AND

JUST KIDDING!!!

There are no puppies in this story.

YOU’RE WELCOME
NOT EVEN SORRY

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER

It’s okay if you don’t know everything…

admin — Tue, 07 May 2013 17:13:01 +0000

As a writer one of the biggest bits of advice you get is to read, read, read works in your genre. There are so many reasons for this, but there’s one in particular that I came across recently while reading. That is this:

If you’re writing a series and you don’t know everything in the beginning, it’s okay to work through those things and figure them out as you work through the series.

Specifically, I was reading through J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood, when I came across this insight. I noticed that several books into the series she described how people were turned into Lessers. This is something that she didn’t bother to show or explain earlier in the series. You don’t have to know everything right off the bat. It can come to you as you write or during edits or whatever. It’s okay if you don’t know everything all at once.

What Makes A #1 Bestselling Amazon Novel – Post #1

admin — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:00:40 +0000

I am embarking on a research project: What Makes a #1 Bestselling Amazon Novel. My plan: To acquire the top three bestselling novels on Amazon, read them, review them, and figure out what makes them so awesome.

I am starting with Science Fiction and Fantasy. The top three currently, as of this post, are #1. Dragonsbane (The Winterlands) by Barbara Hambly $7.69, #2. The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer $5.99, and #3. Wool Omnibus Edition (1-5) (Silo Saga) by Hugh Howey $3.99. Since I am a starving artist and have little monies, I was only able to acquire Wool for now. I will post my findings soon.

500K Challenge update

admin — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:18:53 +0000

I just wanted to drop in and update everyone on my progress in the 500K challenge. I’ve posted the meter in my homepage footer, but I posted it here too.

I went to Florida for two weeks to help one of my best friends get ready for her wedding. I had so much fun and the wedding was beautiful. I didn’t do any writing and I did very little work of any kind while I was gone, so I’m playing catch up and not nearly as far ahead as I wanted to be by this point. February was a bit short, though. So…I can blame it on that.

Anyway. Here is my word count so far for the year. I’m not doing too bad as I am quite a bit ahead still.

In the next few days I think I will introduce you to some of the characters from Beast Within. =)

132667 / 500000
(26.53%)

No Stranger to Edits

admin — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:36:57 +0000

I’m used to edits. I have one story that I’ve been editing for God only knows how many years. I say ten, but each year that stops being so easy to figure. Beast Anew, however, is killing me in a way I never realized possible. In the last month or so, I’ve struggled through a couple rewrites, and proofread, a line edit, and now, finally I am on the last phase before I send it to my betas. I have a few clarifying scenes that I need to write out and add. You’d think since I’m writing new content that I’d be enjoying myself, but the fact of the matter is, it’s killing me all over again. I love this story. Well, I loved the first story. This second one has almost been a nightmare to write and to top it all off I’m not even sure it goes with the first one. It’s the same characters and the culmination of the story that was begun in book one, but I stop in the middle of writing and I wonder, “If I was a fan of the first story, would I love this second story?” I honestly don’t know. At this point, I’m just putting words to the page and hoping the beta readers can answer that for me. Another thing that makes this one so hard is that I have a deadline. I’ve already said this story will be released March 27th and, by Devonshire and all that is good, I will have it ready March 27th. It was touch and go there for a while, though. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it.

I’m really struggling with this story. I wanted to have it finished and out to betas 9 days ago and every day that passes is another day that I’m behind. I have other projects that need editing so they can get out there to people and I’m stuck on this one. So, this isn’t quite a Bad Writer Girl post, but it’s close. I plan to spend today working on these extra scenes.

Oh, a quick update on that erotica novel I was talking about a week or so back, I finished it up last night. Of course, it’s going to need edits in a few months and it’s only the first in a series. It’s called the Without Rules Series. =) Yes, I’m quite excited about this one. It will be some time before it’s ready for release, but it’s one of my longer works at 91K. My goal was 100K. With edits, I may get there with it.

Anyway, that’s the update for today. I’m blogging instead of working on edits. Writer’s Procrastinate.

Bad Writer Girl – Part Tres

admin — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 14:00:09 +0000

I (hopefully) promise this will be the last Bad Writer Girl post for a while. I’m going to have to go radio silent for a bit if I’m going to get edits done on my March release. I’m planning a blog tour around/promoting a book that isn’t even finished. Granted, it’s the second in the series, but I don’t even have a blurb for it. That’s how ‘not finished’ it is. I had to change a lot of the story. Well, not change, but add to, and that is forcing me to make changes. SO…If I want to get it done in time I’m going to have to cut a lot of things out. Blah.

Go here and here and add these books to your ‘Want to Read’ lists!!!

This Is Just A Test

admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:57:30 +0000

Since I have my new site and I haven’t published from it yet, I just want to test it out. =) It’s supposed to post to FB, Twitter, and LinkedIn, so if it works and you see this post, leave a comment and let me know it worked. =)

My new address it tyffanickemp.com !!! Sooo exciting!!! Check me out!