Ecco
asked
Dennis Lehane:
You have been working on the screenplay adaptation of Since We Fell. What differences are there between writing a book and writing a screenplay?
Dennis Lehane
They’re apples and giraffes. Completely different, outside of their core narrative DNA. When you write a novel you’re God, in charge of the whole universe, from the farthest galaxy to the smallest pebble. When that book is published, everything in it was filtered through you and you alone (with some nudging and advice from your editor, of course). When you write a script, you’re like a house painter in a large mansion. You give the rooms their color but you don’t build the house or concern yourself with the plumbing. A screenwriter is one of, say, 140 people who contributes to the film. And your script is just a schematic to be interpreted by a director, actors, the director of photography, the set designers, costume designers, editor, producers, studio execs, and on and on and on. It’s much harder to be God; novels take way longer to write than scripts and are much more emotionally and psychologically taxing but they’re also—by a longshot—more fulfilling.
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Jul 13, 2017 08:42AM
Apr 07, 2019 12:02PM