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Keep Your Rights, or Give Them Up?
The Hollywood factor.
I bet everyone has gone to the movies and as the beginning credits
roll on by in the darkened room, you see "Based on the novel by..."
and as a writer you are secretly wishing that was your name up on the big
screen.
So the question ponders, if you were offered a deal from a screenwriter,
producer, production company, or studio to give up your intellectual
movie rights to them, would you? Would you as a writer let go of your
work, knowing it may come out totally different on screen than in your
book? Knowing you basically have little, or absolutely no control over
how your story is interpreted into a script? Well, there are positives that
may outweigh the negatives for many writers. Look at Stephen King as
an example. He is at a point in his career where he has more control
over what is put on the screen concerning his work, but at the
beginning of his career in Hollywood, his stories were twisted and
turned about. Recently, 'The Shining' was re-made to his liking, because
he did not like the way his story was portrayed on screen with its first
inception. Even the most successful of writers give up some of their story
to make more money, and reap even other benefits.
Whether you are a seasoned writer, with many novels in print, or a budding
author with your first book out there for the world to read, giving up your
rights to Hollywood may in fact help your career, fan-base wise and income
too. Let’s look at the positives shall we.
First, let’s say your book is not bought outright by a studio or production
company, but instead is optioned. Most options last one year, and you
may not distribute the story to any other movie based company. For one
year, you are guaranteed an amount of money for your story to sit on the
shelf, with the presumption the company decides it wants to green light
your book into a movie. If they don't after one year, they may decide to drop
you, or in a lot of cases, option it for another year. Sometimes this can go on
for long periods of time, while you the author, doing nothing is collection 'x'
amount of money for doing nothing. Eventually, they will either make the
movie, or drop you as a client, where in the latter, you can then shop your
story around having the validity behind it that a group in Hollywood thinks
it is a potential movie in the making.
So, let’s say you give up your rights movie-wise and your movie gets made!
While filming, you may, or may not be asked to come to the set to just watch,
with no input, yet many times are asked to do a small cameo for the film.
Though as a writer you have given up your rights, contractual wise a movie
can make an author a nice tidy sum of money, even long after the movie is
done in theatres. There are DVD sales, toys, memorabilia, media, etc.
attached to the movie you can attain money from. And you get a sense of
satisfaction that your story is being seen by hopefully millions of people,
which brings us to the next benefit of signing your rights over to Hollywood.
Imagine 5 million people just saw your book as a movie at a theatre. Let’s say 1
million are your fan base and read your books. Leaving 4 million, let’s say 10%
decide to go out and buy the book and perhaps more by you if there are other
works out there. That suddenly gives you a new added fan base of 400,000
new readers and buyers for your past, present and future works! That can only
mean more money, more success, better reputation, and more deals in the future.
And from having just one of your novels made into a movie, it opens up more
doors for you as an author, even if you may, or may not have liked how your
story was given life on screen.
Sometimes sacrifices are what make a writer larger than life and more
successful, no matter how hard those sacrifices are, and in the long run
separate you from the jumbled median of the publishing world. Yes, it is
hard for a writer to give up their baby, their work, it is a part of their soul and
not every writer is willing to part ways. That is all right too. So if you are ever in
the position as a published author to enter the Hollywood circus, think about
the positives and make sure they just don't outweigh the negatives. It is far
too easy to inflate a negative and overshadow the more obvious positives in
a situation.
May your fingers type fast and your wrists fly high with creativity.
Best,
Craig MacLachlan
Copyright © 2007 Craig K MacLachlan. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or use of any portion thereof is a direct violation of U.S.
and International copyright law.
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FROM NOVEL TO SCRIPT AND BACK AGAIN
BY CRAIG MACLACHLAN
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As I stare out into the frozen wasteland that is northern Idaho, my mind is flooded with images of a bright, warm sunny day in the tropics as the aqua ocean laps at my toes. That contrast in imagery reminds me of the vast differences in writing a script versus a novel.
From personal experience, it is easy to construe the two styles of writing when switching from one to the other. And yet another challenge exists in screenwriting that involves adapting a full fledged book into a script. Today, I will go briefly into one of the main points of variety between booksand scripts, and cover the rest more fully in future columns. Books and scripts are both wonderful worlds to explore, full of ups and downs that can drive any writer to the brink of insanity. I have been there and back!
I will share some of those moments as we go along this journey together.
LENGTH:
When writing a novel, the writer is looking at getting down 60,000 to 80,000 plus words to complete his/her novel. This would usually come out to 200 pages and longer. In a script, the norm is 120 pages. Seem like a lot? Not really. One page of script is technically equal to 1 minute of screen time. A page of script has moments of dialogue that are written in the center of the page. While description/action is written by starting on the left margin, no indent to start like in a book paragraph, but only at around a maximum 4 lines at a time. There is a motto in Hollywood, the more white open spaces on a page the better. An example of words per page is like this; on average a script page is single spaced dialogue and description, double spaced after
each is completed and has on average 200-260 words per page. Using a word processing program for novel writing, a double space page has an average of 300 words give or take, while if it is single spaced one is looking at about 525 to 600 words. Here is a quick example of what a script looks like compared to a book page.
FADE IN:
INT. HALLWAY IN RICK'S - NIGHT
Ugarte rushes into the hallway as Rick appears from the opposite direction.
UGARTE
Rick, help me!
RICK
Don't be a fool. You can't get away.
UGARTE
Hide me. Do something. You're in this, too. You have the
Letters of Transit --
Before he can finish, Renault, Strasser, Heinze and others rush in from behind Rick. Other officers appear from the gambling room and grab Ugarte. Without a word, Rick pushes his way through the group to the cafe.
MAN IN HALL
(half kidding)
When they come to get me, Rick, I hope you'll beof more help.
RICK
I stick my neck out for nobody.
Next article I will discuss the different writing Voices of books and scripts. Until then, may your writing goals lead to down the path of success.
Craig MacLachlan
"Diary of a Curtain Twitcher:
With Andy J Davie.
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