"Sleb" novelisation update...

A quick update on the progress thus far with my current project - writing a Kindle eBook novelisation of my screenplay "Sleb".

Naturally, switching from one form and style of writing to another was tricky to begin with. Progress was initially slow - or perhaps it was more a case of it feeling that way. I've been able to hit my daily word count target from the get-go, which is pleasing, but at the start it was more of a struggle to get there.

Click "READ MORE" below to see what the current word count is...



Fortunately I was able to find my groove pretty swiftly, likely helped by sprucing up the screenplay version for submission to the 2014 Screenwriter's Goldmine Competition. As it currently stands, I'm sitting at - give or take a few words - 12,800 words. Progress is pretty sure and steady, although the flow was slightly intermittent today, but the important thing is that I'm hitting my targets - and with good content as well (the other very important thing of course!)

The novel format affords much more room to breathe and explore the details of each scene, as well as include additional layers to help broaden and deepen the universe of "Sleb". A key difference between screenplays and novels is that with the former it's more of a lightly sketched coverage of the story - at some point, if you play your cards right, various department heads will come along and bring the visuals to life - so you don't have to that much on-the-page. However, with a novel, you - the writer - take the role of every single department head. You need various little details - and terminology - to flesh out the story you're telling and seeking to visualise inside the head of your readers.

As such I spent the first week of writing simultaneously catching up on some research - going from cocktails to high-end fashion to autopsy processes. Armed with the correct vocabulary, a whole new dimension of storytelling opens up for you. These kind of details would never appear in a screenplay - unless they were of specific importance to the scene - but in a novel there's room for all of them, and they're worth their weight in gold.

Anyway - things have got off to a good start, and hopefully it shall continue to be the case throughout the writing journey. I'll update on my progress every now and then, but blogging will be kind of light for the next couple of months.