I have been a prolific screenwriter for twenty years, and have achieved
considerable success in this regard. Many of my screenplays have been sold and some have reached the production stage.
During my career, I have met some interesting people, although not all of these acquaintances have been satisfying or lasting. As for writing novels, I must say that my desire to write screenplays stems from my interest in cinema, storytelling, and entertaining others. However, the big problem that has occupied my mind about writing screenplays is that the vast majority of viewers cannot see what the screenwriter has in mind. Sometimes, due to the different perspective of the filmmaker, these changes are imposed on the original script, and this is only a condition for the script to be made, while a screenwriter, as I said before, writes many scripts that never reach the production stage, so they are only read by a few producers or directors or actors and nothing more!
A few years ago, I felt deeply tired of this futile and fruitless game, while writing, and especially writing screenplays, is my true love in life, but the screenplays that remained in my hands and were not appreciated had also made me nag, nag, nag, which is a familiar complaint for all screenwriters!
Lack of production: lack of audience
After many years of writing screenplays, this frustrating feeling was bothering me.
One day, in the middle of writing a series for a video network that I had high hopes for, I received a short message from my program manager to the following effect:
: Don't write a screenplay, Jim, write a novel!
Well, I thought to myself, I have never written a novel before and have never even thought about it, so how should I start? I answered my next questions this way, just as I was trying to find a popular subject for my screenplays, I should look for a popular subject for a novel!
I raised my eyebrows and began to research to see what the novel audience wanted from a novelist, and I put pen to paper to write a novel!
If you are familiar with the art of screenwriting, you know that to write a screenplay, you have to pay attention to the details that must be paid attention to when making a film and can be seen exactly in the picture, but when writing a novel, it is not necessary to observe so many details. And I suddenly felt that I had been released and this freedom brought me a lot of joy and I saw myself as someone who had a license to explore forbidden areas, I saw myself free and liberated. I could write the mental menus of the characters (something that should be shown in the screenplay). Writing became fun and joyful for me and I felt like a child who had been allowed to play and have fun in a big playground.
I fell in love with this new way of "writing", I fell in love with writing novels. I fell in love with a way that gave me the opportunity to be a very fast and agile writer.
The first draft of my novel (80,000 words) was quickly prepared, although due to my commitment to writing the screenplay, there was a gap between the first and the final draft, but I was able to prepare the final draft with some deletions and additions. Now the time had come to publish the novel, and I thought that the time had come for me to reach a difficult and exhausting stage, and that the soul, frustrated by the steps of converting the screenplay into a film, which was a part of me, had taken this strength from me. I decided to publish my novel myself, and with the guidance of my friends, I realized that in today's world, it is not necessary to go through these steps, and that any writer can publish his writings in the form of a novel and in the virtual space and make them available to the public, just by pressing a few buttons on the computer and without waiting for positive responses from the film production company, producer, investor, actor or director. I am now the captain of the ship carrying my thoughts, and this is the most enjoyable difference between screenwriting and novel writing.
In my view, a completed novel is not like a produced screenplay, but the images that the author has created in the novel always remain in the pages of his book.
A novelist is not only the director and producer of his work, but also the art director, photographer, set and costume designer, makeup designer, responsible for choosing actors and editor of his work.
The images that the novelist creates, its scenes and characters come to life not on the big screen of the cinema or on the television screen, but in the mind of the reader, and according to the number of readers of the novel, these images benefit from diversity, vibrancy and life.
The novel that I have written has been available to readers for six weeks, and in answer to my many questions such as, do people read it? Do they enjoy reading it? I must say that based on the comments I have received, the answer to my questions is yes, and I still need more time for the novel to be published on a wider scale and for me to get to know other readers and use their positive and even negative comments in writing the next book.
My happiness also has a material aspect, and I think that if I can sell 500 copies of this book, it will be much better than the material result, which is about twenty of my screenplays that are kept in a cardboard box and occupy a corner of my office!
If the readers encourage me, I will definitely tell them other stories, and to be honest, that is the whole point
"I like to tell stories!"
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