Dust off your screenplays and publish them!
We all write specs in the hope that, someday, someone will grab those stories, pay us, and turn them into amazing films. Most often, that hope never materializes and the specs end up on a shelf, forever, collecting dust ... lost.
She's published it, so can youWhen I started writing novels, I began looking at my old specs again. They're still as good as they were back then. They won in contests, they opened doors, they were valuable reading samples, they got me jobs ... but they were never sold. The characters in those stories never got to be discovered by the world out there. I figured it was time to change that.
In 2015 I wrote a spec (something I hadn't done for years as I had been hired all the time), the story of a man who believes that human beings can fly. I wrote the spec, I loved it - and realized I wasn't done with the characters. So I expanded it into a novel. There's interest in the screenplay - but those things are always very, very far from certain. In the meantime, the novel's out there and Barnaby Smith has a life in many people's hearts and minds.
Then, in 2016, I took my old spec script Breakfast in Atlantis and used it as the basis for the novel Home . Some of the spec's characters vanished, minor characters took on leading roles and all of the work I had once, over twenty years ago, put into that spec, came to life and it's now been read by thousands of readers. As a writer, what's not to love, right?
Screenwriters traditionally are/were scared of people stealing their brilliant ideas . It's an unfounded fear. Instead, screenwriters should use their specs to make things happen. If their specs are out there, they a) increase their chances of the stories being discovered and b) they get readers, they get feedback, their characters have come alive for an audience.
This year I've rediscovered another one of my specs - interestingly, this particular one was never meant to be filmed. It was simply my way of intensely reliving, from far away, my life in New York City in the company of my best friends. In 1997, already living in Europe, I wrote a whimsical screenplay - a fictitious story about four very real guys in New York City, a year after graduating from the famed Neighborhood Playhouse School of their Theatre , chasing dreams. It could have collected dust forever. Instead, it's out there now > The way It is. Now people read it. Now people discover the characters and spend time with them. This particular script will never be filmed - it wasn't meant to be filmed. But now it has a life - and honestly, those specs, our specs, the stories we pour our hearts and souls into - don't they have a right to live? I think they do.
Am I done turning specs into published books? Definitely not. It feels like the right thing to do. Those specs would likely never been made, likely never be seen by anyone. They deserve better. And so I'll find more ways to bring them into the world. To give you one more example - as a next project I'll take three of my New York City thrillers and will publish them, in some cool form, as a package.
PS: In case you wonder whether that will make you money. Heck, it can. But likely it'll be minimal. There's the far out chance that an industry person discovers your story that way. There's also the remote chance that the book takes off and a publisher snatches you up. But don't count on those. Do this because you believe in your stories and because you will, I guarantee it, love knowing that all of your hard work finally has an audience.
She's published it, so can youWhen I started writing novels, I began looking at my old specs again. They're still as good as they were back then. They won in contests, they opened doors, they were valuable reading samples, they got me jobs ... but they were never sold. The characters in those stories never got to be discovered by the world out there. I figured it was time to change that.In 2015 I wrote a spec (something I hadn't done for years as I had been hired all the time), the story of a man who believes that human beings can fly. I wrote the spec, I loved it - and realized I wasn't done with the characters. So I expanded it into a novel. There's interest in the screenplay - but those things are always very, very far from certain. In the meantime, the novel's out there and Barnaby Smith has a life in many people's hearts and minds.
Then, in 2016, I took my old spec script Breakfast in Atlantis and used it as the basis for the novel Home . Some of the spec's characters vanished, minor characters took on leading roles and all of the work I had once, over twenty years ago, put into that spec, came to life and it's now been read by thousands of readers. As a writer, what's not to love, right?
Screenwriters traditionally are/were scared of people stealing their brilliant ideas . It's an unfounded fear. Instead, screenwriters should use their specs to make things happen. If their specs are out there, they a) increase their chances of the stories being discovered and b) they get readers, they get feedback, their characters have come alive for an audience.
This year I've rediscovered another one of my specs - interestingly, this particular one was never meant to be filmed. It was simply my way of intensely reliving, from far away, my life in New York City in the company of my best friends. In 1997, already living in Europe, I wrote a whimsical screenplay - a fictitious story about four very real guys in New York City, a year after graduating from the famed Neighborhood Playhouse School of their Theatre , chasing dreams. It could have collected dust forever. Instead, it's out there now > The way It is. Now people read it. Now people discover the characters and spend time with them. This particular script will never be filmed - it wasn't meant to be filmed. But now it has a life - and honestly, those specs, our specs, the stories we pour our hearts and souls into - don't they have a right to live? I think they do.
Am I done turning specs into published books? Definitely not. It feels like the right thing to do. Those specs would likely never been made, likely never be seen by anyone. They deserve better. And so I'll find more ways to bring them into the world. To give you one more example - as a next project I'll take three of my New York City thrillers and will publish them, in some cool form, as a package.
PS: In case you wonder whether that will make you money. Heck, it can. But likely it'll be minimal. There's the far out chance that an industry person discovers your story that way. There's also the remote chance that the book takes off and a publisher snatches you up. But don't count on those. Do this because you believe in your stories and because you will, I guarantee it, love knowing that all of your hard work finally has an audience.
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