I’m still alive, just about. You remember that web site project I mentioned a couple of posts ago? Pretty much every single spare second for the past few weeks has been taken up with that, and I’m not even half way through it yet. It’s massive.

Anyhow, I’ve had a bit of time for writing. Mainly I’ve spent it being scared witless by the thought of rewriting the novel – especially now I’ve digested and cogitated greatly on Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King, which has been something of a major eye opener for me.

Nearly every single page I’d read something about what hack writers do that is weak, silly or pain wrong, and cringe inwardly as I brought to mind at least three instances (usually a lot more) of where I’d done that very thing. My biggest mistake is telling and not showing – there is far too much exposition.

I’ve had to radically rethink my attitude about the differences between novels and screenplays. I used to think that they were poles apart, but now I’m beginning to think there is actually not much in it (at a fundamental level). The only difference is possibly that screenplays are a bit harder to write as they have to be that much more structured. I probably learnt as much from the book about screenwriting as I did about novel writing.

As I say the big lesson is showing and telling. I’d actually got completely the wrong end of the stick with this one, and reading back through the feature film I wrote last year, I’ve come to realise just how weak it is.

You see, I though that when people said ‘show, don’t tell‘, I just thought they meant that rather than have the character say, ‘Oh I’m scared of snakes,’ you just show the character being scared of snakes. Which is fine to a point, but what I was missing was the understanding that this alone isn’t enough, it goes a lot deeper than this.

It isn’t enough to make the point that he’s afraid of snakes, it’s got to be doing more, showing the audience why he’s afraid of snakes, possibly why it’s important that he’s afraid of snakes and what the ramifications of his fears are as well as moving the story forward at the same time, perhaps revealing a second or third plot point or characteristic through both the action and the dialogue.

That’s the other big surprise I found and it’s not something I’d noticed until I read it. Novels should be quite talky, in the same way that Screenplays should be talky. Neither should have dialogue packed with exposition, and both should have people talking around the point, misunderstanding each other and downright lying to each other while the action within which the dialogue is set allows the reader/viewer to better comprehend the characters real intentions.

I haven’t really explained myself terribly well. I’m trying to explain something I’ve grasped, that I can’t quite put into words. I understand it, and I can see how to do it, but trying to explain what it is… something else entirely.

Perhaps you’ll glean something from it.

Anyway, big up to James Moran. Top episode of Torchwood last week.