Sunday, April 18, 2010

"Adapting Sideways: The Not-So-Straight-Forward Transition from Screenwriter to Novelist"

Charlotte Cook & Jon James Miller

The dwindling market for original screenplays in Hollywood has left many aspiring screenwriters looking to the literary market to find an audience for their stories. But the process of adapting from a screenplay into a novel presents unique storytelling issues that have yet to be formally addressed. This interactive workshop is the product of a year-long partnership between a publisher and award-winning screenwriter to develop an award-winning script into a publishable novel. Together Jon James Miller and Charlotte Cook have developed a seven-point evaluation for scripts and screenwriters that will also benefit novelists in evaluating their work. Points include determining if the script has enough story, translating from ensemble cast to point of view or point of narration, and taking back parenthetical direction and filling in all “the white on the page” to make for interesting reading from first page to last. Jon and Charlotte will provide examples from the process they have followed and pointers to novelists who would like to help their novels be more easily adaptable to the screen.

Charlotte Cook is president and story editor of KOMENAR Publishing, as well as a popular presenter at writers conferences and events, and a successful teacher and workshop facilitator. She will also act as a judge of fiction categories for the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Recently she’s been working with an agent on a book for writers, developing workshops for novelists and screenwriters, and preparing for presentations at several writers conferences later this year. http://www.komenarpublishing.com http://www.fictionwriteideas.com

Jon James Miller earned a Bachelor of Science in Cinematography and worked for several years in cable documentaries for A&E, Lifetime and The History Channel while writing original feature length screenplays in LA. He has had three screenplays optioned. His screenplay “Garbo’s Last Stand” won Grand Prize of the 2008 AAA Screenplay Contest sponsored by Creative Screenwriting Magazine and The 2009 Golden Brad Award for Drama sponsored by the Movie Script Contest. Another original screenplay, “Agent Cynthia,” won the 2009 Best Historical Screenplay at the First Annual ThrillSpyInternational Film Festival in Washington, D.C. and was an Honorable Mention at the Big Bear International Film Festival, where both scripts were finalists. Jon will be a juror at the 2010 Big Bear International Film Festival and a panelist at the 2010 CreativeScreenwriting Expo in LA. He is currently adapting his award-winning script “Garbo’s Last Stand” into a novel with an interested publisher. http://www.jonjamesmiller.com