I had an epiphany about a month ago that it’s time to adapt my novel, Time Without, into a screenplay.
I’ve been working on it for about a week now, and I was extremely happy when I finally got the first 30 pages done.
Until it became glaringly obvious that I had a problem. If the conversion keeps at the same pace, the screenplay will end up being over 200 pages long.
Yikes, that won’t work at all!
Luckily, last night my sleeping brain got busy and came up with a solution. It realized that there is a whole section I can cut without damaging the main story.
Not that I want to cut that section. It has one character in it who appears nowhere else in the story, and it explains why everything is set in motion.
Even so, the section isn’t 100% necessary for the story, and leaving it out will get the story into the action much quicker.
I guess a writer must do what a writer must do. And this writer must cut twenty-six of the thirty pages I’ve adapted.
Unfortunately, I’m probably going to have to find twice that much more to cut to keep the screenplay from becoming a bloated mess.
But I’m not really complaining. I would much rather it be me that makes the decisions about what gets cut and what gets left in.
And it’s a great way to become reacquainted with the story.