Blog #19, November 20, 2019 In Love and War the Novel as a Movie

I have not blogged recently because I have set aside all my writing projects to focus on adapting my debut novel into a screenplay.  It is going well, and I find it a lot easier than writing an original novel.  The novel In Love and War got rave reviews from reviewers like Kirkus Reviews and Coffee Break Books, and got many good reader responses on Good Reads and Amazon.   The story, as some of the reviewers have pointed out, translates very well into the film medium due to the visual nature of the writing.  The imagery of the story, particularly the visual imagery, is vivid and is good for a screenwriter to adapt to the screen.

Capturing the look and tone of the 1940s and World War II is, so far, going smoothly.  Also, capturing the language and popular slang of the era helps the authenticity.  I have learned much from the screenwriter Joe McBride and his book Writing In Pictures, especially about how to take prose and turn it into a dramatic script.  It seems the screenwriting business is even more competitive than the publishing business, but I am hoping my story fares better as a screenplay than as a book.