Adapting

I've always got a few different projects going.

Because I, and the artists I work with, generally do this in our free time for fun and because we enjoy it, it can take a while for a project to come together. I'm always pushing projects aside that have stalled out for one that might need a jump start or begins to move forward again. Some of my friends and peers don't understand how or why I do that.

personally, I'm not at a point where I can complete a script that has no artist attached and my never get done and be happy with it as it is. So if things go awry, I start something else and if someone comes along that suits an older idea, I have it on hand to jump into again.

And that's kind of where I am right now. I have a few projects out there cooking, all of which are a ways off from being completed. So while I wait for the right time to switch gears and complete things, I've started to work on an older concept I haven't touched in some years. Part of that work includes taking a short that has already been illustrated and published and re-working it into another script as part of a larger story.

Adapting your own published work is not as easy as it may seem. The story I'm tinkering with isn't all that bad but after almost six years I can go back and see things that could have been done differently. I've learned and grown in that time as a writer. I still don't think I'll be winning any awards anytime soon but I've managed to prospect a couple of nuggets of information in that time.

The trick (for me at least) is to make sure that as you adapt it, you don't fall into a pit and just "copy" what was illustrated by the original artist as you look at the page and begin to translate it back into a pure script for for the new artist. The same goes for the dialogue. It's easy just to re-use the dialogue word for word but you shouldn't. Make changes and utilize the freedom to do things over again.

Sorry there's no art this time around. At this moment there's no artist attached to the script I'm re-working and I want to keep it under wraps for the time being, just in case it doesn't pan out like I hope.

Keep reading and I'll keep writing...